405 Bernard Diederich Former Latin America Correspondent Bernard

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

405 Bernard Diederich Former Latin America Correspondent Bernard book reviews 405 Bernard Diederich Seeds of Fiction: Graham Greene’s Adventures in Haiti and Central America, 1954–1983. London: Peter Owen, 2012. 315 pp. (Cloth us$29.95) Former Latin America correspondent Bernard Diederich’s account of his rela- tionship with Graham Greene and their journeys to Haiti and Central America from the 1950s to the 1980s is a most valuable memoir and resource for those interested in the peripatetic author and the troubled Cold War politics of the region. The renowned twentieth-century British writer gives the now retired journalist the perfect entrée to his specialist subject of Latin America in a book that is neatly divided into two equal parts, firstly dealing with Greene in Haiti and later in Central America. Diederich, a New Zealander by birth, details his first brief encounters with Greene from 1954 onward in Haiti, where the correspondent had set up an English-language weekly newspaper and lived with his Haitian wife. Like many writers and artists, Greene was attracted by the exotic black Caribbean repub- lic, independent since 1804. But Haiti’s relative peace was ruined from 1957 by the autocratic rule of country physician François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who soon ruled the ex-French colony as a repressive dictator, many of his subjects mesmerized by his cultivation of Voodoo. The early part of Diederich’s book gives an overview of Haitian history and is interspersed with travelogue. His newspaper’s anti-Duvalierist stance courts the wrath of the country’s self-appointed president-for-life and his Tontons Macoutes, a murderous plain-clothes militia. Diederich is arrested, imprisoned, and forced into exile in the neighboring Dominican Republic. As he explains, it is for this reason that he subtly encourages Greene to set a new novel in con- temporary Haiti, hoping that it will act as a propaganda tool against the repres- sive regime. Greene, a champion of the underdog and Third World causes, bites. His deportation from Puerto Rico by u.s. immigration authorities in 1954 still rankles, its interlude on the tarmac at Port-au-Prince airport witnessed and described at first-hand by Diederich (pp. 88–89). With his “latent anti- Americanism” (p. 83), and his willingness to act against what he identifies as a Washington-backed regime, Greene readily becomes involved in this new cause. Diederich is the perfect companion for Greene, speaking both Haiti’s patois- French and Spanish, and with a host of local contacts. He does not pry into the writer’s complex and closely-guarded private life, and is more than happy to accompany him along the Haitian-Dominican Republic border in 1965 as Greene undertakes tentative research into a possible new novel. His success in © christopher hull, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/22134360-08803044 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License. 406 book reviews persuading him to write it is significant because the subsequent appearance of The Comedians in 1966 ended a lengthy break from publication. He is also gratified because Greene accurately portrays the macabre nature of the “Papa Doc” dictatorship, and Diederich recognizes some of the composite characters in the novel. Furthermore, its publication gives oppressed Haitians a voice in a Third World cause of which the outside world is largely ignorant. Greene has bloodied Duvalier with his pen, and the Voodoo dictator’s palpable anger is evident in his risible attempt to avenge the writer by publishing a glossy denunciatory official pamphlet. Greene, who never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, considered it one of his highest accolades. “Papa Doc” is also incandescent over the release of a cinematographic version of The Comedians (1967), though he only manages to suppress its release in a couple of foreign countries. But the Greene-scripted film is overlong, like some of Diederich’s newspaper quotations, and it does not attract critical acclaim. While Greene first travelled to Haiti of his own accord, Diederich was instru- mental in facilitating his first trip to Central America in the 1970s, commencing a long and direct involvement in the politics of the region. By now Diederich was Time magazine’s bureau chief in Mexico City, and it took him four years of persistence to persuade Greene to travel to the isthmus and meet left-wing Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos in 1976. It was a propitious year to visit, amidst tentative negotiations between u.s. and Panamanian governments over the future of the strategically important Panama Canal. Diederich is rewarded because Torrijos and Greene instantly “hit it off” (p. 172), the general reclining in his hammock and the Briton downing a line of potent rum punches. Greene also warms to his trusted aide, the “eclectic mul- tilingual” ex-Professor of Philosophy Sergeant José Jesús “Chuchu” Martínez (p. 170). All three share a distrust of u.s. foreign policy. Meanwhile, Diederich’s descriptions of Torrijos as a “dictatorial but populist strongman” (p. 164) are reminiscent of Hugo Chávez (1954–2013), instigator of the later Bolivarian Rev- olution in Venezuela. The journalist is on professional home ground, describing the complicated machinations of politics in the small Central American republics of Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. He attests to Greene’s finely-tuned political antenna and his ready powers of assimilation, readily distinguishing between the more and the less trustworthy protagonists in Central American politics. Their rela- tionship is evidently much deeper than that of a regular journalist and writer interacting on a formal basis because Diederich is also Greene’s local fixer, his translator, his advisor on Central American politics, his travel guide, and a trusted friend. It is remarkable that the septuagenarian and later octogenarian writer should make so many long and strenuous journeys to the disturbed region, New West Indian Guide 88 (2014) 309–451.
Recommended publications
  • Panama: Political and Economic Conditions and U.S. Relations
    Panama: Political and Economic Conditions and U.S. Relations Mark P. Sullivan Specialist in Latin American Affairs November 27, 2012 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov RL30981 CRS Report for Congress Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Panama: Political and Economic Conditions and U.S. Relations Summary With five successive elected civilian governments, the Central American nation of Panama has made notable political and economic progress since the 1989 U.S. military intervention that ousted the regime of General Manuel Antonio Noriega from power. Current President Ricardo Martinelli of the center-right Democratic Change (CD) party was elected in May 2009, defeating the ruling center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) in a landslide. Martinelli was inaugurated to a five-year term on July 1, 2009. Martinelli’s Alliance for Change coalition with the Panameñista Party (PP) also captured a majority of seats in Panama’s National Assembly. Panama’s service-based economy has been booming in recent years – with a growth rate of 7.6% in 2010 and 10.6% in 2011 – largely because of the ongoing Panama Canal expansion project, now slated for completion in early 2015. The CD’s coalition with the PP fell apart at the end of August 2011when President Martinelli sacked PP leader Juan Carlos Varela as Foreign Minister. Varela, however, retains his position as Vice President. Tensions between the CD and the PP had been growing throughout 2011, largely related to which party would head the coalition’s ticket for the 2014 presidential election. Despite the breakup of the coalition, the strength of the CD has grown significantly since 2009 because of defections from the PP and the PRD and it now has a majority on its own in the legislature.
    [Show full text]
  • The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project
    The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR AMBLER H. MOSS, JR. Interviewed by: Donald Barnes Initial interview date: December 13, 1988 Copyright 1998 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Panama 1978-1982 Initial involvement in Panama Panama Canal Treaties Latin American relations with U.S. after Treaty Working with Ellsworth Bunker and Sol Linowitz Omar Torrijos Noriega Relations with Noriega in the late 1980’s U.S. errors in dealing with Panama Ambassadorial control over embassy Experiences in Spain and Dominican Republic Torrijos Attitude towards President Carter Fatal plane crash Conclusions INTERVIEW [Note: This interview was not edited by Ambassador Moss.] Q: First of all, I would like to thank you for agreeing to this interview and talking about your career, particularly your Ambassadorship and I'd like to ask you first of all, how did you get to become an Ambassador? MOSS: Well, I guess my case was a little bit unusual and I wasn't quite a career Ambassador and wasn't quite a run-of-the-mill political appointee. I'd been in the Foreign Service as a career from 1964-1971, had served in Spain, on the Spanish Desk and at the U.S. Mission of the OAS. And, in that latter capacity, had worked for [Ambassador 1 Ellsworth] Bunker and [Ambassador Sol M.] Linowitz. I left in 1971, went into law practice in Europe, then came back in as a political appointee in the beginning of the Carter Administration in February of 1977. Invited by Linowitz and Bunker, who were the co-negotiators for the Panama Canal Treaty to join the negotiating team.
    [Show full text]
  • Radio Wars and Revolution in the Caribbean, 1959
    1 Alejandra Bronfman Radio Wars and Revolution in the Caribbean, 1959 Abstract For most places in the Caribbean, the term Cold War fails to describe the contentious, noisy, violent politics of the 1950s and ‘60s. In the rapidly changing political contexts of 1957–62, Haiti’s Francois Duvalier and Cuban Fidel Castro rose to power, while in the Dominican Republic Rafael Trujillo’s regime weakened and ended with his assassination in 1961. Actors across the ideological spectrum engaged in transnational ‘Radio Wars’ in their efforts to both undermine and prop up particular regimes. This article will explore those radio wars, understanding them not just as an enactment of the complex politics of the day, but also as the expression of a par- ticular kind of utopian imagining of radio’s potential for political mobilisation. It considers the politics of clandestine broadcasting across ideological, racial and national boundaries in the 1950s and ‘60s Caribbean. Expanding on and engaging a burgeoning literature on radio in Latin America and the Caribbean, attention to ‘Radio Wars’ adds fresh perspectives to histories of the Cold War, decolonisation, and the soundscapes of dictatorship and empire. More pre- cisely, it moves beyond a Soviet-US binary and considers the role of broadcasting and propa- ganda in the making of an inter-Caribbean war of frequencies. KEYWORDS: Broadcasting, Cold War, Cuba, Haiti, Caribbean In a recent article, Kate Lacey observes: ‘Despite notable exceptions, the volume and scope of the national broadcasting histories are freighted heavily towards the Global North.’1 Indeed, broad- casting in the Caribbean has not enjoyed the same depth and breadth of study as North American or European broadcasting.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 the Pearl of the Antilles: Haiti in Colonial Times (1492–1791) 2 the Slaves Who Defeated Napoléon: the Haitian Revolution (
    Notes 1 The Pearl of the Antilles: Haiti in Colonial Times (1492–1791) 1. Christopher Columbus, The Four Voyages (New York: Penguin Books, 1969; translated by K. M. Cohen), 116. 2. Quoted in Robert D., Nancy G., and Michael Heinl, Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492–1995 (New York: U. Press of America, 1996), 4. 3. Quoted in Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean (1970; reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 34. 4. Quoted in Heinl et al., Written in Blood, 18. 5. Aristide and Christophe Wargny, Jean-Bertrand Aristide: An Autobiography (New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 143. From 1500 to 1650, Spanish imports of gold and silver from the entire New World (including Mexico and Peru) were 80 tons and 16,000 tons, respectively. See Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 (2002; reprint, New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 287. 2 The Slaves Who Defeated Napoléon: The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) 1. Quoted in Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 100. 2. Antoine Métral, Histoire de l’expédition des Français à Saint-Domingue sous le consulat de Napoléon Bonaparte (1802–1803), suivie des mémoires et notes d’Isaac l’Ouverture (1825; reprint, Paris: Karthala, 1985), 325. 3. Quoted in Wenda Parkinson, “This Gilded African”: Toussaint l’Ouverture (New York: Quartet Books, 1978), 155. 4. “Louverture to Brig. Gen. Domage” (20 Pluviôse Year X [February 9, 1802]), CC9B/19, Archives Nationales, Paris. 218 ● Notes 3 Missed Opportunities: Haiti after Independence (1804–1915) 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Panama and Noriega: “Our SOB” Scott Rosenberg
    Panama and Noriega: “Our SOB” Scott Rosenberg On December 20, 1989, approximately twenty seven thousand American troops invaded Panama with the goals of apprehending Panama’s military dictator and de facto leader General Manuel Noriega and restoring democracy throughout the country. The invasion occurred a year and a half after two Florida grand juries indicted General Noriega on federal drug trafficking charges and after he had survived months of economic sanctions and back-channel tactics aimed at forcing him out. The morning following the invasion, President George H.W. Bush addressed the nation and described the objectives and reasons for “Operation Just Cause,” revealing that “the goals of the United States have been to safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking, and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal treaty.”i In retrospect, however, it appears clear that the United States could have rightly used the same justifications six years earlier, shortly after General Noriega assumed power in 1981. Why did the U.S. government wait so long, and what finally prompted it to invade and forcibly oust him in 1989? Historians have argued that Noriega’s drug trafficking and election tampering forced the United States’ hand, but I believe that it was his arrogance and utter lack of responsiveness to U.S. demands that eventually sealed his fate. Noriega had been involved in the international narcotics trade for years,ii and began installing puppet Panamanian presidents through election fraud as early as 1984, but the United States was willing to accept this activity because of his cooperation with what was perceived to be greater U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Omar Torrijos Y Su Influencia En La Lucha Canalera
    NUEVA LEY DE PROCESOS CONCURSALES DE INSOLVENCIA LA LISTA CLINTON Y LA JURISPRUDENCIA COLOMBIANA Omar Torrijos y su influencia en la ISSN 1726-0485 Edición Mayo ´16 lucha Canalera Impacto Economico de la ampliación y otros proyectos CONTENT 6. 16. EDITORIAL CONSULT DOCTRINE & JU- WHAT WE DO WITH RISPRUDENCE THE EDUCATION? JUDGMENT ON MATERIAL AND MORAL DAMAGE CAUSED BY MALFUNCTION OF 8. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES. INVITED WRITER 20. CLINTON AND SCHEDULE COLOMBIAN JURISPRUDENCE POLITICS DONALD JOHN TRUMP AND HIS 13. ROAD TO DEFEAT NORMS OF INTEREST 24. COMPETE PROCESSES OF PANAMANIAN ECONOMY INSOLVENCY CONSUMER’S PRICE INDEX INDEPENDENT EXPERT COMMITTEE WAS CREATED EVOLUTION OF CONSUMER PRICE INDEX: MONTHLY AND CUMULATIVE VARIATION SOCIAL SECURITY GENERAL INCOME REGULATIONS WERE MODIFYIED MONTHLY ECONOMIC ACTIVITY INDEX IN PANAMA BANK SECTOR OF PANAMA IS KEPT TO GOOD PACE CONTENT 44. ACP SIGNED CONVENTION WITH COLLECTIVE PILOTS UNION ILLUSTRIOUS PEOPLE PROFILES OF MY FATHER OMAR CANAL EXPANSION AND ITS IMPACT TORRIJOS HERRERA ON THE PANAMANIAN ECOOMY SEMBLANZAS DE MI PADRE OMAR TORRIJOS HERRERA 31. 48. WORLD ECONOMY SPORTS CAPSULE SUSTAINABLE TOURISM: AN ENGINE FOR JOB CREATION, ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT ECLAC and ILO UNEMPLOYMENT IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN increase by 2016 BY ECONOMIC DETERIO- RATION REGIONAL THE ECONOMIC ACTIVITY CONTINUES BEING DECELERATED IN LATIN AMERICA G7 FUEL GROWTH OF GLOBAL 52. ECONOMY CULTURAL CAPSULE G7 NEEDED TO BOOST DEMAND AND ADDRESSING RESTRICTION SUPPLIES Colaboradores en esta edición José Javier Rivera J. Consejo Mario J. Galindo H. Rafael Fernández Lara Editorial Raquel Torrijos Giovana del C. Miranda G. Albin Rodríguez Mariela de Sanjur Augusto García Lisbeth Martéz Ailen Galván José Javier Rivera J.
    [Show full text]
  • Uivitednat..ON,Y
    UiVITEDNAT..ON,Y TWE.IVTY-EIGHTH YEAR th MEETING: 15 MARCH 1973 PANAMA CITY CONTENTS Page Provisional agenda (S/Agenda/l 695) . , . + . , . , , . , . , . , . 1 Adoptionoftheagenda . , , , . , , . , , . ,. , . , . , . , . , 1 Consideration of measures for the maintenance and strengthening of international peace and security in Latin America in conformity with the provisions and principlesofthecharter ,.....,.,.....,. 1 S/P? * I 695 SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIFTH MEETING Held in the Legislative Palace, Panama City, on Thursday, 15 March 1973, at 10 a.m. President: Mr. Aquilino E. BOYD (Panama) guished representatives of the sister republics of Latin later: General Omar TORRIJOS (Panama). America; to the Chairman of the Latin American Group of the United Nations; to the Secretary-General of the Present: The representatives of the following States: Organization of American States; to the observers of States Australia, Austria, China, France, Guinea, India, Indonesia, from other regions and of other international organs; and Kenya, Panama, Peru, Sudan, Union of Soviet Socialist also to the world press, which has co-operated so greatly Republics, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern with this small country in order to place us on the map of Ireland, United States of America and Yugoslavia. world dignity. Provisional agenda (S/Agenda/l695) 5. I come to speak to you now on behalf of a people that does not feed on hatred and whose simple hearts have led 1. Adoption of the agenda. us to forgive and forget offences and to guide our future toward the achievement of our own identity, For he who is 2. Consideration of measures for the maintenance and right need not resort to insults.
    [Show full text]
  • H-Diplo Article Review No
    H20-Diplo Article14 Review H-Diplo Article Review Editors: Thomas Maddux and H-Diplo Diane Labrosse H-Diplo Article Reviews Web and Production Editor: George Fujii h-diplo.org/reviews/ No. 490 Commissioned for H-Diplo by Thomas Maddux Published on 9 October 2014 Tom Long. “Putting the Canal on the Map: Panamanian Agenda-Setting and the 1973 Security Council Meetings.” Diplomatic History 38:2 (April 2014): 431-455. DOI: 10.1093/dh/dht096. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/dh/dht096 URL: http://tiny.cc/AR490 or http://h-diplo.org/reviews/PDF/AR490.pdf Reviewed by Andrew J. Kirkendall, Texas A&M University t is not often that a journal article arrives in a scholar’s mail on a Monday, is read on Tuesday, and has its findings incorporated into a lecture on Wednesday. But it says I something about my admiration for what Tom Long has accomplished here that this was the case in my spring course on the history of inter-American relations. Long demonstrates convincingly that the government of General Omar Torrijos, an ideologically ambiguous populist dictator, was able to use the United Nations Security Council to help get stalled bilateral talks over the future of the Panama Canal moving again. Following the riots over the issue of the flying of the Panamanian flag in the Canal Zone in 1964, the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration had promised to move toward a gradual fulfillment of Panamanian aspirations to sovereignty over the Canal Zone and the Canal itself. A treaty signed in 1967, however, had never been submitted to either country’s legislature for ratification.
    [Show full text]
  • Panama: Remains of Gen. Omar Torrijos Stolen Deborah Tyroler
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of New Mexico University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository NotiCen Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) 5-4-1990 Panama: Remains Of Gen. Omar Torrijos Stolen Deborah Tyroler Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/noticen Recommended Citation Tyroler, Deborah. "Panama: Remains Of Gen. Omar Torrijos Stolen." (1990). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/noticen/3980 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in NotiCen by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LADB Article Id: 070661 ISSN: 1089-1560 Panama: Remains Of Gen. Omar Torrijos Stolen by Deborah Tyroler Category/Department: General Published: Friday, May 4, 1990 On May 2, Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) director Leslie Loaiza told reporters that the remains of Gen. Omar Torrijos Herrera had been stolen from a chapel located in eastern Panama City. The robbery was reported by the general's son, Martin Torrijos. Torrijos Herrera led a military coup in October 1968 deposing then-president Arnulfo Arias Madrid. According to a security guard at the chapel site, at about 4 a.m. on May 1, two persons entered the chapel, and minutes after their departure, "a woman discovered that the urn containing the general's remains had been violated." Members of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) said stealing remains was an "extreme" act, mainly affecting Torrijos' family.
    [Show full text]
  • Panama City, Republic of Panama Ciudad De Panama' Is the Largest City and Capital on the Isthmus of Panama
    Panama City, Republic of Panama Ciudad de Panama' is the largest city and capital on the Isthmus of Panama. The Republic of Panama has a population of about 4 million people. It borders the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as Central and South America. The origins of Panama date back to 11,000 BC. Pottery and trading between Mexico and Peru were known in 2,500 BC. "There are seven unique indigenous cultures of Panama, which make up about 13% of the country’s population (currently around 4 million). These cultures are typically divided into four major groups based on language, traditions, and locations. These are the Ngöbe‐Buglé, the Kuna, the Emberá‐Wounaan, and the Naso‐Bribri." <zegrahm.com> The Spaniard conquistadors founded the first city in Panama in 1519. Old Panama (Panama la Vieja) became their chief post of the Pacific. "Panama City was founded by Spanish governor Pedro Arias de Ávila not long after conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa first saw the Pacific." <lonelyplant.com> It became a pass‐through for treasures found in Peru's mines and the pearl fisheries in the Bay of Panama. A series of fires devastated the city, but it was Captain Henry Morgan, a Welsh privateer sponsored by England, who sacked Panama in 1671. <thoughtco.com> "The privateers stayed for about four weeks, digging through the ashes, looking for fugitive Spanish soldiers in the hills and looting the small islands in the bay where many had sent their treasures. When it was tallied, it was not as big a haul as many had hoped for, but there was still quite a bit of plunder and every man received his share.
    [Show full text]
  • 405 Bernard Diederich Former Latin America Correspondent Bernard
    book reviews 405 Bernard Diederich Seeds of Fiction: Graham Greene’s Adventures in Haiti and Central America, 1954–1983. London: Peter Owen, 2012. 315 pp. (Cloth us$29.95) Former Latin America correspondent Bernard Diederich’s account of his rela- tionship with Graham Greene and their journeys to Haiti and Central America from the 1950s to the 1980s is a most valuable memoir and resource for those interested in the peripatetic author and the troubled Cold War politics of the region. The renowned twentieth-century British writer gives the now retired journalist the perfect entrée to his specialist subject of Latin America in a book that is neatly divided into two equal parts, firstly dealing with Greene in Haiti and later in Central America. Diederich, a New Zealander by birth, details his first brief encounters with Greene from 1954 onward in Haiti, where the correspondent had set up an English-language weekly newspaper and lived with his Haitian wife. Like many writers and artists, Greene was attracted by the exotic black Caribbean repub- lic, independent since 1804. But Haiti’s relative peace was ruined from 1957 by the autocratic rule of country physician François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who soon ruled the ex-French colony as a repressive dictator, many of his subjects mesmerized by his cultivation of Voodoo. The early part of Diederich’s book gives an overview of Haitian history and is interspersed with travelogue. His newspaper’s anti-Duvalierist stance courts the wrath of the country’s self-appointed president-for-life and his Tontons Macoutes, a murderous plain-clothes militia.
    [Show full text]
  • PANAAAA V.ANAL
    C - PANAAAA v.ANAL DEPAlfrEN OF STATE Fl PANAMA CANAL: THE NEW TREATIES On September 7, 1977, in the presence of the leadership of 25 other American republics and Canada, President Carter and Panama Chief of Gov- ernment General Omar Torrijos signed two treaties governing the future operation and defense of the Panama Canal. The signing ceremony is a prelude to the actual advice and consent of the Senate to the treaties and the exchange of instruments of ratifica- tion, which comes only after the Senate votes its approval. These treaties would replace the 74 year-old treaty now in force-a treaty which came into being Today, our best way of insuring permanent access to the canal is not our exclusive or per- petual control of its operation, but rather the active and harmonious support of the Panama- nian population. under unusual circumstances in a vastly different age, and which has become the source of unnecessary and potentially serious problems for the United States. The most important fact about the new treaties 1 with Panama is that they protect the fundamental U.S. interest in an open and secure canal for the long-term future. Our ships, both naval and com- mercial, will have a guaranteed right of passage through the canal, as will the shipping of all nations on nondiscriminatory terms. We have primary responsibility for the defense of the canal until the year 2000, and we will have the right to act after that to insure in any situation that the canal remains open and secure. The new agreements are now before the Senate for advice and consent.
    [Show full text]