Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Former chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, Adam Clymer is author of Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography. His writing has also appeared in the Nation, the New Republic, the Progressive, Washington Monthly, and elsewhere.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KANSAS

Contents

Preface: "Pluck and Luck Conquered All": A Canal for the American Century........................................................................ix1 "In Perpetuity": Years of Dispute and Diplomacy................................................................................................12 "No Constituency to Help": President Ford Negotiates...........................................................................................103 "What a Shot in the Arm!": Ford Upsets Reagan Despite the Canal................................................................................194 "We Bought It. We Built It. It's Ours and We Are Going to Keep It": The Canal Issue Brings Reagan's Recovery...................................255 "Thank God for Those People in 1976 Who Headed Off That Loss of Freedom": Reagan Loses but Wins Republican Hearts..............................336 "Delay Invites Violence": Carter Inherits and Seizes the Issue.................................................................................407 "I Wanted to Treat Panama Fairly": Carter Underestimates American Dismay.......................................................................458 "Conservatives Can't Lose": The Canal Unifies the Right........................................................................................539 "Draw the Line at the Big Ditch": The Anti-Treaty Message......................................................................................6110 "What If They're Right?": Reagan Holding Back.................................................................................................7011 "Why Now? And Why Me?": Howard Baker and the Treaties.........................................................................................7512 "Be Tolerant and Patient in Bringing People Around": Byrd's Advice While in Panama............................................................8213 "A Measure of Our Strength, Not Our Weakness": The Senate Advises and Consents................................................................9014 "Come On and Watch Me Lose My Seat": Gordon Humphrey and the New Right Sink Tom McIntyre......................................................10615 "I Haven't Found Anybody in Iowa That's for the Treaties": Roger Jepsen on the Issue That Made the Difference.................................11716 "We Supported the Tough Conservative, the Business PAC Was Always for the Establishment": The PACmen Come.....................................13017 "A Group Like Ours Could Lie through Its Teeth and the Candidate It Helps Stays Clean": NCPAC Takes on Incumbents.............................14018 "ACU Could Go Out of Business by Election Day": The Canal Cuts Both Ways......................................................................15419 "I Hope That It's Over as an Issue": Reagan on the Canal after Ratification...................................................................16420 "They Never Wanted to See Another Panama Canal Ad": The North Carolina Senate Campaign........................................................17121 "Is Idaho Up for Grabs?": The Canal, NCPAC, and Steve Symms Defeat Frank Church...............................................................18022 "Cold Water on Some of His Supporters": The Canal Finishes a Weakened Talmadge................................................................19023 "A Senate Majority Made All the Difference in the World": Canal-Elected Senators and Baker Give Reagan a Chance to Govern.....................19724 "We've Made a Difference": Reagan Changed the Nation, without the Canal.......................................................................204Notes............................................................................................................................................213An Essay on Sources..............................................................................................................................259Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................................265Index............................................................................................................................................269

Chapter One

YEARS OF DISPUTE AND DIPLOMACY

A canal through Panama, connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans and saving thousands of miles compared with journeying around Cape Horn, was an idea with origins in the days of Spanish exploration of the New World. It gained appeal because of the California gold rush of 1849. The French, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, tried from 1882 to 1889, failing physically on the scene and financially in Paris. The United States used the gunboat Nashville to dislodge the restive province of Panama from Colombia in 1903, recognized the new nation two days later, and then essentially imposed a one-sided treaty on Panama to gain the authority to build a canal and maintain control of it and any part of Panama the United States wanted.

In the United States, the history of the Canal was the history of excavation and construction, overcoming repeated mudslides and fabricating locks and dams thousands of miles away that fit perfectly once shipped to Panama, and conquering yellow fever and malaria. The heroic names remembered for that triumph were President Theodore Roosevelt and Colonel George W. Goethals, the engineer who saw the project through, and Colonel William C. Gorgas, who ran the campaigns to exterminate the mosquitoes that spread disease.

But if there was one name that resounded in Panamanian history, and with no heroism attached, it was that of Philippe Bunau-Varilla. An engineer in the failed French effort and a part owner of the rights granted by Colombia to construct the Canal, Bunau-Varilla tried from St. Petersburg to Paris to Washington to find resources to see that the Canal was built. After the Colombian Senate, in August 1903, unanimously rejected a treaty under which the United States would pay $10 million to build a canal, Bunau-Varilla worked with would-be rebels in Panama and with Roosevelt and Secretary of State John Hay to consummate the rebellion as the Nashville and the head of the U.S.-owned Panama Railway kept Colombian troops away from the capital of Panama City. Then, under authority he had demanded from the rebels, the Frenchman negotiated a new treaty, even more favorable to the United States than the failed pact with Colombia.

In fact, some provisions written by Bunau-Varilla were more favorable to the United States than the draft that was prepared by Secretary Hay, who had started by expanding the projected Canal Zone from 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in width in the pact with Colombia to 10 miles. The Frenchman's version also gave the United States a permanent right to take any lands and waters outside the zone that it needed for the Canal-a provision that led to developing a number of American military bases.

Finally, his version gave the United States "in perpetuity" the near equivalent of sovereignty over the Zone, saying: "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 within which said...