A Latin-American Vietnam

...I confess that my unsuccessful efforts at reasoning with Pentagon brass on Canal Zone issues has caused me considerable frustration and disillusionment over the years...

...Jack Vaughn was Ambassador to Panama and an Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America...

...Shortly after the riots, LBJ set the stage for the ultimate showdown with the Pentagon...

...With the end of the Cold War and the virtual elimination of the Canal’s strategic importance, Torrijos suspects that the reason the Pentagon is so interested in keeping the Canal and deploying its gringo troops is to defend against the Panamanians...

...As the American public has learned through Watergate, a multitude of sins-and sinners-can huddle together under the shelter of this vague phrase...

...The Panamanians were content enough with the ferry, but they longed for a symbolic reunification of their country, cut in two by the Canal...

...When a resolution urging a new treaty settlement came up, the U. S. cast its third veto in United Nations history as the Pentagon again prevailed over both common sense and the State Department in setting American policy...

...Yet on the Panamanian side, all the elements needed to propel a classic colonial stalemate beyond peaceful negotiation are in place: an overflowing measure of nationalism, a people in full support of their tough and charismatic leader on the Big Issue, strictly controlled media, virtually nonexistent communications with Canal Zone military leadership, and the widely held Panamanian conviction that the U. S. Army does not believe in evolution...

...The 1964 riots against American bases were touched off by apparently willful acts of humiliation...

...The tinder awaits the spark...

...Although mature partnership still remains something of an unfulfilled promise-with Mexico and Brazil as possible exceptions-the U. S. has succeeded in lowering its profile throughout the hemisphere since 1969...

...All, that is, except Panama...

...In mid-1964 he agreed to undertake bilateral negotiations with Panama aimed at drafting a completely new Canal treaty and revising the military base rights agreement...

...In certain instances where nationalistic noises suddenly grew shrill (Peru, Chile), the U. S. retreat appeared an astute choice of withdrawal over expulsion...

...Today there could hardly be greater contrast between President Nixon’s policy for Latin America and his armed forces’ policy for operating in Panama...

...Inveterate supporters of the military such as Senator Strom Thurmond, together with senior House members of the Panama Canal subcommittee, have traditionally echoed the blunt phrases of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Congressman Daniel Flood...

...Bow died before he could be confirmed by the Senate, but not before Panama had reacted in a way that dramatized the gap between the two countries-by sending a bright, aggressive 27-year-old as its ambassador to Washington...

...For half a century, access to the interior of the country from Panama City had been provided by the Thatcher Ferry, named after Governor Maurice H. Thatcher, one of the chief U. S. engineers during construction of the canal...

...For decades, Panamanian presidents and foreign ministers had beseeched the U. S. Army to replace the Thatcher Ferry with a bridge...

...In fact, the U. s. had approved the bridge only because of steadily increasing traffic in the Canal and the Pentagon’s professed need for greater maneuverability within the Zone...

...However vague, these concepts seemed to promise the Latins a welcome respite from the coercion for collective security begun by John Foster Dulles in the fifties, and from a decade of bureaucratic pursuit of higher gross national products glamorized by JFK as the Alliance for Progress...

...Their overriding common objective is to maintain the status quo, and over the years they have been largely immune to the precepts and changes of U. S. foreign policy...

...Although the U. S. made some concessions and increased its annual payment to the Panamanians through treaty amendments in 1936 and 1955, the important clause about perpetual sovereignty remains...

...Frank T. Bow was chosen as President Nixon’s nominee ambassador to Panama...

...Although he and most of his officers have been trained in the Zone, Tomjos feels that such a dominant foreign military presence in the middle of Panama is anachronistic and colonial...

...Since then, U. S. policy towards Panama has been formulated and independently carried out by the U. S. Army...

...From the start, the American military has helped make Panama what it is ,today...

...Meanwhile, back at the Pentagon, there is renewed confidence that the Army’s Panamanian policy and apparatus are as impregnable as a mothballed battleship, at least as long as the Constitution does not provide for separation of military and legislative powers...

...While the Administration’s policy has led to a reduction in all U. S. military missions assigned to other Latin nations, the Pentagon has maintained its top-heavy command intact in the Zone...

...U. S. ambassador, in Panama indepen(dent policy control is exercised by the ,Pentagon...

...Perhaps the most serious occurred early in 1973 when some hard-line congressmen and their military colleagues were prevented by God from placing their own agent right in the enemy heartland...

...The U. S. military preeminence in Panama, which has not been well publicized inside this country, is largely perpetuated by help from the Pentagon’s friends in Congress...

...The Anachronistic Army Ever since he helped seize power in 1968, Panama’s military leader, Brigadier General Omar Torrijos Herrera, has been trying to force the U. S. to remove the Southern Command, its multiple bases, dozen generals, and 10,000 troops from the Canal Zone...

...The superabundance of colonels in the Southern Command has led enlisted men to refer to it as “Southern Comfort...

...It had three members: the U. S. ambassador as chairman, CINCSOUTH, and the governor of the Zone...

...The quiet resignation last July of Robert B. Anderson, Secretary of the Treasury under Eisenhower and Chief U. S. negotiator since 1964, wrapped up the nine years of Phase One...

...Some American congressmen recently reasoned that since certain Panamanian officials were reportedly involved in drug trafficking, it would be inappropriate to conclude a new treaty with a government which contained such irresponsible elements...

...Inevitably, Panamanians had come to identify his name with the days of raw colonialism, the days of separate toilet and drinking facilities for Americans and Panamanians, the days when Panamanians were paid much lower wages than Americans for work done in the Zone...

...In a manner which has become traditional in Panama-U...

...The Panamanians may have imagined that the U. S., faced with world-wide pressure and even humiliation, would be forced to agree officially to negotiate a “prompt and equitable” settlement of its treaty differences with Panama...

...The original treaty, signed in 1903, granted the U. S. perpetual sovereignty over the Canal Zone...

...While the U. S. military in all other Latin nations is under the direct supervision of the...

...When the Council had adjourned, Panama seemed to have gained nothing-as usual-save reconfirmation of the fact that virtually every member of the United Nations (all of whom remember the decisively anti-colonial and pro-Egyptian stance of the U. S. during the takeover in the Suez Canal in 1956) agrees with Panama’s aspirations...

...Can’t you just imagine how those Panamanians would operate the Canal during Carnival...

...As ambassador at the time, I found myself consistently out-voted on the important issues, and my two very capable successors have continued to represent the minority view of one...

...A Latin-Armerican Vietnam by Jack Hood Vaughn Early in the first Nixon Administration there were signs that a new general policy for Latin America was in the offing...

...My innocuous objective was to convince the general in charge of the Southern Command that it was hardly in the U. S. interest to continue teaching napalm bombing to Latin American pilots...

...After lamenting that “recent administrations of our government have engaged in diplomatic negotiations with Panamanian governments, a prime purpose of which has been surrender of United States sovereignty over the Canal Zone to Panama,” she concluded: Be it resolved that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the government of the United States should maintain and protect its sovereign rights and jurisdiction over said Canal Zone and Panama Canal, and that the United States government should in no way cede, dilute, forfeit, negotiate, or transfer any of these sovereign rights, power, authority, jurisdiction, territory, or property to any other sovereign nation or to any international organization...

...The most recent Canal confrontation occurred in March, 1973, at a special United Nations Security Council meeting in Panama City...

...To General Torrijos, his National Guard, and his people, there are two major issues to be resolved immediately: whether the U. S. will continue to be sovereign in the Canal Zone, and how long the Pentagon will remain there en masse...

...He stresses that the “Vietnam mentality” of U. S. military leadership makes close relationships impossible and a renegotiation of the Canal Treaty out of the question...

...Seventy-one-year-old Ohio Rep...

...S. negotiations, the U. S. made it clear to all present that it was very, very unhappy at being pressured to discuss its Panamanian affairs with anyone else in the room...

...But if it has encountered few problems at home, the Pentagon’s monumental lack of sensitivity to the Panamanian point of view and its reluctance to consult with the Panamanians in important matters has yielded a whole crop of mistrust and ill will in Panama...

...When the U. S. decided to build the bridge, Panamanians naturally assumed with great satisfaction that their longdenied wish for a new national image was being satisfied...

...A Minority of Oiie Pressures against the U. S. military presence in the Canal Zone began to mount after the serious riots of 1964...

...Intransigence on the treaty can only inflame the Panamanians, for they now feel grossly abused by it...

...Worse still, the performance of both the accused and the accuser struck observers as behavior unbecoming two civilized, friendly nations...

...A most striking instance took place in 1962 at the dedication ceremonies for a bridge the U. S. Army had built over the Pacific entrance to the Canal...

...Setbacks have been rare and minor, due more to wild chance than to determined opposition...

...In 1903 Teddy Roosevelt willed the nation into existence by recognizing its “independence” from Colombia after disturbances in which the U. S. Marine Corps played a major r o 1 e. T h e grateful Panamanians quickly negotiated a treaty giving the U. S. perpetual sovereignty over the Canal Zone...

...Mature partnership” and “low profile” were two expressions coined by the White House to describe the changing U. S. position...

...But the thoughts always return to “national security” as the reason for the U. S. presence in the Canal Zone...

...It read: Thatcher Ferry Bridge...

...The success our congressional-military complex has experienced in thwarting all manner of assaults on its Panamanian cordon sanitaire is downright brilliant...

...Still a U. S. colony in many important respects, Panama continues to be the Pentagon’s southern security blanket...

...The U. s. military quickly countered by introducing a third element into the negotiations: the study of a possible sea-level canal in Panama...

...Some even believed the event heralded a new era of mutual understanding and communication...

...After the U. S. agreed to fly the Panamanian flag in the Zone, America’s representatives contrived a dozen petty ways to offend the Panamanians’ pride while technically obeying orders...

...I made not a dent...

...Before U. S. Undersecretary of State George Ball began his prepared remarks at the festive and dramatic dedication ceremonies, a bronze plaque on the bridge was unveiled...

...Presidents’ orders have been reversed, diplomatic maneuvers and decisions brushed aside, and the United Nations told to go to hell...

...S h or t 1 y there after, Panamanians floated the theory that no responsible government should stoop to dealing with a country capable of a Vietnam or with an Administration mired in a Watergate...

...The generals who speak out on Canal issues are invariably retired or reserve officers who alternately wrap themselves in the flag and rap the knuckles of the Department of State for wanting to give so much away to ungrateful, hotblooded natives...

...From the U. S. side, especially for congressional and military leaders, the most important issues are related to the defense of the Western Hemisphere, to U. S. prestige, to the Russian, Cuban, or Chilean menace, and to Panama’s immaturity and unreliability as a partner...

...The best job in the Zone, for example, is piloting ships through the Canal...

...all the nations of the Americas have responded by concentrating on doing their own tning-economically, politically, and militarily...

...President Johnson, sensing a need for greater civilian influence on U. S. policy in Panama and at least an equal role for the State Department, created the Panama Review Committee...

...Just when President Nixon was assuring our good neighbors that the U. S. would wear a white hat in the hemisphere, the Pentagon expanded training of Green Berets in the Zone...

...As if to demonstrate that the birthright was in good hands, Rep...

...This third issue has clouded, complicated, and prolonged negotiations to the point where, nine years later, the two sides seem as far apart as ever...

...And, with Melvin Laird and General Alexander Haig now installed in final defensive lobbying positions around the White House, the worst may well be over for Quarry Heights...

...My last failure occurred one very hot afternoon in 1966, when as Assistant Secretary of State I was visiting the American embassy in Panama...

...No Panamanian has ever been allowed to become a pilot...

...Panamanians believe the national security rationale is used to obscure rank colonialism in their country...

...With ideas like this floating around the halls of Congress, the Pentagon never has had to make its case independently, or ever really worry about the possibility of the Senate ratifying a treaty which would undercut the military’s position...

...I pointed out that the first time a Latin pilot dropped napalm on his own people-napalm he had been trained to mix and launch at a Canal Zone training course-the U. S. would be in a totally indefensible position, not just with God and Bill Fulbright, but with the world as well...

...In most other cases where the U. S. disengagement was less like a forced march, the results have brought expressions of relief from all sides...

...Over the years, Flood has outspokenly maintained that to make any concession to Panama would be to give away the “American Birthright...

...Now the U. S. has finally abandoned its blanket emphasis on security and Pan-American solidarity...

...The U. S. military command in Panama is made of two parts: a major general from the Corps of Engineers who governs the Panama Canal Com‘pany from Balboa Heights, and a four-star general from the Army (CINCSOUTH) who directs Canal Zone military operations from an underground complex at Quarry Heights...

...Leonor K. Sullivan, chairwoman of the Panama Canal subcommittee, summarized the feeling of that group in a House resolution last February...