Another Canal?

Perhaps President Johnson is not determined to end the Canal controversy. His offer Saturday to "review" rather than "discuss" the all issues with Panama neither moderates nor clarifies the Administration's stance and does not satisfy Panama's insistence that the United States agree to "negotiate." Panama may, for some reason, accept the President's latest gambit and agree to resume diplomatic relations and begin the "review." If Panama refuses, however, the dispute will probably stalemate, since Johnson seems unwilling to concede anything more.

An unresolved quarrel over the Canal would have badly embarrassed and encumbered President Kennedy's Latin American policies, but President Johnson may have decided that the domestic political damage from concessions to Panama would outweigh the benefits for his Latin American policies. The "tough" and "pragmatic" approach, revealed last week in Johnson's speech to the OAS and in Assistant Secretary Thomas G. Mann's reported remarks to the assembled U.S. ambassadors, does not depend upon popular approval in Latin America. Neither does it attract popular approval, which the U.S. must have to champion democratic revolution as an alternative to Castro's kind. Therefore, the Administration should be especially careful to exploit every opportunity for attracting public support and conciliating the diplomats it will have to handle roughly at other tmes.

Coupling the Panama Canal dispute with the construction of a new Canal would offer both sides an escape from the current impasse; it could also reduce the unfortunate effects of Johnson's Latin American policies, and bolster the Organization of American States, which has suffered seriously from its unsuccessful attempts to mediate the controversy.

Lockless, Sea-Level Canal

A lockless, sea-level canal, blasted by buried atomic devices, may be feasible. It certainly is desirable for commercial and military reasons. Neither the larger merchant and passenger ships, nor the U.S. Navy's nuclear carriers will fit through the Panama Canal. Washington could offer to relinquish its sovereignty over the Canal Zone at the completion of a new canal or to renegotiate the 1903 Panama Canal Treaty, should a new canal not be operating within some agreed number of years--perhaps ten. This formula would permit Panama to say that it had won either renogotiation or the Canal itself and would protect Johnson politically by ending the current dispute wthout capitulation to Panama's demands.

If the construction and operation of the new Canal were directed by the OAS, the waterway would serve as more than a boon to shipping and a means of ending the persistent hassles caused by the Panama Canal. The United States would have to bear most of the costs, and would deserve most of the revenues. Provisions for military security might be hard to arrange, but would also be much less critical than they are at the Panama Canal, where a few sticks of dynamite could knock a lock out of operation for months.

The United States would sacrifice very little, economically or militarily, by making a sea-level canal an OAS project. The OAS would gain new authority and prestige. And a United States proposal for an OAS canal would help repair the damage done by last week's indications from Washington that democracy in this hemisphere is negotiable, while a sixty-year-old treaty is not.