Operation Friendship

As 5,000 spectators watched and bands played, the Panamanian and U.S. flags rose last week for the first time, side by side, on newly set, identical poles over a Canal Zone plaza. Thus fulfilled was President Eisenhower's order to give evidence of Panama's "titular sovereignty" over the zone. Nationalist Rabble-Rouser Aquilino Boyd, who led last November's anti-American riots, expressed "jubilation."

The flag raising will not end all friction. Even at last week's ceremony, 30 Panamanian high school students waved signs and chanted: "Our aspirations have been mocked." Panama will certainly soon renew demands for a larger cut of canal revenues.

Some U.S. citizens, especially colonial-minded oldtime civilian employees of the Panama Canal Co., were as dissatisfied as the Panamanian demonstrators. "The sight of a representative of the U.S. handing our capitulation notice to another country made me want to puke," said one. Yet a quiet movement toward international friendship is afoot on the isthmus, and its patron is a powerful one: the commanding officer of the U.S. Army Caribbean, Major General Theodore F. Bogart, 55. Lanky General Bogart got to know and like Panama when he was stationed there as a lieutenant in 1941. Now, as the man who might have to order U.S. troops to fire on Panamanians if violence threatens, he is sponsoring a remarkable Operation Friendship, using his troops to stage events that bring together Panamanians and Americans. Samples:

P: A two-day jazz festival in the Fort Kobbe service club, where 134 musicians and 1,900 spectators from the zone and Panama got together.

P: A series of basketball and volleyball games between teams from the 517th Artillery and the Yankee-baiting University of Panama. The Army sent buses to transport the teams and fans from Panama, then entertained them at after-game parties.

P: A tour of the University of Panama by U.S. servicemen.

Intransigence on both sides could bring new riots on Nov. 3, Panamanian Independence Day. But General Bogart has already proved that behind angry faces there is a big reservoir of ordinary human friendship on the isthmus.

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