nity to negotiate with other nations for the right to construct an interoceanic canal in the Western Hemisphere.

In summary, I am convinced the proposed Panama Canal treaties:

First. Are totally inadequate in protecting the economic and defense interests of the United States;

Second. Would be very costly to the American taxpayer;

Third. Would surrender sovereignty over an extremely important international waterway and;

Fourth. Would deny to the United States the right to negotiate with any countries other than Panama for the construction of an inter-oceanic canal.

While the Foreign Relations Committee will hold hearings on the proposed treaties, it is vitally important that the Senate Armed Services Committee hold full hearings on the defense and security aspects of these treaties. I have strongly urged that such hearings be held.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

(Routine morning business transacted and additional statements submitted are printed later in today's Record.)

PANAMA CANAL TREATIES

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, on September 8, 1977, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Separation of Powers conducted the third in a series of hearings it has scheduled to investigate constitutional and other issues related to the proposed Panama Canal treaties. As chairman, I opened the hearing with a statement which addressed my concern, and the concern of the overwhelming majority of Alabamians, over provisions of the treaties and over the ultimate effect they would have on the security of our country.

Mr. President, I believe these treaties are among the most important issues ever to come before the U.S. Senate. Certainly it is the most important single issue that the Senate has faced since I have been a Member. It is an issue that must be, and will be, debated at length, and all of the arguments must be clearly made and understood, not only by Senators but by all Americans. So that Senators may know of my position, I ask unanimous consent that my opening statement at the September 8 hearing be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

.STATEMENT OF SENATOR JAMES B. ALLEN

The Subcommittee on Separation of Powers is convened this morning to continue the Subcommittee's_investigation of Constitutional issues arising out of the new proposed Panama Canal Treaty. I am certain that most of those present this morning are aware of the central Constitutional issue under investigation; however, perhaps I should again reiterate the proposition which is the focal point of this inquiry.

Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution of the United States provides that Congress "shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." The power given to Congress in that clause appears to be exclusive and, if it is an exclusive power, then the Executive is prohibited from entering into a treaty disposing of U.S. territory except with express Congressional authorization, that is, au

thorization by both Houses of Congress in addition to Senate approval through the treaty ratification process.

Additionally, members of the Subcommittee are also deeply concerned that the Executive Department has reached certain financial agreements with the Panamanians for substantial financial assistance outside of the context of the provisions of the treaty itself. These financial agreements, if not embodied in the treaty, will not be subjected to the normal treaty ratification process which would otherwise be the

case.

The Subcommittee has further learned that the Congressional appropriations process itself may in large measure be circumvented in the implementation of proposed financial arrangements with Panama but that nevertheless substantial sums of money are proposed to be made available to Panama by unilateral Executive Branch action. The Subcommittee_will therefore diligently continue to seek testimony on the full intentions of the Executive Department with respect to separately negotiated financial and banking arrangements with the Republic of Panama. Finally, in continuing its work the Subcommittee will seek to determine the extent to which the operative provisions of the Executive Department proposal are embodied in the executive agreements rather than in actual treaty language. There are, of course, in fact two treaties-the proposed Panama Canal Treaty itself and an additional treaty which purports to provide for the neutrality of the Panama Canal. Unfortunately, these treaties are in no way to be construed as the whole agreement. Both treaties are accompanied by very lengthy executive agreements which actually contain the substance of the deal struck with Panama. These executive agreements, once implemented, would be subject to renegotiation-and we find this astonishing-every two years.

This Subcommittee, I am sure, shares a concern of many that Congress will relinquish forever any control over this country's relation with the Republic of Panama if the Executive Department is authorized to enter into a plenary relation with Panama based not, in reality, on treaty law but rather based on executive agreements authorized by treaty law but subject to change at the whim of the Executive. In short, the Subcommittee wishes to establish by its inquiry the extent to which the Executive would be given a blank check by the new proposed treaties to amend, interrupt, abrogate, or replace entirely the lengthy accompanying substantive executive agreements.

I have just returned from Alabama where in the course of the August recess I met with citizens in 37 counties. These meetings were held in most instances at the County Court House; they were widely announced and well attended. One topic was invariably raised. Notwithstanding drought, unemployment, inflation, high energy prices, low farm prices, and a host of other subjects which could easily have been foremost in mind, virtually every group I encountered wished to know the answer to one question-would the United States, in fact, give away the Panama Canal Zone? Of the thousands I spoke with, almost no one favored a policy of surrender in Panama.

Many are saying that the people need education and that with education they will come to support the giveaway of the American Canal in Panama. In my judgment, the true state of affairs is the exact opposite. Further knowledge will only strengthen the resolve of the people, and in my judgment, our all-wise federal establishment could itself well stand some education from the American citizen who has the wisdom to see the obvious fact that the Panama Canal is vital to the economic stability and military security of the United States . . . from the American citizen who has the common sense to recognize the lunacy of paying billions to an unstable pro-Marxist dictatorship for taking over billions in property belonging to the United States... from the American citizen who has the clarity of thought to see the reality behind the sham, the shell game, and the traveling medicine show that has passed for an open discussion of the actual provisions of this proposed new arrangement with Panama.

Perhaps, however, Americans do need education in the fine points of the Panama Canal Treaty. That education has been hard to come by of late because throughout the treaty negotiations a veil of secrecy prevented any useful information being made available either to the public or, in large measure, to the Congress. Perfunctory briefings containing no real substance and seeking no advice, to be sure, were conducted. However, until yesterday most of the information this Subcommittee has been able to obtain on the new Treaty has come from translations of speeches made by the Panamanian negotiators in Panama.

By that method we have learned that the Panamanians expect to receive during the next 23 years at least $2.262 billion in cash payments from the United States. The Department of the Treasury, when its representative testified, was apparently

unable to advise the Committee of the substance of any negotiations whatsoever with Panama, yet we could read from translated Panamanian documents that the Export-Import Bank plans to lend Panama $200 million, that the Agency for International Development is to guarantee and no doubt pay off-housing loans in the amount of $75 million, and that the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation is to guarantee $20 million in loans for a new Panamanian development bankeveryone else has a bank in Panama, why shouldn't the Panamanians?

Finally, the Committee has learned not from the Department of Defense but from the Panamanians that $50 million in military aid would be provided to prop up and guarantee the continuance of the military dictatorship now oppressing the people of the Republic of Panama.

But now that the proposed Panama Canal Treaty and neutrality treaty have finally been made public, there are disclosed even more items about which the American citizen should be educated. The American citizen should learn that in addition to all the other massive payments to be made to the Republic of Panama, as the ultimate insult, it is proposed that we pay to the Republic of Panama $10 million a year for providing police services within the territory which would be ceded to Panama. We hope that during his education the American citizen will share our own disbelief and outrage that our great country proposes to cede United States territory to Panama and then to pay Panama for performing the normal functions of government within that same land.

We hope, too, that the American citizen will soon learn that out of 14 military bases now in the Canal Zone, only 4 would remain after implementation of this Treaty and that the 4 retained bases would be under direct Panamanian civil and political jurisdiction, subjecting thereby our Armed Forces to the dictatorial rule of the present Panamanian government. And although it is true that a status of forces agreement will provide some marginal protection to U.S. soldiers in the Canal Zone, the American citizen should learn that in essence our forces will be made subject to a code of laws based on the autocratic rule of one man and devoid of any Constitutional safeguards even remotely resembling those precious American rights now enjoyed within the Canal Zone.

Yes, there is much to learn about this proposal. Does the average citizen now know that the American flag will not be permitted to be flown in a place of honor, even at our military installations, and, according to the speeches of the Panamanian negotiators, will be permitted at our own bases only when inside and when displayed jointly with a Panamanian flag in the position of honor. Perhaps this latter point is trivial, but it typifies this entire proposed agreement our flag in a broom closet and our vital Canal at the mercy of a banana republic.

...

So, the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers does intend to continue its investigation of these issues to insure that all the facts are made available both to the Congress and to the people. We will be, I am sure, greatly aided in our efforts by the witnesses scheduled to appear at today's hearings.

[From the Congressional Record-Senate, Sept. 14, 1977]

PANAMA CANAL TREATIES

Mr. CRANSTON. Mr. President, I spent some time this morning personally preparing some material in the form of remarks Ĭ wanted to make at this point in the Senate's proceedings dealing with the principal charge that has been brought against the Panama Canal Treaty relating to allegations that we are being blackmailed by Panama and that we are faced with a threat of violence if the treaty is by any chance not ratified by the Senate.

PANAMA: THE SPECTER OF VIOLENCE

Mr. President, the most clear-cut and devastating response I have yet seen to the "blackmail" and "violence" charges that have been raised against the Panama Canal Treaties was made by Tom Wicker in yesterday's New York Times.

The fact is that the specter of violence, and the predictions that violence will erupt in Panama if the treaties are rejected, have been raised not by responsible Panamanians but by Americans. President Torrijos has specifically rejected violence. The following exchange took place at a news conference in Panama on August 26:

QUESTION. If the United States Senate does not ratify the treaty, what is the road to follow?

Answer by President Torrijos. The possibility does exist. It must be taken into consideration as one thing that could happen. That possibility would have to be interpreted as the greatest provocation in this struggle. And, in view of that possibility, we must have ready another type of answer, not a violent one.

My attendance at events connected with the signing of the treaties last week in Washington gave me an opportunity to question Panamanian officials, and American officials who know Panama intimately, about the blackmail and violence charges.

I asked them where violence would come from-if it did-in the event that the treaties were rejected by the Senate. The common response went this way:

The violence would not be instigated by responsible leaders in Panama, in or out of the Torrijos government.

If it came, it would probably start in one of two ways.

Either Panamanian students-whose demonstrations in the sixties led to the effort by the Johnson Administration to negotiate a new treaty with Panamawould launch new demonstrations leading, in the emotionalism and the excitement, to a march on the Canal Zone; leading to an effort by the U.S. military to prevent their entry, leading to confrontation and quite possibly to the shooting and the death of Panamanian students; leading on to a collision of unforeseeable dimensions.

Or a single Panamanian-with or without any fellow conspirators-would penetrate the Canal Zone and sabotage the Canal-an action that the American military acknowledges it would be hard-put to prevent, an action that could close down the Canal for a very substantial period of time. This act could be executed by one aroused, fanatical Panamanian, motivated by revenge, or by a desire to become a national hero or martyr, or by any other purpose imaginable or beyond imagination. It is this sort of self-starting, spontaneous violence that, I believe, American proponents and opponents of the treaties alike really envisage and anticipate if the treaties were rejected by the Senate. It is hardly the stuff of blackmail, lacking the faintest connection, spoken or unspoken, direct or indirect, with the Government

of Panama and the representatives of that Government with whom Ambassadors Bunker and Linowitz have been negotiating.

I am about to place the Wicker column in the Record, but I wish to point out that I am omitting two brief parts of it as I submit it. Two sentences refer to two Senate opponents of the treaties, and I am striking those two sentences out.

One sentence refers to the cost to President Carter of Senate rejection of the treaties. I am dropping this to avoid any hint of partisanship in my action of inserting Wicker's column in the Record, and because what is important is not the cost of rejection to Carter but the cost of rejection to our country.

Whether the treaties are approved or disapproved is more a test of the Senate than of the President. It seems to me that the President and his negotiating team have already accomplished a very great deal in two respects: By bringing to a swift conclusion negotiations that dragged on inconclusively and fruitlessly through three preceding administrations representative of both of our major political parties, and by persuading Panama to accept a far smaller payment than she had for so very long demanded so strenuously.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my slightly abbreviated version of Tom Wicker's extraordinarily fine column from the September 13 New York Times appear at this point in the Record. There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

OUT ON A LIMB

(By Tom Wicker)

If opposition to the new Panama Canal treaties is really going to become an organized effort of the American right, then conservatives are taking themselves far out on a limb all too likely to be sawed off behind them. Hanging on to the Canal may be a splendid whoop-it-up political issue now and in next year's elections, but what if conservatives actually defeat the treaties?

Ronald Reagan, the principal spokesman of the anti-treaty movement, predicted on a recent ABC-TV program, for instance, that if the treaties were ratified the Panamanian government would seize control of the canal just as Egypt took the Suez Canal from the British and the French.

With all due respect to Mr. Reagan, whose opposition to "giving up" the canal was an outspoken part of his Presidential campaign, this position doesn't make much sense. It's true enough that the Panamanian government might seize the canal if the treaty is ratified; but it's all but certain that Panama will seize it if the treaty is not ratified.

Mr. Reagan's point is misleading, anyway, because he and other well-informed conservative leaders know that it is Panama-not the Soviet Union, not Cuba, not China-that is the major threat to the current status of the canal. They must know this because of their repeated contention that the United States should not have negotiated the treaties "under duress" from its negotiating partner.

But if it's true to say that the treaty has been forced on the United States by the demands of Panamanians for greater control of their own territory and of a waterway that bisects that territory, it's an attempt to have it both ways to say that once the treaty has been ratified as demanded, the Panamanians will seize the canal anyway.

Elementary logic makes it obvious, instead, that if the Senate rejects the treaties now, an explosion of anger and frustration in Panama would result in rioting, sabotage, guerrilla warfare, leading inexorably either to Panamanian seizure of the canal or to a long, costly, losing American military effort to hang on to it.

In such a struggle, the Panamanians would have the full support-at least on the surface of virtually every Latin American nation, certainly including Cuba. What better way to bring Castro into the Canal Zone, an eventuality Mr. Reagan and