I’m pretty well launched now on President Carter’s White House Diary, and find it fascinating. Some of this is because I was there, but much of it comes from watching a serious and moral man wrestle with serious and moral problems in a world that too often is neither.

Most of the interest in these sorts of books is not in the “news” which we’ll be seeing these next few days from those who determine what “news” is, but rather in the small revelatory glimpses along the way. As I go through the book, I’ll pull some of these out for you.

For starters:

During my presidential campaign in 1975, thirty-eight U.S. senators sponsored a resolution never to change the treaty, and this prompted me to study the terms and history of the original agreement, which had been in effect since 1903. It was obviously unfair, and I learned that it was hastily signed in the middle of the night before any Panamanian official could read its terms. My commitment to furthering justice and human rights made me determined to negotiate a new treaty; it was also important to insure the long-term safety of the canal. Securing the Senate ratification of the agreement was to become the most difficult task of my political life.

The thing to remember here is that political pressure to renegotiate the Panama Canal treaty was essentially zero. The president had nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing the right thing — against huge political opposition coming from, among other quarters, Ronald Reagan. None of the opposition’s childish fears ever came true, but Jimmy Carter nevertheless took a substantial political hit from the jingoes. I still have in my files a list of the objections raised by Navy admirals, which time has proven to be just as silly and ignorant as they sounded then.