fruits of appeasement, The

"More valuable than all her gold. The defense of the hemisphere rests on this tiny strip of water."'

That strip of water is the Panama Canal, and the "her" is the United States of America. The words belong to World War il-but they reflect what strategists and analysts have always known: There is probably not another patch of water in the world so strategically vital as the Panama Canal. That was demonstrated again during the war in Korea. And the war in Vietnam. And assorted emergencies in between and since.

Until now, it has always been American. In a few more weeks, it will fall under the effective control of Red China.

The canal has always been an emotional issue for Americans-a source of national pride. a source of national anger when the surrender was first foisted on an unwilling public. For me, it awakens strong emotions, too--for I might have lost my life there. It happened during the 1964 riots. I was in Panama as a young UPI reporter covering the violence. An out-of-control mob surrounded our car, rocking it, climbing up on the hood, banging on the windows. We knew that the first rock to shatter a window could spell our doom.

The quick-thinking Panamanian driver, opening the window a crack, shouted that we were Canadians-and then inched forward, gingerly at first, lickety-split later.

The incident is worth recounting only because it was those riots that so weakened the spine of America's political leadership that the 1977 treaties giving the canal away were almost anticlimactic. The incident is worth recounting because it reveals so much of the futility of appeasement.

The language of the 1903 Treaty that empowered the Unites States to build the canal was starkly plain: Article 2: "The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of said canal, of the width of 10 miles extending to the distance of five miles on each side of the center line of the route of the Canal to be constructed...

Article 3: 'The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power and authority within the zone mentioned ... which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory, to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights. power or authority. . @

But treaties-like laws-frequently are meant to be broken. Once the, benefits of the canal began to flow, Panama began pressuring the United States for a larger role. In 1936 and again in 1955, the Unites States agreed to concessions. (Political affiliation did not matter in this: Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in power in 1936, Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1955.)

In 1935, the Unites States threw in the huge Madden Dam and Power Project, sharing some of the electric power with Panama. In 1955, Eisenhower threw in a $19-million dollar bridge spanning the canal. The Panamanians were not placated. On May 2, 1958, a group of university students entered the Zone-that strip of land ceded to the Unites States "in perpetuity"-and scattered 75 Panamanian flags on lawns. On Nov. 3, 1959, congressmen, university professors, high school students and others entered the Zone through various gates, planting a Panamanian flag on the lawn at the Administration Building, hanging others from fences and one on the Miraflores Locks.

Other incidents followed. On Dec. 30, 1963, Gen. Robert Fleming-governor of the Zone-ruled that the Panamanian flag would be flown alongside the U.S. flag in certain places inside the Zone, and that the American flag would no longer fly alone in others, such as at private American schools. American students who defied the order were quickly backed by the Zone Civic Council. The fuse had been lit.

On Jan. 9, 1964, American students stood guard at Balboa High School to prevent anyone from hauling down the American flag. At 5 that afternoon. 200 Panamanian men, women, children and students entered the Zone, asked for and were given permission to raise the Panamanian flag alongside the U.S. flag at Balboa High School.

Zone police, however, consented to allow only five students to do this--and they were quickly driven off by the American students. Forced to flee the Zone, the crowd of 200 was rapidly joined by hundreds of others, who then surged into the Zone, throwing rocks. Shots rang out. By the time the turmoil was over on January 11, three Americans and 21 Panamanians were dead, and a total of about 200 wounded.

In the aftermath, President Lyndon Johnson agreed to negotiate a new treaty. Draft treaties, completed in 1967, were rejected as too weak by the Torrijos dictatorship in 1970. President Nixon ordered new negotiations, and by 1974, the U.S.in the so-called Kissinger-Tack Agreement (named for Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, and the Panamanian Foreign Minister, Juan Antonio Tack)-agreed to a set of principles, including abrogation of the 1903 treaty.