Word: canalizes
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Ronald Reagan almost accidentally discovered, during his bid for the G.O.P. presidential nomination last year, that the canal aroused high passions. Coming so soon after the U.S. retreat from Viet Nam, the question of giving up the waterway became inextricably entangled with the matter of American strength and pride-of patriotism v. surrender. Yet for all the opposition, the pact has the backing of a very wide spectrum of informed opinion, including conservatives like Bill Buckley and John Wayne. Four successive Presidents-Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and now Jimmy Carter-have backed negotiations and pushed them along. Faults...
Some of the bare-knuckled opponents, of course, are less interested in the facts than in the fight; indeed, they welcome it. Much of the political right sees in the Panama Canal the ideal issue to rally the troops, gain recruits and make a political comeback. Conservative-financed literature is popping up everywhere, and members of Congress concede they are influenced by the torrent of anti-treaty mail because there is so little on the other side; The treaty, like many worthy foreign policy enterprises, lacks an organized constituency. Nevertheless, the canal issue is fraught with risk for conservatives...
...helpful, either, to overemphasize the guilt factor in giving up the canal. To be sure, the U.S. acquired the canal territory in a grandly imperialistic manner in 1903, and the waterway remains one of the last, most prominent vestiges of the colonial era. As Senator S.I. Hayakawa put it, not altogether whimsically, "We stole it fair and square." But it can be argued that ever since the canal was opened for business in 1914, the U.S. has more than made up for its initial land grab. It has managed the canal in an openhanded manner, allowing access...
Amid all the rhetorical smoke surrounding the canal treaty, people are understandably confused about the hard facts-and realities. Some key questions about the pact and what its approval would mean...
...important is the Panama Canal...