Dig We Must

President Johnson last week took a step that U.S. policymakers have been talking about for years. "This government," he said at a White House press conference, "has completed an intensive review of policy toward the present and future of the Panama Canal. On the basis of this review, I have reached two decisions. First, that the United States should press forward with Panama and other interested governments in plans and preparations for a sea-level canal in this area. Second, I have decided to propose to the government of Panama the negotiation of an entirely new treaty on the existing Panama Canal."

Wonder of the World. The need for a new canal is growing desperate. In the 50 years since U.S. Army engineers carved the present seaway out of the Panamanian jungle, the canal has proved one of the wonders of the world. Today some 50% of Japan's exports to the West pass through the canal; such South American nations as Ecuador, Peru and Chile depend on it for between 75% and 90% of their total imports and exports. But ships have slowly outgrown the intricate network of three lock systems that carry them across the hump of the isthmus, and trade is expanding far beyond the canal's capacity to handle it. Over the last ten years, commercial traffic has climbed from 36 million tons annually to almost 65 million tons. Today, some ships lie to for 15 hours or more awaiting their turn. The biggest tankers and aircraft carriers cannot squeeze through at all. With the trend to bigger and bigger ships, the canal will be obsolete altogether by the year 2000.

Johnson mentioned four possible sites --all of them publicly discussed on earlier occasions--for a sea-level canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific without need of locks. One is a 95-mile route in northwest Colombia, another a 168-mile route slicing through Costa Rica and Nicaragua: the remaining two are in Panama itself--one running 60 miles through the southern Darien wilderness and the other, the present 51-mile waterway, which would need considerable widening and deepening to eliminate the locks. Johnson gave no hint as to which route the U.S. preferred, saying only, "I have asked the Secretary of State to begin discussions immediately with all the governments concerned."

Presumably, the State Department will sound out each government to see if it does or does not want a canal, then negotiate a series of treaties with them that will permit the U.S. to make a thorough study of the possibilities. The test borings and surveys would take about four years. Once a route is decided upon and a final treaty written, construction will get underway. If possible, the U.S. would like to use nuclear explosives to dig the trench. Nukes are faster than dynamite, run one-tenth the cost, and would hold the price for the Colombia canal to $1.2 billion, the Nicaragua-Costa Rica canal to $1.24 billion, or the southern Panama route to $500 million.

Nuclear techniques are obviously impossible in the present densely populated Canal Zone. Bypassing the locks and widening the main Gaillard Cut by conventional methods would cost about $2 billion, would require shutting down the canal for only twelve days over the entire construction span. Whichever route is chosen, a new sea-level canal could be ready for operation within 10 years from the day that work starts.

A Time to Negotiate. The sticking point, of course, is what kind of a treaty the U.S. can write for control, operation and defense of a new canal. The Panama Canal made Panama a nation. Yet for years Panamanians have railed against the 1903 treaty, which gives the U.S. "sovereignty in perpetuity" over the ten-mile-wide Canal Zone, demanding a bigger share of the revenues, and more control of both the canal and the zone. Last January's anti-Yankee riots, which left 26 dead (including three U.S. G.l.s) showed how deep the passions go. The U.S., as Johnson said last week, is now willing to rewrite the 1903 treaty for the remaining life of the present canal, striking out the hated word sovereignty and giving Panama most of what else it wants, but insisting on some form of iron-clad U.S. control.

How those negotiations go may well determine the shape of the treaties for a new canal--and whether or not the U.S. decides to build in Panama. Both Costa Rica and Colombia reacted enthusiastically to the prospect of a canal on their territory. No one seems to understand that better than Panama's recently inaugurated President Marcos Robles. On TV last week, he told his people of President Johnson's "transcendental" announcement and "the happy prospects on this historic day for our nation."

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