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a new agreement in order to build a new canal, whether or not the treaties before us are ratified; is that not true?
 Mr. GRAVEL. If the treaties before us are not ratified it is going to be
 Mr. CURTIS. I did not ask the Senator that. Even if they are
 Mr. GRAVEL. I am going to try to answer the Senator's question, and I will reserve my right to use my skill in articulation as to how I answer the Senator's question. OK? I am trying to answer the Senator's question.
 Mr. CURTIS. All right.
 Mr. GRAVEL. If the treaties are not ratified, I think everybody in this debate is prepared to admit that the people of Panama will be unhappy. I think we can take that as a given. How unhappy remains to be seen, but they will be unhappy.
 So I come back to my comparison to you. I would not like to see us launch into a posture of negotiation for a sea level canal with people I just made mad at me. I mean, it is stupid, it is downright stupid.
 So what I would like to see us do is create a climate of good will.
 The Panamanian people love us-sometimes I wonder why, but they do-and I think we can capitalize upon that good will by passing these treaties, and they will be even happier, an from then on, since we have general language, go forth with the study.
 There is nothing we can do for 3 years until we study this, and then after -we study it we would have to negotiate a new agreementin answer to the Senator's question-a new agreement with the people of Panama as to how the sea-level venture would go forward.
 Mr. Cuiu's. I thank my distinguished friend.
 MHr. GRAVEL. I would be happy to yield to my colleague.
 Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Alaska for putting the case for these treaties in a positive form; in terms of these treaties being an opportunity for the United States. It is ain opportunity in many respects; an opportunity which ought not to be lost. We have talked earlier in this debate about the opportunity the treaties give us to protect our defense and strategic interests. The Panamanians have agreed to an arrangement which will give us the right to take whatever action we deem necessary, without any time limit, to preserve the neutrality of the canal, and that right would apply not only to the existing canal but is a right that will apply to any other canal built through Panama.
 So all of the safeguards that are in these treaties with respect to the existing canal would carry over to any new canal. Those protective arrangements for us would not have to be negotiated and reached in an agreement on a new canal, in response to the question that was asked by the Senator from Nebraska. They are already in these treaties, and if we can reach an accommodation with the Panamanians on the opportunity that a sea-level canal may well present to both nations, and if it is in fact constructed, that canal will fall under the provisions of this Neutrality Treaty without any f urther agreement in that regard being necessary.
 So our defense and strategic rights with respect to that new canal are already contained in this treaty.
 Mr. GRAVEL. I want to really underscore what my colleague has just said because I think there may have been a misinterpretation. I do not