Video: '45 85 Part 14' (Panama Canal at 1:10)

(Tuesday, April 18, 1978, roll call at 6:00 p.m. EST) — The U.S. Senate voted today to turn over the Panama Canal to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, moving to establish a new spirit of relations with Latin America and saving President Jimmy Carter from a grave political defeat.

By a vote of 68 to 32, only one more than the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution, the Senate voted to approve the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, giving up a symbol of American power and engineering that had gripped the minds of so many of its members’ constituents.