The rights of sovereignty we hold in the Canal Zone are the foundation of our ability to remain there to operate and defend the canal;

The proposed treaties relinquish those rights and do not provide adequate guarantees against future threats to the canal;

Alternatives should be sought which recognize the aspirations of the Panamanian people, without compromising our ability to meet security requirements.

Thus, the treaties as proposed should not be ratified. Furthermore, it seems clear from legal opinions and historical precedent that the ratification process will require implementing legislation by the Congress.

Thank you again for inviting me to appear before vou.

RUMORS TO BE DISPELLED

Senator HOLLINGS. They are beginning to give. They see the unfairness and the un-American posture that they are now posing. They see it and they are beginning to feel it. They know now that it is not the title there.

Now we can jump to another very important point, Mr. Chairman, and I only heard this at lunch yesterday. It was said at the back table where several Senators eat, that President Carter was answering questions earlier this year in Mississippi, back in July. The connotation of it all was that without thinking he said that he might go somewhere else for a sea-level canal.

Now, after President Carter said that down in Mississippi, Panama actually called him on it, and the United States was pressured into signing a prohibition against negotiating a new canal anywhere else. That is what is said. That is absolutely ridiculous.

I would ask this committee to please get up work sheets on the economy, the military, the defense, the history, the new canal and all of the other issues so that Senators will disabuse themselves from that kind of nonsense. Just what are the facts, really?

Senator CASE. Did the President say that or is it alleged?

Senator HOLLINGS. That is what was said. He did say something in Mississippi about building a new sea-level canal elsewhere and that is when we were being pressured to make a multibillion dollar payment. It is good to bring that into perspective. In June, when they said that the President had already signed the treaty, or whatever, it was, and in July when he was talking in Mississippi, they were still asking for the billions.

But I talked to Mr. Moss, who negotiated this particular sessionincidentally, opponents know better. My distinguished senior colleague put into the record on July 17, 1967, the treaty of 1967, which called for a sea-level canal. Now he says that the American people wouldn't think of it. Why they agreed to it in principle 10 years ago. He got the treaty. He put it into the record.

Yesterday afternoon I had that, but I thought there might be something else. So I asked the CIA-since our distinguished Chairman here now headed up the intelligence investigation-the CIA came over in top secret form at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, almost with a guard, and said here, classified as "secret," is the 1967 treaty. Strom Thurmond made that public on July 17, 1967-10 years ago, and they are still running around with the "secret" treaty of 1967. [General laughter.]

I have never seen so many misstarts, bad rumors, and unfounded facts.

Senator CASE. What did you say the President said?

Senator HOLLINGS. The President was only referring to the fact that we might negotiate a sea-level route somewhere else.

Senator CASE. Down in Mississippi?

Senator HOLLINGS. Well, he was making the talk in Mississippi. I jumbled my metaphors, I guess. He was in Yazoo City.

Let's go to what we did. I came into this picture as a member of the Commerce Committee back in 1967. We were briefed then by former Secretary of the Navy-and by the way, this is a Navy man, Bob Anderson on the Panama Canal. He had also been Secretary of the Treasury under Eisenhower, but now he was working for Johnson. We commissioned an interoceanic canal study which reported to the Congress. We got what we asked for and then we act like we don't know anything.

This is obviously voluminous. I will read from page 63, when they begin analyzing the alternatives. They start, and I will quote: "The choice of a feasible sea-level canal excavated by conventional means is limited to routes 10 and 14." In the analysis it is limited to routes 10 and 14.

I have been on seminars at the Hudson Institute where we talked with a Mr. Pinero about the Colombia route. I talked with the authorities in Colombia on my last trip to Latin America. There is no question; they are not about to build a canal there. We know about Nicaragua and the cost there. At the time this report was made, in 1970, it was $2.8 billion for either of these routes in Panama; it was $11 billion through Nicaragua, not considering volcanoes and earthquakes there.

So, what we have in the Isthmus is a sole-source situation. We get that from our experience. We get that because the Congress asked for it, the Senate asked for it. There it is.

So, if you look at article XII, I think that is the one, in the treaty— not the neutrality treaty-article XII, section 1, about a sea-level canal. But what was added on at the last minute, was Mr. Moss, the negotiator would tell you, is that we were insisting that Panama not deal with anybody else. We knew that the best place was either route 10 or route 14. The maps, by the way, show one practically through the same area, with 14 and 10 over to one side about 5 miles, going across, by conventional means. The only time they really considered a route in Colombia was with nuclear means.

The "Communist" dictator Torrijos, whose name we supposedly don't mention and about whom they rant and rave, could go ahead right now with the People's Republic and build a new canal. The Chinese have built railroads in Tanzania. He could go with the Soviets. They would not mind putting a few billion bucks into this and having everybody with them. They would have all the trade and we would be left up here trying to subsidize an archaic, obsolete facility down there. We insisted that no new interoceanic canal shall be constructed in the territory of the Republic of Panama during the duration of this treaty, except in accordance with the provisions of this treaty, or as the two parties may otherwise agree.

Now, when we insisted on that, General Torrijos said that we would then have to put in section (b), "During the duration of this treaty the United States shall not negotiate with third states for the right to construct an interoceanic canal on any other route in the Western Hemisphere, except as the two parties may otherwise agree."

President Carter said that was fine business. The negotiators said that they had no trouble with that. We want the Panamanians tied down. Don't worry about us being tied down. We know we are not going to any other places to build. We have a study confirming that. So, we gladly signed this and it went to President Carter and he signed off on that.

Now there is another thing-and I am trying to be very quick. Now there is supposed to be a double agent who embarrassed us into signing an unfavorable treaty. I was about to send out my newsletter the other day, and I got the rumblings from the Intelligence Committee-really from the media-that everything was going to blow sky-high. There was a sergeant who was a double agent being paid off and they were using the information down in Panama to pressure us into the present treaty. I said to get five more sergeants, let them pressure it and we will continue to improve.

Look back to what we had in 1967, which we were ready to agree with, which was going to be recommended. There was no provision for a U.S. role after the year 2000.

Senator Sarbanes, this is very important, because you are talking about the military. Not only should their integrity, but their industry, be defended. In this place in the treaty, on article IV. I congratulated Ambassador Bunker. He said, "Don't congratulate me. Defense and the Joint Chiefs worked this one up."

That article IV of the neutrality treaty gives us the responsibility of militarily intervening to protect that neutrality or to protect that freedom of transit after the year 2000 permanently. We have permanently that right to militarily intervene.

We have it spelled out there.

Article V gives something additional. I constantly go home and hear that a few fuzzy Senators up in Washington with "Potomac fever" let this canal go so that the communists can come in, and Cuba can come in, and the Soviets can come in. Then I look at article V, prohibiting outside forces from going in. We don't have this under the present treaties. They can come in. Cuba can go into Panama right now, there is no law against that. So can the Soviets. It just so happens that they don't recognize the Soviets-they did negotiate, though only a communique resulted. It was not an agreement, a trade agreement. But if we are going to measure countries, our association is far more intimate. You can call the Government of the United States in Washington "communist" for all the meetings we have had here in the past week with Gromyko. The truth is that with article V we have additional protection that we did not have in the 1967 treaty. You see, we improved this treaty. This is how I can go along with this thing, coming from a very reluctant position of saying the same old thing about "owning it, building it, and not giving it away."

Senator CASE. There is nothing like a new convert. [General laughter.]

Senator HOLLINGS. That's right. Being a convert, I would rather have been wrong than to have been claimed a hypocrite.

Senator CASE. It is better to be right now than right then and wrong

now.

Senator HOLLINGS. That's right.

After the termination, article V of the Panama Canal Treaty says that only the Republic of Panama shall operate the canal-you see, there are no Cuban troops, Soviet advisers or anything like that-and, only the Republic of Panama shall maintain military forces, defense sites, and military installations within its national territory.

Those are two very, very important things that I have not found in the news media yet that improve upon the so-called treaty that we had back in 1967.

I will go on and quote the opponents-"The strategic deterrence that our presence in the canal area provides against communist initiatives in that part of the world will be lost," and that the Soviets are preparing to move in. Mind you me, they are preparing to move in under the present treaty. But I just read to you where they cannot move in under the new treaty after the year 2000.

POSSIBILITY OF U.S. MILITARY COMMITMENT

There is no use going down the whole list, such as the problem of weakening the national security, because General Brown has refuted that. I think it boils down to complaints that after the year 2000 we will be out completely, we will have lost control. It is a tripwire rationale that the only thing that we have that would make America commit is the presence of troops and that we would only move to protect our troops. That is the Vietnam syndrome-protecting the troops in Vietnam. Isn't it sad to come up here in the year 1977, after we thought we had finally gotten rid of that damn cancer in our political soul-Congress won't commit the military under the new treaties. They don't trust us.

I ask you, would Congress commit under the present treaty? What is a fair answer to that? Would Congress commit under the present treaty, or should Congress commit under the present treaty?

HISTORY U.S.A. MADE

We know what Wilson said, because they passed over it. "I will leave the history to others," they say. They don't like the historical record.

I mentioned earlier that we were all alumni of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and I can see now with eternal joy I am going to listen to everything and find out just exactly where our interest lies. As a Senator I have learned something-the next time we all go together-the President, Congress, and the people. If we insist on leaving the history to others that is the history that the dear, old USA made. It is not the Soviet Union. They are not even down there. Not Cuba-they are not down there either. This is a history that we made. It was made in the USA.

If ever there was a country you could put a stamp "Made in U.S.A." onto, this is it. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson said, "Our acquisition of the

Panama Canal Zone has been a scandal since the day of the fake revolution of November 3, 1903. In every country to the south of us we are distrusted, feared, and hated."

Now opponents have the audacity to talk today about blackmail.

I can go back to the Senator from South Carolina, "Pitchfork Ben Tillman" on page 801 in the 1904 Congressional Record. Let's see what my Senator thought of it at that particular time, and I am quoting Senator Tillman in 1904, at the time. People don't want to hear this history, they want to commit Americans to something that we are going to "lose control of" and here is what we have; they know they couldn't pass title as a lawyer, so let's see whether they could pass title as a citizen with any kind of conscience, and I quote Senator Tillman:

This government itself would occupy a much cleaner position in international law if we, after Colombia had failed to give us any treaty rights, then had said to her, get out of the road and let's build a canal. That would have been honorable and decent. But to get in the other attitude of obtaining a pretended claim there by the methods of a sneak thief and then defend it by the attitude of a bully is a disgraceful episode in American diplomacy.

That is what my Senator thought of it at the time. That is what they are talking about when they refer to "control now" or "title now." We say in equity that he who comes into equity must come with clean hands. And today they talk about blackmail.

We should just list what happened over the years, which we don't have in the record. It must be in the record.

From the very beginning, Mr. Chairman, we have to see who was blackmailing whom. We have to see the coercing of Panama into ratification. I will put that into the record.

I ask unanimous consent that a restatement of the law of contracts, under which coercion certainly doesn't make a contract, and we couldn't have had title, if we wanted to argue that, be inserted into the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

[Excerpt from chapter 16 of "Restatement of Contracts"]

§ 492. DEFINITION OF DURESS

Duress in the Restatement of this Subject means

(a) any wrongful act of one person that compels a manifestation of apparent assent by another to a transaction without his volition, or

(b) any wrongful threat of one person by words or other conduct that induces another to enter into a transaction under the influence of such fear as precludes him from exercising free will and judgment, if the threat was intended or should reasonably have been expected to operate as an inducement. Comment

a. Unlike fraud, duress does not depend on the intent of the person exercising it. Fraud may exist though it induces no conduct, but nothing is duress unless it causes fear or in rare cases simply compels action. Duress may consist of compulsion without the exercise of volition on the part of the person subjected to the duress, as where he is a mere mechanical instrument or wholly unaware of the nature of what he is doing. Duress of this type may be caused without threats and without fear (see § 494). Cases of such duress are rare. Much more commonly duress consists of threats that cause such fear as to induce the exercise of volition, so that an undesired act is done. In duress of the latter type neither the threats alone nor the fear alone is duress. The same threats may cause fear in one person and not in another. The test of what act or threat pro