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it in 1911, when he stated: "I took the Isthmus," and a statement upon which he later elaborated by explaining, "I took the Isthmus because Bunan-Varilla brought it to me on a silver platter."
 Mr. CHiURCH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield at that point?
 Mr. GRAVEL. Ilam happy to yield.
 Mr. CHURCH. It was indeed a silver platter. I believe, following the consummation of the treaty, that Bunan-Varilla said, "I have served the French well"-not the Panamanians mind you, but the French.
 Indeed, the French had a big interest at stake. Having tried and failed to build the canal, they had spent an enormous fortune in the effort. The United States paid the French company $40 million to acquire the machinery, the buildings and the uncompleted works of' the French company on the Isthmus.
 Mr. Bunan-Varilla was a big stockholder in that company. This was the man who negotiated for the Panamanians, -whose whole conn ection and financial interest and, by his own admission, whose motivation, was to serve the French; to recoup what he could for them and' for himself. Is it any wonder that there has been a smoldering resentment through the years in Panama?
 Mr. GRAVEL. As a footnote to history, it is interesting to note that the charter that the French company had, or the new company that was reorganizing, was to expire in a year. That was the charter with' Colombia. With a new republic, probably no legal charter would have been involved.
 So they would not have had to pay the French company and French stockholders-I might say not all were French stockholders. There were quite a number of American stockholders who did quite well in that enterprise-that $40 million that was paid through an American investment house in New York.
 So I think it is difficult to get to the bottom of it. But if it could be aired with any finality, and scholars are laboring in this regrar d I think it would be most interesting and I think a most disgusting page in American history.
 I think we must try to put ourselves in the Panamanians' shoes, to see it as they do. The best way I know to do this is to ite ani analocry which has great currency in Panama. It has been succinctly stated by W1ayne D. Bray. It goes like this:
 To get an idea of how this situation looks to the people of Panama in 1977, imagine a strip of land extending 5 miles on each side of the Mlississippi River within which a foreign power, by virtue of treaty rights granted under suspicions circumstances in 1783, exercises complete control as "if it were sovereign" and through which a resident of Illinois must pass to go to Missouri, during which passage he is subject to arrest by a foreign power and trial in a foreign court under a foreign system of laws.
 Just imagine. I wonder how Americans would tolerate such a situation within our borders. That is exactly what the situation is in Panamanian borders.
 The United States is a superpower and, of course, the Panamaniants do not have much choice because they are one of the weakest nations' in the world. Our military forces stationed in th-e Canal Zone are equial in size to Panama's entire national guard. It is really not much of a match.