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 This is, I interject, Madam President, this is the root cause of thehigh tension between Panama and the United States: This is a festering sore that poisons our relations. That is why I would tell visitors who asked for my appraisal of the situation confrontin,' the Southern Comwand at Panama, "We are walking onl eggshells and trying to be light-footed about it."
 Now, where are the opposition with all those scenarios? They worryV about what is going to happen 20 years f rom now. I am concerned about what is going to happen in 20 days, what is going to happen in 20 weeks,~ in 20 months.
 I asked about a country like Colombia, when my distinguished collea gue from Virginia and I were there. I asked what would happen if thle treaties were rejected. We were told, "They would try to take advantage of it. Turn the treaty down, and there would be violence anld bombings." Senator Scott said, "1How long would that ()o on?" They said, "That would go on just as long as th e President here allows it,, and politically hie would have to allow it to go on for several days, perhaps weeks."
 It is a sad situation that we comie to where a good sized part of our Senators, Members of this body, some in a political vein-and I commiend the distinguished minority leader for not joining that; I commend the distinguished former President Gerald Ford, because I really believe if we ratify this treaty we are going~ to have to attribute a lot to his strong feel of what is in the best interest of this country; but some, just in a political vein, are usint-r the inflammatory language about "ramming the treaties through in a plebiscite," and "What about Omiar? Check it -with Omar."
 That is silly talk. We are here together, trying to make the best we can out of a situation where, as General Underwood says, we are walking, on eggs. We do have a problem that they do not want to recognize, and thy all think it is a class 1 contract in freshman law, trying to find what the contract means, and where are the ends and bits, and everything else.
 I was rather amused about the investigat ions of the past habits of people, where the Senator from Louisiana admonished us. Ile said, "Lord, I have been through that." Hle said, "You can go ahead and stud y f or years on end, through the FBI, CIA, the Attorney General and. Justice Department files, and have a merry chase, study for 2 years, and perhaps conclude that youi would not join in any kind of treaty or otherwise. But then a year and a half or 2 years would have passed, and we aire looking at oursel ves. "
 We could care less about Torrijos, because, as I1 have said before, he' is totally unpredictable. We do care about our interests in the Republic of Panama. We do care about our defense interests, about being naked.
 Incidentally, that point should be clearly understood. Why would the commanders of the military all co-me up and talk in terms of enhancing our defenses? You would think that we were going- up there walking away, and had no defenses. I will never forget talking with General Rogyers. the Chief of Staff of the Army, one evening. I said. "General, my colleague and other opponents of the treaty say you can't speak for yourselves."
 TIe said, 1"Oh, no, we all have our inputs, but one a decision is made we support that decision. The difference here," he said, "is as chiefs, we


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