Time Essay: That Troublesome Panama Canal Treaty

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A. Not very easily, say the people who should know: the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They believe it is in the national interest to cede control of the waterway. Acting alone, surrounded by a hostile population not only in Panama but in the rest of Latin America, the U.S. would need an estimated 100,000 troops to put down a determined guerrilla effort. And even that sizable a force could not seal off the waterway's lock mechanisms, dams and power plants from some kind of sabotage. A band of skilled terrorists, for example, could approach the Gatun Dam through the dense jungle with relative ease. Properly placed explosives could blow up the dam, drain the water that is required to operate the locks and put the whole canal out of commission for as long as two years. General George Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told TIME Correspondent Jerry Hannifin: "If I were a guerrilla backed by Fidel Castro or somebody, I would just love those Panamanian jungles. They are better than even the jungles of Viet Nam. An organized guerrilla effort would cost us heavily. That is why we want the Panamanians on our side from scratch under the new treaties. We need them to help' us." If the U.S. were forced to take some kind of military action to protect the canal in, say, the year 2027, it would be in a far stronger moral position if it had approved the treaty. Then it would be fighting on behalf of Panama, not against it.

The Panama Canal treaty is no historical accident, no caprice of idle statesmen. It has been twelve long, arduous, ruminative years in the making; it is an idea whose time has come—and whose time may be running out, given the objection to the treaty among many Latin Americans, especially in Panama. Strongman or not, Torrijos is faced with opposition, chiefly radicals who are considerably farther to the left than he is. If the treaty is not ratified, if trouble breaks out in Panama, it will be all the harder to draw up a subsequent pact in an atmosphere of mutual recriminations. Responsible citizens of both countries would look back on the present period as an opportunity that was tragically missed. — Edwin Warner