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Show The Paper That Dares To Take V. A Stand August 18, 1977 The Utah Independent Page 7 Adm. M. W. Cagle, VSN (Ret.) Public Brainwashed On Canal Giveaway The American public is being conditioned for a Panama Canal giveaway by a mixture of history distortion and omission. When the Panama Canal problem is described or discussed today, the case for a giveaway treaty usually goes like this. In 1903, the United and convince the American people that our governments actions 74 years ago were terribly unfair and that we must now correct a gross miscarriage of justice. Hence a new treaty is in order. States, playing ereignty issue which is hotly debated to this day. Did our 1903 treaty with Panama give the United States sovereignty or not? And is sovereignty important in 1977? To many who favor a new treaty and to those conducting negotiations, the matter of sovereignty has already been conceded by the United States. Certainly the Panamanian President, Brigadier General Omar Torrijos, believes the sovereignty issue is no longer in question. The Panamanian attitude is that the original 1903 treaty never gave total sovereignty to the United States. Moreover, they say, the February 7, 1974 Statement of Principles between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Panamanian Foreign Minister Tack has already conceded the sovereignty matter. Principle 2 of the Kissinger - Tack statement says, "The concept of perpetuity will be eliminated; carry-a-bigstic- The contrary vereignty is equally strong particularly in the Congress. Article II Of the treaty witfy Panama "grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone of land under water (10 miles wide). Article III grants to the United States all of the "rights, power and authority" described in Article II which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory (the Zone) to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republicn of Panama of any such sovereign rights. The linchpin of the 1903 treaty was sovereignty. And it is the sov- k acted illegally and with larcenous intent to incite a Panamanian revolution against Colombia, dispatched U.S. ships to the scene to prevent Colombia from opposing the uprising, and then recognized the new Republic of Panama within hours of its establishment. To make our conduct more reprehensible, the United States hastily concluded a highly advantageous treaty with the infant nation of Panama which was written by a French citizen and in which the Panamanian leaders did not participate. To support this warped rendition of history, the boastful statement of President Theodore Roosevelt is always quoted, I took it. A few months ago. Senator Hayakawa, during his election campaign, often quipped, "We stole it fair and square. A prominent and respected South American journalist, James Wilson Goodsell of The Christian Science Monitor, consistently writes that the United States never has had sovereignty in the Canal Zone, only jurisdiction and use. And very recently a New York Times editorial aid, "We stole it and removed the incriminating evidence from the history books. politics, Principle 3 Panama, having original sovereignty over the area, relinquished sovereignty title and rights in perpetuity to the United States. Making that treaty more binding, the June 15, 1904 Davis Arias Boundary Agreement referred to the Zone as territory ceded" to the United States. Indeed, the word ceded appears 4 times in the Agreement. In 1907 the U.S. Supreme Court (Wilson v. Shaw, 204 U.S. 24) said in a unanimous decisions: A treauty with it (Panama) ceding the Canal Zone was duly ratified 33 Stat. 2234. Congress has passed several actions based on the title of the United States..." Quoting Articles II and III, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded, It is hypocritical to contend that the title of the United States is imperfect, and that the territory described does not belong to this nation because of the states, in part, "Termination of United States jurisdiction over Panama shall take place promptly..."; and Principle 4 states, also in part, "The Republic of Panama, in its capacity as territorial sovereign... (emphasis supplied). Much of the U.S. press assumes the U.S. does not have sovereignty over the Panama Canal. This bombardment of distortion seeks to condition and half-trut- omission of some of the technical terms used in ordinary conveyances of real estate. h Rep . George Hansen THE PANAMA GIVEAWAY while the air force has only about 200 men and 33 aircraft most of which are cargo planes and helicopters. This is the military force which American liberals have been warning will take over the Canal Zone unless we give it to them! We hope the subcommittee on the Separation of Powers was listening closely. We believe it was, because of who is on it: Sen. James Allen .) is the chairman. The members include William Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr. L. Scott Orrin Hatch and James Eastland (D-Ala- (I-Va- .), (R-Uta- h), (R-Va- .), (D-Miss- .). addi- The subcommittee planning tional hearings after its August recess. now and then perhaps Between is Senators Byrd and Scott will take notice of the article on the Panama Canal on this page. It was written by Vice Admiral Malcolm W. Cagle, USN (Ret.), who now makes his home in Nelson County, and was recently named to Lynchburg College s Board of Overseers. ' A New Panama Canal? billion in taxpayers money. Now the Panamanians are demanding that we pay them an additional $5 billion for the privilege of turning the Canal Zone over to them, making a total of $12 billion. Now Presi- dent Carter proposes spending approximately an additional $5 billion to build another canal in Nicaragua or Panama! That is $17 billion to get something which we already have and with firmer guarantees. believe that the current wheeling and dealing over the Panama Canal and the proposed new sea level canal is a cleverly contrived fraud designed to benefit I Finally, the 1936 rewrite of the Treaty signed by Panama reemphasized the United States' complete legal and political control and its exclusive right to possession in perpetuity. Even so, the debate over sovereignty rages on. Proponents of a new treaty say that the original $10,000,000 paid to Panama was not for purchase but compensation for rights, power and authority the United States would exercise in the Canal Zone. To them, the 1903 treaty is an anachronism and a source of friction that must be put right. Not so. say the opponents. The Canal Zone and the Canal are constitutionally acquired United States territory which are the property of the United States paid for and developed by the United States. Moreover, Dr. Kissinger exceeded his authority by his 1974 "Principles of Agreement. Why this legal fuss over sovereignty? Those now writing a new treaty, believe that sovereignty is not essential to our present and future U.S. needs and that sovereignty is not essential to defense of the Canal. The opponents of a new treaty, who want to keep the Canal, believe that without sovereignty the Canal can neither be efficiently operated nor defended, and if sovereignty is bargained away, the Canal will be nationalized in a matter of time and subject to Communist takeover later. (R-Idah- o): I am thoroughly distrubed by President Carter's remarks last Thursday night in his town meeting in Yazoo City, Miss., concerning the building of a new transoceanic sea level canal in Panama or Nicaragua. The President's comments were a shock to fiscal responsibility. At the present, (his administration is conducting negotiations with the Republic of Panama aimed at the disposal of American property which has already cost the United States $7 Mr. Speaker. opinion on so- big international corporations by a ripoff of the American taxpayer. The administration's panic for an early treaty to autorize the giveaway of the Panama Canal is nothing more than a blatant attempt to bail out a number of big international banks who desperate- ly want financially troubled Panama's assets shored up to protect large loans which are soon due to mature. The President cannot "have his cake and' eat it too," on one hand stating that our relations with Panama demand that we withdraw and on the other hand stating that we need a large new canal in Panama or Nicaragua. The big multinational corporations will benefit by the $5 billion new canal and the big banks will be well taken care of if they can get the American taxpayers to shell out the $5 billion currently demanded by Panama for taking over the old canal- -a move which according to the preliminary results of a current council for security national America poll strongly opposes. Inter-America- n Money Manipulators The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest, colonial money freed the which system, ordinary man from the clutches of the (money) manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution. If you do not exclude them (manipulators) from these United States, in this Constitution, in less than 200 years they will dominate and devour the land and change our form of government. In less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses (banks), rubbing their hands. I warn you , gentlemen, if you do not exclude them for all time your children will curse you in your graves "Ben Franklin |