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verted around Africa on a j ourney of months which would otherwise have been oniy of days. How long will it be bef ore the Panama Canal is closed to our ships in a time of emergency, if these treaties are ratifled? When that occurs-and it surely -will under these treaties-we will have no option but to attack Panama and recover possession, or to eat crow and begin the long voyage around South America. This is
-nt a choice I would want an American President and Congress to face.
 No; these band-aid leadership amendments based on an unsigned communique will not do either. Attempts at clarification are not enough. These treaties must be amended to retain physical control of the canal or they must be rejected entirely.

 A NEW CANAL
 From the language of the canal treaty, rather than from press reports describing peripheral issues, we have also learned a final fatal 'defect. According to the terms of the canal treaty-and unlike other provisions, the treaty is quite unambiguous on this point-the United 'States agrees not to negotiate without express Panamanian consent with any country except Panama for the right to construct an interoceanic canal, either at sea level or using locks, on any other route in the WXestern Hemisphere.
 Mr. President, I feel certain that the Senate must share my astonishment that negotiators for the United States saw fit to precludeto preclude completely for 22 years-any possibility of construction of a new interoceanic canal without our country first obtaining the express consent of a pro-Marxist and highly unstable military dictatorship. Why was this concession necessary? What did the United States gain from the concession?
 I notice with some amusement, Mr. President, that the Republic Of Panama purports to grant to the United States of America the right to add a third lane of locks to the existing canal. Inasmuch as the United States already has the right to add a third lane of locks to the ,existing canal, surely our negotiators did not think that a meaningless concession of that variety was sufficient consideration for giving the Panamanians a veto over any other project we may wish to undertake to connect the two oceans. Certainly, the negotiators for the United States could not have felt that the Panamanian agreement to commit Panama "to study jointly the feasibility of a sea level canal" warranted a countervailing commitment from the United States not to do anything whatsoever, without Panamanian permission-but perhaps so. The bizarre behavior of our negotiators has produced other results equally as startling.
 In any event, Mr. President, one thing is sure and that is that the Panamanians know they got the best of this bargain. Discussing the sea-level canal issue, chief Panamanian negotiator, Romulo Escobar Bethancourt, on August 19, 1977, with pride explained to the Panamanian National Assembly the unilateral benefits of the 'so-called sea-level canal options. Dr. Escobar's remarks on the subject. like his remarks on neutrality, are illuminating and are worth studying in full. As Dr. Escobar explains, instead of the United States obaining