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still causing dissatisfaction, that we are bigr enough in this country to take a look at them and reexamine ourselves. We are a great enough and strong enough nation to do what is right, and to look at the facts.
 The people on that little isthmnus that now constitutes the country of Panama have long been a furiously nationalistic people, almost snce the date when the country was discovered by the Spanish explorers in 1501, and since the days when Christopher Columbus visited it in 1502. The history of that isthinus did not began with the United St ates. "You know, after all, what Panama is, we in the United States made it."
 I am not sure that is true. In 1529. over 400 years ago. the Explorer Cortez (drafted a plan for a canal route. Tn 1534I, again more than 400 years a go, the King, of Spain ordered a survey for a ship canal. In 1535 there was a highway built across the Isthmus of Panama, where the Spaniards, having brought their gold up f romn the west coast of South Amierica, off loaded it at the narrow 50-m1ile isthmus and carried it across the isthnums on laud, and then put it on their ships which carried the gold to Europe. At one time, the three most thriving metropolises in the whole Western World were Panama City, Mexico City, and( Lima, Peru.
 What I am saying is that Panama has been a center of commerce for th e world a long9, 1ong time and has been a most independent nation. In 1814. nearly 90 years before we began to get involved in the building of thae canal, the Spaniards attempted to construct a canal, but they were interrupted by a revolt. Again in 1821, Panama, apart from the country of New Granada, severed relationships with Spain at the time of the Latin American independence movements. At that point, Panamia joined the country of Colombia. From that time until the independence, which we helped bring about by revolution in 1903, tlime and time again these furiously nationalistic people tried to establish their own province, but time and time again their revolutions were put down.
 I point that out to say that the nationalistic tendency in this part of the world is not something of recent origin, but something that has existed since the very founding of the Nation. It is something we in this country have to recognize and ought to deal with. We have to deal with it, -Mr. President, because I believe that it is in the national interest of this country that we remove some of the sources of irritation to ou r Latin American neighbors that have prevented us from building the kind of solid support there that we seek from those countries.
 As I returned home from Panama in 1976, I stopped by for a day or two in Mexico City. While visiting there, I said to the American Ambassador,
 How are our relations with Mexico? Do they trust us? Are they afraid?
 He said to me,
 Well, Senator, T think relations between Mexico and the United States are pi-etty good, considering the fact that or- the 13th of September of every year the Mle(ans have a national celebration in which they stand in Chapultapec Castle and read off the names of the young cadets that we Americans killed in storming that castle in Mexico City in the 1840's.
 Three times since the turn of the century we have used military force in the country of Mexico. Thirty-eight times, or maybe 39, since