"Slowly, over the years, a cadre of young, carefully indoctrinated Marxist military officers grew in size in the National Guard until it was strong enough to bring off the coup. "On seizing the government they immediately disbanded the National Assembly, censored the press and suspended civil rights. There hasn't been an election since. Today, the government speaks, not for the people of Panama, but for the guns of the National Guard. So far, it has succeeded in intimi dating our State Department.' And the Panama-Cuba embrace could have come as no surprise to the State Department. In 1964 Ambassador Bunker announced that an assault on the Canal Zone which had taken place shortly before had been led by "persons trained in Communist countries for political action of the kind that took place" and that "the Government of Panama, instead of attempting to restore order, was, through a controlled press, television and radio, inciting the people to attack and to violence." Joseph A. Califano, Jr., then Deputy Secretary of Defense, put it this way in 1964: "We know that some of the leaders were known and identifiable Communists, members of the Communist Party of Panama, and people who belonged to the vanguard of National Action, which is openly and proudly the Castro Communist Party in Panama." Nor should the Panama-Communist Cuba embrace have come as any surprise to President Ford himself. In 1967, as House GOP leader, he had warned of the Communist menace to the Panama Canal from nearby Cuba. That was the time when the Johnson Administration, bowing to the coercion of the 1964 Panamanian riots, had offered to negotiate a treaty substantially similar to the present KissingerBunker giveaway treaty. Here is what Congressman Ford said: "With Cuba under the control of the Soviets through its puppet Castro, and with increased Communist subversion in Latin America, a Communist threat to the Panama Canal is clearly a grave danger. The American people will be shocked by the terms of this (Johnson Administration) treaty" But that was nine years ago and Congressman Ford is now President Ford and he has as his advisor on foreign affairs Dr. Henry Kissinger. Today America has become immobilized by the spirit of detente, while the Soviets push forward confidently and successfully on all fronts. Ambassador Bunker in his speeches across the nation has indulged in eloquent silence on the possibility of any Communist threat to the Canal. I charge that by withholding these important facts, certain to influence the judgment of his hearers, the spokesman for the U.S. Government commits a fraud. SUMMARIZING 1) The giveaway advocates argue that it may be impossible to operate the Canal in a hostile environemnt. Hence, if we cannot make the Panamanians love the United States, we might as well kiss the Canal goodbye, gracefully, before we are kicked out. Opponents say, "No!" The armed forces of Panama consist of a national guard, which serves as a police force. The United States defense establishment is so formidable that if anyone damages a single U.S. property in the Zone-let alone tampers with locks, dams and spillways-he should be remanded to the nearest Canal Zone police court to be removed from mischief. 2) The State Department believes that meeting threats and insults with a smile is a mark of practical statesmanship. Opponents say, "No!" It is a mistake to raise the hopes of Panamanian politicians with bribes of promised concessions. Appeasement by the United States has become the order of so many days that Isthmian politicos take it for granted. 3) The State Department wishes to surrender exclusive American control over the Zone. Opponents say, "No!" It was a mark of wisdom that the great Theodore Roosevelt and his Secretary of State John Hay included in the Treaty of 1903 the provision for exclusive and perpetual American control. Without it, there could have been no stability in the operation. "Perpetuity" does not seem so long when we remember that political stability has not emerged in the Isthmus during the 400 years that elapsed between the arrival of the great explorers and the arrival of American engineers and doctors who converted a deadly swampland into the finest man-made waterway in the world. Exclusive control is at least as important today as it was in 1903. 4) The claim that the Panama Canal has lost its strategic importance defies the facts and common sense. A few of our combat shipsonly 13 of some 480-are too big to get through the Canal locks. But, to quote General Krulak again. “In truth the Panama Canal is an essential link between the naval forces of the United States deployed in the Atlantic and in the Pacific. It is only because of the waterway that we are able to risk having what amounts to a bare-bones, one-ocean navy." The Soviet Union has been acquiring ports of strategic importance all around the globe. Its latest effort in that connection is in Angola. Communist domination of the Canal, whether open or camouflaged, is a key objective of the Soviet navy master plan. If accomplished, Moscow and its puppets would be able to divide U.S. naval strength almost at will. 5) Within the framework of the retention of sovereignty, the United States should continue to deal with the people of Panama in friendship and fairness, as it has for 73 years. It should continue to make adjustments on the spot in non-essential treaty provisions, as it also has in the past. But the United States must negotiate with a Panamanian Government only on a no-nonsense basis. And let the word go out to "Torrijos & Co." that our solicitude for the Panamanians does not extend to a government that threatens, villifies and incites its population against the United States. Frank A. Manson, Counsellor for Foreign Relations James B. Hubbard, Asst. Director 8-77 JULY-AUGUST 1977 ( PANAMA ENTERS PRESIDENTIAL SWEEPSTAKES FOR 1980: President Carter's entry last week into the Panama Canal sweepstakes certifies the re must be more to the new treaty with Panama than is publicly known. Plus, the re must be some urgency or something Presidential involved. President Carter has urged the negotiators to get on with the new treaty. What could it be? What is there at the end of the Panama rainbow? What is the connection? The Banking Connection: Banks and bankers have a way of influencing Presidents and nations. United States and their foreign branches banks have invested $2.77 billion in the Torrijos government. No one but Torrijos and his bookkeepers know the full extent of his government's indebtedness to banks other than the U. S. Could the total indebtedness run to $50 billion? Presumably the U. S. money was loaned on the strength of the Tack-Kissinger agreement of 1974 whose key provision is ceding all U. S. territory in the Canal Zone to the Republic of Panama. If this happens, if the U. S. gives up its legal sovereignty and ownership, the rest of the agreement actually becomes irrelevant. The U.S. will do exactly as it is told by Torrijos. Treaty discussions have actually become so ludicrous in recent weeks that Torrijos is now asking $5.0 billion from the U. S. taxpayers in order to get him to take the $7.0 billion investment off our collective backs. How ludicrous can things get? Only a few months ago, Torrijos threatened force if the U. S. didn't come Now he wants payment to accept the heavy responsibility, or more likely, the banks who have loaned all the money want their interest--now! across. One new bit of raw data has become available on the banking connection. The Republic National Bank of New York was listed until June 10, 1976 by the Department of Justice as Registered Agent #2604 for the Republic of Panama. If government investigators were searching for some real scandal, they could most likely find bags full of it in the banking connection. But the odds are against such an investigation. This may be one of those rare exceptions where money does not talk! So far, the banks have kept a stiff upper lip, despite the doubts they sometimes express about their billion dollar blunder. The Business Connection: Apart from the banking connection, there are also the business interests which surface from time to time. Although Ambassador Sol Linowitz has publicly denied that oil pipelines and Alaskan oil have crept into the treaty discussion, there is a growing suspicion that Alaskan oil and the 4- Navy pipelines are very much involved in a business connection. Recent announcements of a joint U.S. - Panamanian business venture to build a $40 million oil storage facility on Panamanian soil, is indicative of business activity. U.S. citizens do not object to any good business deals, but why keep secrets and especially if publicly owned property is in involved? Why increase the credibility gap between the government and the people? The recent $100,000 contract between the Republic of Panama and Butler Associates of Tulsa, Oklahoma for a study on the transfer of oil by pipelines is indicative of more than passing interest in the commercial aspects of the developing oil situation. Butler Associates' lips are sealed and Torrijos is not talking, but many oil men know that John D. Rockefeller made a bigger fortune in transporting the oil from Ohio than in the actual pumping of it from the ground. To make the business and banking connection even more plausible, Mr. Irving S. Shapiro, Board Chairman of Dupont, is also on the Board of Directors of Citicorp, a heavy lender to the Torrijos dictatorship. Also John D. Debutts, Board Chairman of AT&T, serves on the Board of Directors for Citicorp. The Torrijos regime is heavily indebted to Citicorp. Now, whether these business leaders, or others like them, ever discuss business, banking and international treaties at the same time, is not known. But it would seem reasonable that they would occasionally take more than a passing interest in the bankrupt condition of the Torrijos government and might even go so far as twist the arm of a President. The Public Relations Pay-Off: Surely it can be said that never in U.S. history has so much public money been spent in an effort to convince the American people it was in their best interest to give away a territory in which they have invesged some $7.0 billion. The U.S. State Department has sponsored a nation-wide speakers bureau sending Panamanians, as well as U. S. speakers, across country all pumping out the same party line. This is the last U. S. colonial enclave, so-called by the Department of State's Alger Hiss shortly after WW II. Hiss listed the U.S. Canal Zone as occupied territory, and the Hiss judgment has filled the lecture halls of civil and college audiences from the mouths of tax paid lecturers. Since September 1974, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker has received an annual salary of $57,500 with the sole purpose of supporting the Canal give away. Ambassador Bunker's salary and expenses are all at taxpayers expense. Then two of America's brightest PRmen, F. Clifton White, PR adviser to Senator Barry Goldwater; and Joseph Neopolitan of Vice President Humphrey's campaign for the Presidency, were hired at $200,000 for a 6-months final effort to put the give away idea across on the basis that it served the national interest. former Meanwhile, on the other side, /Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN Ret. said, the U. S. Canal Zone and Canal are absolutely vital to the security interests of the United States. No one knows and it would be difficult to |
