In 1977 Perkins makes partner at MAIN, becoming “the youngest partner in the firm’s hundred-year history” (109). He lectures at Harvard, answers newspaper requests for current-events commentary, and owns a yacht moored next to the historic military sailing vessel the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides.” His marriage is over, but he spends “time with women on several continents” (109).

Perkins and a team member develop new econometric models that help MAIN with its optimistic projections; these papers become “famous throughout the industry” (110). Perkins’s work with Panama’s Torrijos generates grumbles at MAIN for its overemphasis on the poor, but the company keeps getting lucrative contracts, which quiets the worriers.

Perkins also writes an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe that condemns American colonialism in Panama. He argues that American security is no longer protected but instead exacerbated by continued control of the Canal Zone. Perkins suggests the Zone be handed over to Panama as a symbol of improving relations with Central America. More office squabbling occurs, but Torrijos loves the article, and, while other firms are getting kicked out of Panama, more work flows to MAIN.

In 1977 Perkins meets novelist Graham Greene, another friend of Torrijos, in Panama.