Another Ditch?

Since Hiroshima, the U.S.'s fear for the safety of the Panama Canal has trebled and quadrupled. At the order of Congress, the Canal Zone's governor has prepared a six-volume report on how to protect the vital Atlantic-Pacific short cut from atomic bombs. Army Secretary Kenneth Royall, on the hunt for alternate canal routes, last winter flew all over the country between Colombia and the Tehuantepec Isthmus in Mexico.

Last week, to fill a gap in U.S. information, Royall announced a survey of the least known of the possible alternate routes--across the watersheds of the Atrato and Truando rivers in northwest Colombia. A joint U.S.-Colombian commission will start a full-dress survey within 60 days. The work will take about six weeks, will cost $150,000. The findings will be considered by the U.S. Congress when it gets around--perhaps next year--to redefining U.S. canal policy.

Congressman Willis Bradley, who regards himself as the canal expert of the House of Representatives, says the cost of a Colombian water-level (i.e., no locks) canal would be a "fantastic" $7 billion. The ditch would be 95 miles long, cut through a divide which is 932 feet above sea level (49 miles longer, 522 feet higher than a proposed sea-level route across Panama). Excavators would have to move 1,810,000,000 cubic yards of earth, compared to 1,069,000,000 in Panama. Secretary Royall wants fuller information. Besides, if the Colombia survey persuades Panama to change its mind and give the U.S. air bases, the survey will be well worth its cost.

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