303


treaties are the best step to move forward to preserve that opportunity. 'We ought not to lose sight of that.
 I commend the Senator from Alaska for taking a positive approach to the chance that these treaties open up for the United States. They give us an opportunity, and the same forward-looking approach which he is taking is the approach that led to the building of the canal at the beginning of the century under a completely different mores prevailing at that time. The Senator's approach is a forward-looking response to the opportunities before the United States.
 We must look at this matter in terms of what American interests are. The opponents of these treaties are going to lose for the United States, lose for us, opportunities that are available to realize something that is very important to American interests. We ought not to lose sight of that consideration.
 II commend the Senator for focusing our attention on this very important point.
 Mr. GRAVEL. I thank my colleague.
 Mr. JAVITS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
 Mr. GRAVEL. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from New York.
 Mr. JAVITS. The Senator has had many commendations, and he deserves them because the original work here is what we count on among Members, and it is always interesting and exciting through the country that we are not vote comptomieters; that many of us do original, productive thinking and productive research.
 This is very ably done, and very important. I compliment the Senator on it.
 M~ r. GRAVEL. I thank the Senator.
 Mr. JAVITS. The point I would like to make is built, really, on what he said and what Senator Sarbanes said, and for this reason.
 To me, the most gifted element in this treaty is the 23 years in which we can learn to live with the treaty and with our situation.
 That is the key to why it should be approved, and for this reason. I know something about Latin America. I have worked in it, traveled in it, for over 30 years. In their eyes, and one always has to see -what is in the eye of the beholder, this is a colonial position no different from Mozambique or some other part of Af rica that was released from French, or British, or Portugese sovereignty.
 That is the way they look at it.
 Now, to deal with a situation like that, other than in terms which ,re Old World terms, the British just up and got out. I sat in the House of Commons when Wilson declared they were going to pull out of everything east of Suez. The French, in a sense, after Algeria, both got out and -were pushed out. The Portugese were pushed out.
 Here is an intelligent, rational approach by people who ought not be very much against each other, and the 1964 events could have left such a terrible heritage of hatred as to make this impossible. Yet, here is a negotiation, extremely gifted, which gives us almost a quarter of a century to adjust our thinking, our purposes. our economic and political activities to this new situation in the world; very gifted, and, to me, the main reason for the value of this treaty. Senator Gravel has underlined that by showing what can happen in this time, how com-