The Canal at the OAS

The rioting and killing are over temporarily, at least, and the United States still stands astride the Panama Canal like a colossus, but the Panamanians have refused to peep about below in search of dishonorable graves. Unless a last-minute agreement intervenes, the Organization of American States will meet this afternoon to consider Panama's charge of armed agression by the United States on January 9 and 10.

Any agreement will require a compromise between the Panamanian demand for renegotiation of the 1903 canal treaty and the United States' offer to "review and reconsider" all points of controversy. It may be true that the United States has already compromised more from its original position than Panama has, but this should not mean that the additional concessions necessary must come from Panama. President Johnson can grant further concessions more easily than Panama's President Chiari can, and Johnson also has a greater need to end the public controversy quickly.

President Chiari has staked his cabinet, his party's chances in this spring's elections, and perhaps his own life on extracting from the United States a commitment to re-negotiate the resented treaty. School children scuffling scuffling a flagpole do not cause violent riots, suspension of diplomatic relations, and risks of political suicide. The current dispute has been festering almost from the time that this country prodded inhabitants of the Isthmus into breaking away from Colombia and then presented the weak, young government with a treaty exchanging American protection and money for a canal zone in which America could act as if sovereign.

President Johnson has also announced his position, but for this country the Panama crisis is only one of a dozen in the first few weeks of the year. Unless this dispute grows into a chronic embarrassment or explodes into a disaster, the President is adept enough to keep it from defeating him in 1964.

The Administration's current course, however, could lead to chronic embarrassment or disaster, even if the OAS votes to repudiate Panama's charge of armed aggression. That vote would not satisfy Panama or restore diplomatic relations and economic aid.

To keep an OAS debate and vote from reopening all issues and settling none of them, the United States might offer to negotiate some of the more onerous clauses and consequences of the treaty; the status of the Zonians, American citizens who have colonized the Canal Zone; rent and revenues; flag flying; and the provision which grants Canal Zone rights to the United States "in perpetuity." Without an agreement on renegotiation, the 1903 treaty and the 1964 crisis will remain sources of further crisis, a grim warning to any Central American nation the United States might approach about a new, sea-level canal, and an impediment to United States policy throughout Latin America.