Volume 24, Number 21 & 22 · January 26, 1978
The Great Spectacular
By Graham Greene
The Great Spectacular—the signing of the Panama Treaty—is over and there will be no general distribution. I had seen nothing like it since Around the World in Eighty Days. All the familiar actors from how many television screens and newspaper photographs seemed to be there—all except Elizabeth Taylor. Kissinger, before the delegations settled into their seats, could be seen button-holing his way around the hall of the Organization of American States with his world-wide grin: five rows in front of me I could see Nelson Rockefeller being strenuously amiable to Lady Bird, as though the two of them were sitting out a dance together, ex-President Ford more blond than I had imagined him from the screen—or had he been to the barber? There too were Mr. and Mrs. Mondale, Mrs. Carter. Two rows in front of me sat Andy Young, bright and boyish. All of them looked strikingly unimportant, like the stars in Around the World. They were not there to act, only to be noticed, party-goers having a night out together, pleased to feel at home with friendly faces—'What, you here?'
Feature, 1653 words
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