1. Panama has stated again and again that nuclear explosives will not be used building any canal.

2. Without nuclear explosives, the cost of building a sea level would be between $40-60 billion of the American tax payers' dollars.

3. When this plunder is completed, all sovereignty would be with Panama and the U.S. would have no privileges except to further reduce its people to a state of poverty for the benefit of a one-world Marxist government under the United Nations.

An American Panama Canal Company employee, born in the Canal Zone, purchased a run-down resort in the mountains of northern Panama. This man and his wife spent all their offtime improving this property to be used as a retirement business and a service of a cool, healthy climate for those required to labor in the heat of the tropics. Using American ingenuity this man and his wife did a remarkable job rebuilding this resort. During the month of July 1977, while in the City of David to gather supplies, he was arrested at gun point by a Guardia policeman and a G-2 officer (equivalent to the KGB) and taken to police headquarters. His wife was ordered to remain in the car. She sat there for many hours in the hot sun not knowing what they were charged with or what was happening to her husband. At police headquarters this man was charged with not registering with the government while having foreign license plates on his car; these foreign plates were Canal Zone plates. At that point, a two-hour lecture was given by the Canal Zone officer, telling him that Panama was only for Panamanians and that he and all gringos would find it advisable to get off their mountain. The Volcan, and if they didn't they would all be burned out in a years' time. After this war over, he was told he would have to go into Panama City and post a bond to get his car and wife released. He made the 500 mile round trip by plane, returned with the bond and his wife and car were released.

While under custody, this man was told by known Guardia that on May Day General Omar Torrijos brought to the mountains the largest concentration of military equipment ever assembled in Panama and with the help of the communist student union wiped out all resistance in the once freedom-loving province of the Chequeree.

He was also told by the superintendent of schools in David, who is an old friend and who he met at the airport, that graduating high school students who wanted to further their education could go only to the University of Panama, Havana or Moscow. (A full report of these incidents are on file with the Panama Canal Company and I assume the State Department.)

The property has since been sold to Yugoslavan farmers on the mountan. These farmers are moving their families and valuable possessions out of the country of Panama in preparation of two years of warfare, which they feel is coming soon. Now, this is their opinion, not mine; all I know is they are going to great expense to protect what is theirs.

The crime rate in the coastal cities of Colon and Panama City at the time of the 1968 revolution was about the same as most cities in the world, yet when the new government took over, the first order of business was to make the streets safe for the people-and they did. I personally witnessed the police shoot and kill a known thief on a bus across the street from the YMCA in Colon. With this type of civic action, many of the people were convinced that this dictatorship was going to be different and would be good for the people.

The people were kept in this state long enough for the government, with the support of the American tax payer administered by our State Department, to completely control their lives and the education of their children. Then their true nature was shown and crime was left to run rampant. Fed by the mounting unemployment caused by the socialistic policies of the government, the people are in a constant state of fear, not only from the government, but from the lawless gangs that are allowed to roam freely through the streets.

Businesses are in a state of between depression and bankruptcy; robberies, knifings and murder have become the order of the day not only for Canal Zone citizens venturing into Panama, but for tourists, ships, crews, and Panamanians themselves.

Since the treaty was signed, a Police VW with a loud speaker has been going through the streets of Panama broadcasting day and night that the war is over, we have won the war, we have defeated the once great U.S. The U.S. is now weak,

they need us, we do not need them. To vote against the treaty will be considered an act of treason by the Panamanian government.

All Panamanian workers were required to attend the welcome home rally for General Torrijos or lose their work permit. They were given free buses.

When the final vote comes up for the Treaty, all Panamanians will be required to put the cedula number alongside their yes or no. A cedula is an identification number given to all Panamanians over 18 yeras of age. A ballot will be void without the cedula number. This is freedom of choice in Panama.

I want to thank you for allowing me as a citizen to express my views on this most important issue and I know with men like you my children shall have the same privilege.

PANAMA CANAL TREATIES

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1977

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room 318, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John Sparkman (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Sparkman, Church, Pell, McGovern, Clark, Stone, Sarbanes, Case, Javits, Percy, and Baker.

OPENING STATEMENT

The CHAIRMAN. Let the committee come to order, please. We are meeting this morning to receive additional testimony on the proposed Panama Canal agreements. During the last 3 weeks the committee has devoted 11 days-including today-to its consideration of the Panama treaties. During this period we have heard and will hear from a total of 59 witnesses, including 16 executive branch witnesses, 14 witnesses from Congress and 29 outside experts and public witnesses.

As promised, the committee has endeavored to compile a full and complete hearing record.

Turning now to the business at hand this morning, we are very pleased and honored to have with us two former Secretaries of State, the Honorable Dean Rusk and the Honorable Henry Kissinger. They are extremely busy men. We deeply appreciate the time they have agreed to give us this morning in presenting their views on these very important but highly controversial treaties.

Without further ado, I think we should proceed.

Who wishes to be first?

Mr. RUSK. That is up to you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. We have heard Secretary Kissinger more recently than we have heard you. We will yield to seniority.

STATEMENT OF HON. DEAN RUSK, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE

Mr. RUSK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am delighted to be here.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me say, Mr. Secretary, members have copies of your statement and will most likely follow it very closely as you present it.

You

may proceed as you see fit.

Mr. RUSK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I may eliminate in my oral presentation a few sentences here and there in the interest of time, but I am especially glad to be here with my esteemed and distinguished friend, Henry Kissinger.

The fact that we are here together is a reminder that four Presidents and four Secretaries of State, of both political parties, have been closely involved in the negotiations which have led to the documents now before you for your consideration under the Constitution. Other Presidents in this postwar period have also felt the pressures for a change in the status quo originated by the treaty of 1903.

My remarks will be relatively brief and will consist of the two or three main considerations which led me to support the proposed treaties with Panama. Since you are exercising a solemn constitutional responsibility, you will necessarily go into every aspect of these treaties in great detail; but, as a private citizen, I propose simply to point to those aspects of the problem which seem to me to be decisive in forming my own opinion.

1903 TREATY OUTDATED

I begin with the conviction that the treaty of 1903, as amended, offers a very fragile platform on which to try to stand in these closing decades of the 20th century. In the mid-1960's, during and after the tragic riots in Panama, it became apparent to us that history had overtaken the status quo in Panama and that a new relationship would have to be found if our vital interests in the operation and safety of the canal were to be assured. Here I do not rest upon the murky circumstances surrounding the secession of Panama from Colombia and the conclusion of the treaty with Mr. Bunau-Varilla, a citizen of France with uncertain credentials as a representative of Panama. It is a fascinating story with a colorful cast of characters.

But I see little point in our now wearing sackcloth and ashes over what our grand fathers did in another historical era, when what happened in most of the world was determined by decisions made or not made in a handful of Western capitals. We should not, however, be under the illusion that those events could stand the test of modern standards of treatymaking.

The 1903 treaty seemed to me to take its place alongside the so-called unequal treaties which certain Western powers imposed upon China in the 19th century and the capitulations which gave certain powers extraterritorial rights in the Ottoman Empire. Even if we had acquired absolute title to the Canal Zone, which we did not, the general international policy and practice of decolonization would have rendered the status quo in Panama untenable.

VIENNA CONVENTION ON LAW OF TREATIES

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties is now pending before your committee and your action upon it has been delayed for reasons well known to you. I would suppose, however, that the contents of that convention already apply to the United States and to other nations since the convention simply codifies established rules of customary international law.