Word: canally
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...Panama Canal is one of those emotional foreign policy issues on which reckless politicians can sound ringingly certain about a simplistic solution-so long as they do not have to face the consequences if their rhetoric is translated into policy. Time after time in Texas last week, Ronald Reagan thundered about the canal: "We bought it. We paid for it. We built it. And we are going to keep it." As President, Reagan vowed, he would say just that to any "tinhorn dictator" in Panama who sought to gain control over the waterway. The Reagan theatrics, designed...
...fact is, of course, that Panamanians have grown increasingly angry over the 73-year-old treaty giving the U.S. ownership of the 51-mile-long canal and control of the adjoining ten-mile-wide zone that splits Panama. With much justice, they consider the treaty a vestige of outdated colonialism...
Recognizing that "the big ditch" is now more of a commercial convenience than a military necessity, the Ford Administration agreed last year to renegotiate the treaty. The aim was a gradual relinquishing of the present total domination of the canal and its zone by the U.S. Reagan in effect wants the U.S. to break off those negotiations. But Presidential Press Secretary Ron Nessen warned last week of the possibility of a repetition of the rioting and bloodshed that in 1964 erupted in Panama over this issue...
Lack of Candor. Diplomatic realities aside, Reagan was on solid ground in claiming that Ford's public position does not square with the Administration's private bargaining stance. Publicly, Ford insisted two weeks ago that "the U.S. will never give up its defense rights to the Panama Canal and will never give up its operational rights as far as Panama is concerned." Reagan cited testimony given by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, who is negotiating the new treaty, before a congressional subcommittee on April 8. Bunker conceded that he was under written directives from Ford that the U.S. will agree...
...Panama to the eventual U.S. negotiating position, and he clearly did not want to confront the issue in an election year. If Ford lacked some political candor, his attitude nevertheless was much more sensible than Reagan's jingoistic refusal even to consider that outright, unyielding ownership of the canal may no longer serve any vital U.S. interest. Indeed, insistence upon that ownership may produce only needless hostility between the U.S. and its remaining friends in Latin America and the Third World...