The Ford Administration has apparently made a calculated decision that the way to get the American people to acquiesce in Henry Kissinger’s plan to sign a new treaty with Panama giving away the U.S. Canal is to threaten the American people with dire consequences as the alternative. After Ronald Reagan made the Canal giveaway proposal an issue in the Texas primary, Ron Nessen was assigned to make the White House reply. He conjured up the bogey man of “violence and civil disturbances” in Panama and said that “riots and bloodshed would occur if we break off treaty negotiations.”
Is Mr. Nessen expressing a lack of Administration faith in American military capability to defend our own property against a tin-horn pro-Communist demagogue and his rock-throwing mob? That would be unthinkable. Or is Mr. Nessen expressing a lack of faith in the American will to defend our national interests after our humiliating retreat from South Vietnam? If so, he has misjudged the American people. The same people who were fed up with the no-win war in Vietnam are eager to defend the U.S. Canal with all necessary military action.
Mr. Nessen’s scare talk followed a recent “background” interview given by a high Ford Administration official the gist of which was that, since Castro has 13,000 trained troops soon to return from their victory in Angola, and they might stir up trouble for us at the U.S. Canal in Panama, it therefore ‘behooves the United States to hurry up and sign a new treaty with the Panamanian dictator giving
away American rights to our Canal, in order to avoid having to defend it with military force.
Ron Nessen also said that relinquishing control of our Canal to Panama offers the best guarantee that it will continue to be “open to all.” Such a statement is an insult to our intelligence. The U.S. Canal has been open to all for 62 years under the protection of the American Navy and Army, and there is no doubt that it will always be open so long as we are in control. But if Castro’s friend, Omar Torrijos,
were in control, there is no more assurance that it would be open to all than the Suez was open to all under Nasser.
Ronald Reagan has rendered a service to our country by bringing the U.S. Canal giveaway out into the open so that the American people will know what their diplomats have been doing behind closed doors. Only a handful of Americans had been aware that Henry Kissinger went to Panama on Feb. 7, 1974 and signed a preliminary giveaway agreement. One would think that a move of such great importance would require the Administration to level with the American voters. But mention of the
Canal giveaway proposal was conspicuous by its absence from President Ford’s 1976 State of the Union Message to Congress.
The next time Dr. Kissinger has a press conference, it would be appropriate to ask him: Just how, Dr. Kissinger, were you planning on circumventing Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution which clearly states that only “Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States”? A treaty requires only Senate approval, but a surrender of U.S. territory, such as the U.S. Canal, requires both Senate and House approval.
If the United States will not defend our own U.S. Canal, a vital lifeline for Western Hemispheric defense and economic prosperity, the Soviets and their allies in Cuba may be encouraged to conclude that we will not fight to defend Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or even Alaska.
