Word: panama
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that went into the magazine. I was to note that I had checked each word by placing a dot over it (and by placing a dot over each letter of every proper noun to show that I had verified the spelling). In an article about the construction of the Panama Canal, for example, a caption read, "A seventy-five-foot-high canal lock gate swings shut at Gatun...
...only to look up "Gatun" in an atlas to verify the spelling (and to verify that it is actually a location on the Panama Canal), but also to find out whether the canal lock gate at Gatun is actually 75 feet high, and whether it is in fact swinging shut in the picture. Soon I was scanning through books about canal locks, searching through various technical reference manuals and finding absolutely nothing. A call to engineers in Panama was also no help. No, no, no, it's all wrong, they told me. The gate at Gatun is actually 77 feet...
...John Le Carre's new novel, The Tailor of Panama [BOOKS, Oct. 28], is about a befuddled expatriate who, when recruited by a dubiously competent spy, makes up information that gets London's knickers in a twist. Is it possible that Le Carre has read Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana? Or could it be that I am just imagining a conspiracy? KIMBERLY CARSON Holderness, New Hampshire...
Harry doesn't see what any of this has to do with him, so Osnard explains. Not only do Panama City's elite gather for fittings and gossip at Pendel & Braithwaite; Harry also personally tends to both the current Panamanian President and the general in charge of the U.S. Southern Command. "You're God's gift, Harry," Osnard says. "Classic, ultimate listening post." After the carrot comes the stick: "Why blow the whistle on old Braithwaite, make a fool o' you to your wife and kids, break up the happy home? We want you, Harry. You've got a hell...
...that Harry, bribed and bludgeoned into cooperation, has no idea what he has to sell or what Osnard and his superiors back in London want to purchase. So Osnard drops clues that he picked up from his boss Scottie Luxmore before being posted, on his maiden spying mission, to Panama. He recalls Luxmore warming to the topic at hand: "Not only have the Americans signed a totally misbegotten treaty with the Panamanians--given away the shop, thank you very much Mr. Jimmy Carter!--they're also proposing to honour it." A frightful power vacuum will occur, Luxmore argues, when...