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and paid for a lot of other stuff, and I resent it as an American. I resent it as a person who enlisted in the service. I just plain resent it: I am not anti-American. I hold some strong views and I happen to think it is pro-American to want my country to look good in the world. That is what I want. I want my country to be just and to look like it is just. And I resent people going to my constituency and peppering it with this kind of garbage.
 And so I apologize personally to my colleague if there has been any personal offense. I never meant any. I have a lot of personal regard for him and I do not associate him with these kinds of letters, but I think he will understand why I am like the Senator from Alabama, who stood on this floor and was a little hesitant about Members talking so much about Alabama.
 And I could understand why he might be a little bit upset about being so intense. Are you being peppered by the proponents of truth in your State with a lot of garbage? I ask you, if you picked up any of this stuff assaulting you?
 Mr. LAXALT. get my share of mail.
 Mr. GRAVEL. This is obviously a mimeographed track. This is obviously a put-up job. This obviously has nothing to do with the merits of the issue. You know, if we are going to spend the money, let us spend it on some stuff that is going to be appreciated, not this.
 Mr. LAXALT. Can we go back to the merits?
 Mr. GRAVEL. I would love to go back to the merits.
 Mr. LAXALT. Let me continue with the reading of the article:
 General-cargo vessels, now increasingly specialized as a result of the container revolution, are also growing in average size, and in fact the largest vessels to transit the canal to date have been the British-registered container ships Tokyo Bay and Kowloon Bay (9504-foot length and 105-foot beam). But -at least in the liner trade these vessels may now be reaching their own ultimate size, limited as they are by today's gantry-equipped port facilities and turnaround time, since assemblage of container cargo appropriate for each scheduled voyage becomes progressively more complicated the larger the vessel. The new classes of medium-size container ships, automated bulk carriers and barge-carrying LASH vessels are still comfortably within "Pan-Max," while the few remaining passenger vessels, now exclusively in luxury cruise service, have shrunk dramatically from the record dimensions of the interwar period. As technology, rather than size, becomes the key to shipping modernization for all but the bulk trades, turnaround time will become more crucial than ever. Scale limitations may provide an argument for enlarging and modernizing the canal, but they hardly support doing away with it.
 From the standpoint of U.S. trade, closure of the canal could have catastrophic consequences on shipping costs, especially fuel. Seventeen per cent of U.S. ocean-borne commerce passes through the canal, and 70 per cent of all ships transiting the canal have the United States as their destination.
 Mr. GRzAVEL. What was that last?
 Mr. LAXALT. Seventy percent of all ships transiting the canal have the United States as their destination.
 Mr. GRAVEL. Thank you.
 Mr. LAXALT. All right.
 Mr. GRAVEL. In other words, about a third do not.
 Mr. LAXALT. [continuing to read]:
 Shipping costs of exports and imports now amount to $3 billion a year. Even if these figures were halved to reflect U.S. exports alone, the effect of a sudden rise in export costs on the U.S. trade balance would be drastic. Additionally, most of the canal's cargo is in bulk commodities: in .1975 coal and coke represented 18