Word: pacts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...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 may be found with an imperfect document...
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...
...question has aroused more anxiety or opposition to the pact. Until 2000, the U.S. will control the canal and its military bases. After that the treaty states that the U.S. and Panama shall maintain the "neutrality" of the canal, a clause that seemed alarmingly vague to many people. When it became apparent that this concern was about to sink the treaty, Panama's head of state, General Omar Torrijos Herrera, went to Washington, and he and Carter issued a joint "statement of understanding." The "correct interpretation," they said, is that each country shall defend the canal against any aggressive...
...intervention to almost everyone's satisfaction. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, who has not said how he stands on the treaty, described the understanding as "a very important diplomatic achievement and a big plus for the President and the treaty." Republican Senator Robert Dole, one of the pact's chief critics, called the joint statement a "step in the right direction," his most favorable remark to date...
Failure to ratify would also be a gift to America's worst enemies. Latin America's left wing opposes the pact because it ensures a U.S.-Panamanian partnership for the foreseeable future and, perhaps more important, because it eliminates a major source of antagonism between the U.S. and its southern neighbors. Notes the Buenos Aires Herald: "The Latin American left is clearly dismayed at the emergence of an agreement which may prove satisfactory to most Latin American opinion, ranging from the center left to the center right." If the Senate were to reject the pact, the Latin left...