THIS HEMISPHERE'S CANAL
Ropp, Steve C.
A better course would have been to tell the people that capacity for moral evasion and collective self-deception we were ending our military engagement because it was is so great that...
...Furthermore, there is much less certainty today than to build a new canal in Uncle Sam's backyard...
...The United Nations that will give full recognition to Panama's sovereign Security Council meeting held last March in Panama rights in the Canal Zone...
...While the that elder statesman Ellsworth Bunker has been put in Nixon Administration's main diplomatic concern to this charge...
...This level of production would be Arnulfo Arias had to be rescheduled after State Departsufficient to meet the total copper import needs of the ment officials informed Arias of the impending military United States at current consumption rates...
...As long as the United States continues large- those Catholic bishops in Vietnam who last month called scale military aid to Saigon, ending the war is not a on both sides to stop fighting and release all political Vietnamese decision...
...Commonweal- 29...
...The argument that we must not position may not be taken too seriously in Washington...
...Qaddafi is a devout Moslem and thus very future negotiations between Panama and the United much of an ascetic...
...Our planes fly recon- called on the President to "chart a new beginning" in naissance missions over the North-tempting targets for Indochina by fulfilling our obligations less to governVC fire...
...while we mu: t disassociate ourselves from Thieu, we Meanwhile, Lt...
...porting the principle of Panamanian sovereignty in the What better way to assert one's national independence Zone...
...Torrijos, while a "model of com- States is that General Torrijos is viewed in Washington portment" during business hours, rewards himself liber- as an ideological fence-straddler who might be permaally afterwards...
...forget the lesson of the Cuban missile crisis when 30 For while one might expect Colonel Qaddafi to warm warships moved through the Canal in one day has an up both to the idea of a new canal and to the fellow increasingly hollow ring in this era of airmobile divisions military officer who inspires the Panamanian "Revolu- and C5A transports...
...It is said that the Libyan representative nently wooed into the Western camp by a few timely to the United Nations Security Council meeting held last concessions...
...At least eight thousand U.S...
...STEVE C. ROPP City led to the diplomatic isolation of the United States (Steve C. Ropp is an assistant professor of government on the Canal issue when Ambassador John Scali was at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces...
...point has been with the crisis of oil supply, the more In view of the fact that little progress toward a new serious long-term threat may lie in the political and militreaty has been made since the 1964 riots, one might tary uses to which these massive new oil funds could be conclude that the Kissinger-Tack agreement is just an- put...
...Also, there is the question of litical style with "ameliorative capitalism" as an economic Torrijos' ties with the highly influential Jewish commu- approach...
...renewed in 1965...
...isthmian nation of Panama may come as something of There are ; number of reasons, however, why the a surprise, even to those foreign policy savants who adoption of si ch a deja vu attitude toward the present closely follow the peripatetic exploits of our present negotiations may be a little premature...
...copper is one of the strategic metals on which the United Since General Torrijos remains on quite good terms States is least externally dependent, there can be little with American military commanders in the Canal Zone, doubt that the Nixon Administration is sensitive to such it would seem more appropriate and potentially producconsiderations in the wake of developments in Chile and tive to have the treaty negotiations handled by the Dethe present energy crisis...
...It sometimes seems that the American when it suited us...
...Yet Kissinger and Panamanian Foreign Minister Juan Nevertheless, c ;rtain shifts in relative bargaining strength Antonio Tack have signed a "Joint Statement of Prin- have occurred since Torrijos came to power in 1968 ciples" which outlines the new approach to six basic which may pre sage a more successful outcome for Panissues that have stalled negotiations since they were ama this time around...
...explore the possibility of using some of Libya's $3 billion These treaties, which were designed to deal with prob- in annual oil revenue to finance the construction of a lems of the existing lock canal, a new sea-level canal, and new sea-level canal...
...from Congressional ranks...
...That Torrijos is not that the newly discovered deposits are capable of pro- particularly fond of the men in Foggy Bottom is attribuducing 400,000 tons of first-class ore annually for a table to the fact that the 1968 coup against President period of 80 years...
...We burned, bombed and left town celebrity...
...ranks this isthmian nation with major banking centers Despite this inevitable opposition, one can remain in Latin America...
...000*00000000*0 KISSINGER IN PANAMA THIS HZMISPHZRA'.S CANAL That Henry Kissinger flew on February 7 to the small countries beca ne aware of their content...
...For, for next year...
...For those "Zonians" who wish to sit on the veranda decreased reliance on the Canal which may lead to more of the Tivoli and relive the plantation experience of the advantageous treaty arrangements...
...With on the State Department, which are often misinterpreted $14 million invested to date, Paviano officials believe as attacks on the United States...
...individuals who, in alliance with former Southern ComDuring the past five years, there has been a six-fold mand generals,' will fight to the bitter end for preservaincrease in banking assets (up to $2.5 billion) which tion of this aspect of the "American Heritage...
...tion," differences in character and temperament cannot A further consideration in assessing the outcome of be ignored...
...Granted that the Secretary of State...
...While he has toyed with various socialist nity in Panama...
...It is easy to be led astray by his vitriolic attacks copper deposit in the San Feliz district of Panama...
...We made it our less people, is out on bail and may even become a small- war over 20 years ago...
...peace but in moving the decision to a Vietnamese de- For the tin ie being, we can reinforce the voices of cision...
...However, one would still have to of Panamanian copper might be part of the overall face the inevitable cries of "sellout" that are sure to arise strategy...
...A bid for an assured supply partment of Defense...
...only one of the new cards that Torrijos can play in his If Torrijos has been perceived by many North Amerinegotiations with State Department officials...
...The Administration's intent to take One critical difference between 1967 and 1974 is the this current round seriously seems clear from the fact pervasive presence today of Arab oil money...
...That is neither peace nor honor...
...Not only is his wife Jewish but also some measures and would surely have experimented more of his top advisers...
...Within both Houses of ConIn many respects then, General Torrijos' "New Pan- gress, there is a small but highly influential group of ama" is different from the earlier civilian-run version...
...The canal, to be jointly owned, would certain defense matters, were quickly relegated to the not only give the projected Egypt-Libya Confederation pages of diplomatic history when the public in both control over the world's two most strategically significant 15 March 1974: 28 waterways but would also serve to symbolically rid the forced to veto an otherwise unanimous resolution supArab world of the last vestiges of its colonial heritage...
...that control of the Canal Zone is really necessary from However, this new dimension of Panama's bargaining a military point of view...
...A better course would have been to tell the people that capacity for moral evasion and collective self-deception we were ending our military engagement because it was is so great that there is little chance, within the lifetime wrong and that we still had a moral obligation to en- of these so-celled "best and brightest" Americans most force the Paris accords and rebuild the country we had responsible for our folly, that we will face the full imdestroyed, even at economic sacrifice to ourselves...
...William Calley, murderer of 22 help- can never wash our hands of Vietnam...
...And while action...
...The Tivoli was recently Seen from this perspective, Panama is in a position torn down, and in its place may rise a new treaty edifice to engage in some hard bargaining...
...That there may be some substance to these anxieties other meaningless piece of paper which holds out the comes in the form of rumors to the effect that Panamanpromise of a solution while plastering over fundamental ian Finance Minister Jose Guillermo Aizpu met secretly differences...
...We give Thieu over one billion dollars a year ments and me re to people-"to millions of war victims in military aid, with an additional $600 million marked and other disa Jvantaged who cry out for our help...
...Last July, cans as a radical, it is only because few have bothered the Canadian-based Paviano Company announced the to examine his social and economic programs in any discovery of what it claims to be the world's richest depth...
...The price he might have to pay in widely had the Panamanian oligarchy allowed him to do personal and political terms as concessions to the mili- so, Torrijos appears to be a pragmatist who is willing tant Qaddafi would probably be too high...
...While there has been considerable United States s till holds most of the key political, military talk during recent years of a new treaty to finally settle and economic trump cards, and that General Torrijos' the issue of Panamanian sovereignty over the Canal bargaining pos tion is in no way analogous to that of the Zone, few really believed that much would come of it...
...to deal with the Yanquis provided that he can win on But the threat of Arab financing for a new canal is the gut issue of the Canal...
...Panama is a country which has diver- relatively optimistic concerning the eventual outcome of sified its economic base to the point that the Canal has Secretary Kissinger's visit and the impending negotiabecome somewhat less essential, and it is precisely this tions...
...plications of l chat our pride and violence have done to The major contradiction in our present policy is that this once rich and beautiful little land...
...Those familiar with Torrijos have made year in Panama was less than impressed with the Gen- mention of his tendency to combine a personalistic poeral's personal life-style...
...oil-rich sheiks vith whom Kissinger recently did business...
...That will be the we have not truly followed through on Secretary of task of future Presidents, professors, priests, journalists State Kissinger's December statement that: "We have and novelists who must guide the nation through public succeeded not in guaranteeing necessarily a permanent recognition of its guilt...
...ad- and civilian prisoners, and we can endorse the provisers accompany Saigon troops and, according to VC posals of Sen ator Edward Kennedy who, in January, charges, direct them in combat...
...After all, it was in 1967 that three new draft last year with Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya to treaties were introduced to the public with great fanfare...
...Old South, times are changing...
Vol. 100 • March 1974 • No. 2
