150. Despatch From the Ambassador in Colombia (Bonsal) to the Department of State1
REFERENCE
- Department’s Circular Instruction No. CA–1281, August 9, 19562
SUBJECT
- The Panama Canal in the Light of the Suez Crisis
I have read the above reference circular and the enclosed material with great interest and am glad to have this background material on a subject of such immediate importance. The following comments suggest themselves:
It is perhaps a minor point but it seems to me that the reference on page 4 of the memorandum to Panama’s “transformation from a miserably misgoverned and backward province of Colombia” is [Page 299] somewhat infelicitous in a memorandum “the substance of the information” contained wherein “may be made available if requested.”
The impression which the memorandum gives me is that the United States stakes its position, first, on the correctness of our interpretation of Article III of the Treaty of 1903 and, second, on the fact that “Panama is obviously in no position to challenge our position in the Canal Zone by threat of force.” It seems to me that the example of Egypt should indicate to us that these are rather weak reeds on which to lean. It is not the fact that Panama has “a national guard of only 2500 ill-equipped men” which is going to decide the effectiveness of Panamanian opposition to our control of the Canal in the unhappy event that this issue should become acute. It would be rather the ability of our enemies in Panama and elsewhere to mobilize against us the opinions and the actions of a large proportion of the one million people of Panama, most of whom live in what the memorandum describes as the “teeming slums” of Panama and Colón.
I am sure the Department is aware that our problem in Panama calls for a considerably higher order of statesmanship than mere reliance on the relationship between the United States Armed Forces in the area on the one hand, and the Panamanian National Guard on the other, or on our, no doubt correct, interpretation of a treaty signed 53 years ago with a country which, although it tends ungratefully to forget it, at that time “owed its very existence as an independent republic” to the United States. I would also suggest that we would hardly wish to rest our case in discussing this matter with our friends in the other American republics on these points.
I know from experience that it is an irritating and frustrating experience to deal with the Panamanians on Canal matters. I was involved in the 1941 and 1942 negotiations. I am convinced, however, that the strength of our position in Panama will depend upon a continuance of the political rather than the military or legalistic approach. I do not, of course, suggest that we should abandon our military or legal rights but I do think that we will have to continue to work with the political problem with which we as well as statesmen and politicians in Panama are confronted and will continue to be confronted.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.1913/8–2056. Confidential.↩
- See footnote 1, Document 144.↩