Paul Hatfield; Cast Key Senate Panama Canal Vote

Senior U.S. District Judge Paul G. Hatfield, 72, former U.S. senator who in 1979 cast a deciding vote to return the Panama Canal to the nation of Panama. Appointed to replace fellow Montana Democrat Lee Metcalf in 1978, Hatfield served on Capitol Hill only one year. He was among the last to decide how to vote on the Panama treaties, which were adopted by his single vote. Many voters in Montana strongly opposed returning the canal to the Central American country where it is located. Mike Mansfield, the former Senate majority leader from Montana who at the time was U.S. ambassador to Japan, wrote Hatfield congratulating him for “an act of statesmanship and courage on the part of a new senator under very heavy pressure.” But Hatfield, a Korean War veteran, was booed a day later when he spoke to his Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Great Falls, Mont. The senator was dubbed “Panama Paul,” was threatened with recall, and when he tried to stand for election shortly afterward, was trounced in a four-way Democratic primary. President Jimmy Carter named Hatfield to the federal bench in 1980. On Monday in Great Falls, Mont., of a heart attack.