ABSTRACT
Democratic and Republican administrations have experienced a curious parallelism in regard to their Latin American policy. Of all of the postwar presidents, Jimmy Carter actually seemed to have a deepseated attachment for Latin America. Yet unlike the expectations and even enthusiasm that Latin Americans normally displayed when the Democratic Party emerged victorious, Carter's accession to power in 1977 was greeted with as much skepticism and uncertainty as hope. Though Carter himself demonstrated considerable personal interest in Latin American affairs, his administration displayed an air of lighthearted inexperience with overall foreign policy. The Carter administration's insistence on making human rights the central consideration of his hemispheric policy was not just a reaction to the brutal repression and torture that erupted across the hemisphere in the early 1970s. President Carter decided that a settlement with Panama over the future status of the canal would be the administration's first objective in Latin America.
