United States Congressional Serial Set

H. Con. Res. 925

Passed August 18, 1966

EIGHTY-NINTH CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

AT THE SECOND SESSION

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the tenth day of January, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-six

Concurrent Resolution

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That the document entitled "Isthmian Canal Policy Questions, Canal Zone Panama Canal Sovereignty, Panama Canal Modernization New Canal", a compilation of addresses and remarks by Congressman Daniel J. Flood, be printed as a House document, and that an additional ten thousand five hundred copies be printed of which seven thousand five hundred copies shall be for the use of the House of Representatives and two thousand five hundred copies shall be for the use of the Senate.

Attest:

RALPH R. ROBERTS,

Clerk of the House of Representatives.

EMERY T. FRAZIER, Secretary of the Senate.

(II)

FOREWORD

BY HON. JOHN H. DENT, REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA

Since World War II the history of the Panama Canal has been marked by a succession of crises as to the best means for providing increased transit facilities. The principal proposals for supplying such capacity are

(a) Modernization of the existing Panama Canal by increasing its capacity and operational efficiency through the major modification of the 1939 third locks project (53 Stat. 1409) to provide a summit-level terminal lake anchorage in the Pacific end of the canal to correspond with that in the Atlantic end; or

(b) Construction of a new canal near the present site in the Canal Zone of sea level (tidal lock) design; or

(c) Construction of a new canal at Nicaragua or elsewhere. Consideration of these and other vital questions of the greatest importance has been gravely complicated, as a result of noisy agitations and demands by Panamanian radicals as regards our authority over the Canal Zone and by a series of surrenders to Panama by the United States of important rights, power, and authority. These concessions include those provided by the 1955 treaty and subsequent executive actions, with some of the latter in direct conflict with the formally expressed intent of the Congress.

Understanding the nature of the Panama Canal problem in its broadest aspects, Representative Daniel J. Flood, of Pennsylvania, after thorough study of the subject, undertook in a series of illuminating addresses and statements to the House of Representatives, to clarify the principal issues and to aid in the development of wise and just Isthmian Canal policies by our Government. His addresses, which are extensively documented and based upon years of observation as well as study, are, indeed, unsurpassed in our national history in expository content and value and have attracted the widest attention among thoughtful students of interoceanic canal problems.

Because of the crucial importance of making the information developed in these addresses available, in convenient form, to the legislatíve and executive branches of our Government and the country at large, the more important ones are included in this document.

A comprehensive bibliography on interoceanic canal history and problems was included in an address to the House on September 2, 1964, by Representative Clark W. Thompson, of Texas, under the title of "Isthmian Canal Policy of the United States-Documentation, 1955-64," which, together with the addresses of Representative Flood previously mentioned, furnishes an exhaustive compilation of resource material on the subject.

CONTENTS

March 26, 1958: Panama Canal Zone: Constitutional Domain of the

United States__.

June 9, 1958: Panama Canal-Latest Developments_

July 23, 1958: Panama Canal: Object of Irresponsible Political Extortion__

February 25, 1959: Isthmian Canal Policies-A Challenge to the Congress..

June 23, 1959: Panama Canal Zone Sovereignty..

Page