Assignment:
How could such a good cause get into so much trouble? The Panama Canal treaty, which gradually cedes U.S. control over the waterway to Panama by the year 2000, is nothing if not reasonable and conciliatory. It is a commonsense solution to a nagging, decades-old problem-one that has damaged U.S. relations not with an enemy but with a relatively good neighbor. Yet opposition has grown so intense that while the treaty is expected to be approved by a plebiscite in Panama this week, it is still in considerable trouble in the U.S. Senate.
Ronald Reagan almost accidentally discovered, during his bid for the G.O.P. presidential nomination last year, that the canal aroused high passions. Coming so soon after the U.S. retreat from Viet Nam, the question of giving up the waterway became inextricably entangled with the matter of American strength and pride-of patriotism v. surrender. Yet for all the opposition, the pact has the backing of a very wide spectrum of informed opinion, including conservatives like Bill Buckley and John Wayne. Four successive Presidents-Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and now Jimmy Carter-have backed negotiations and pushed them along.
Faults may be found with an imperfect document in a not so perfect world, but its basic realism has not been questioned by those with some familiarity with the issue. Why, then, the rancorous debate? Says former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who testified on behalf of the pact: "A mistake was made in the beginning of the debate. We began to ball up our fists at each other without knowing what it is we were fighting about."
Some of the bare-knuckled opponents, of course, are less interested in the facts than in the fight; indeed, they welcome it. Much of the political right sees in the Panama Canal the ideal issue to rally the troops, gain recruits and make a political comeback. Conservative-financed literature is popping up everywhere, and members of Congress concede they are influenced by the torrent of anti-treaty mail because there is so little on the other side; The treaty, like many worthy foreign policy enterprises, lacks an organized constituency.
Nevertheless, the canal issue is fraught with risk for conservatives. If the treaty is ratified, they are losers; if it is rejected and the canal is disrupted by violence, they are probably still losers, since their plans for a comeback could well collapse in a fire storm of recriminations.
The treaty's supporters have made a number of blunders. Battling on too many other fronts, the Carter Administration let the opposition get the jump on it by waiting too long to start educating grass-roots America on the intricacies of the treaty. Further, the White House's handling of Congress was not as adroit as it might have been. Carter's aide Hamilton Jordan complained of the Senate: "Some of those bastards don't have the spine not to vote their mail. If you change their mail, you change their mind." Senator Clifford Case, a New Jersey Republican who is sympathetic toward the treaty, coldly replied that such a remark was not ''helpful."
It may not be helpful, either, to overemphasize the guilt factor in giving up the canal. To be sure, the U.S. acquired the canal territory in a grandly imperialistic manner in 1903, and the waterway remains one of the last, most prominent vestiges of the colonial era. As Senator S.I. Hayakawa put it, not altogether whimsically, "We stole it fair and square." But it can be argued that ever since the canal was opened for business in 1914, the U.S. has more than made up for its initial land grab.
It has managed the canal in an openhanded manner, allowing access to all the world's shipping, including that of Communist nations. It has deliberately kept fees and tolls as low as possible. Says David McCullough, author of The Path between the Seas, a meticulous history of the canal's construction: "The fact is no power on earth could have done what we did. We've done a lot of small, stupid things in the Canal Zone over the years, but we've never done anything operating the canal that we need be ashamed of." With considerable reason, Americans can relinquish control of the great ditch out of a sense of pride-magnanimity combined with good sense.
Amid all the rhetorical smoke surrounding the canal treaty, people are understandably confused about the hard facts-and realities. Some key questions about the pact and what its approval would mean:
Q.1 How important is the Panama Canal for the U.S.?
Q.2 What claim does Panama have to the canal?
Q.3 Can Panama run the canal as well as the U.S.?
Q.4 Can the U.S. intervene militarily to protect the canal once Panama is in control?
Q.5 What if the U.S. fails to ratify the treaty?
Q.6 If the U.S. does not ratify the treaty, can it protect the canal from violence?