Panama and the United States: The End of the Alliance

5. From Gunboats to the Nuclear Age, 1920–1945

From Gunboats to the Nuclear Age, 1920-1945 Jackhammers rattled through the night. Huge cranes swung tons of gravel effortlessly through the air, Money flowed freely in Panama's boom economy, and thousands of Jamaicansand other immigrants arrived. Uncle Sam was at it again, remodeling the Panama Canal so that it could transit the huge battleships and carriers the U.S. Navy was now building. The third locks project, begun in 1939, promised to restore the canal to its premier status as a strategic military bridge between the oceans, In 1942, however, the work was canceled and the boom subsided. From that point on, the canal began to recede in importance, forboth the UnitedStates and Panama. Increasing numbers of ships would be unable to use the canal due to its narrow locks. Military planners acknowledged that the canal could not be protected against an all-out attack, especially against nuclear weapons. Yet at the time, few recognized how important the abandonment of the third locks project would be in the long run. The Troubled Twenties U.S.-Panamanian relations settled into a pattern during the 1920$ and 1930$, The United States put the finishing touches on its microstate in the Canal Zone while making some attempts to accommodate Panama's demands for a greater share of the rewards from canal business . Panamanians pressured the United States and made symbolic attacks on the colossus, but with scant success, A more important shift came in the mid-i93os, when President Franklin Roosevelt agreed to negotiate changes in the 1903 treaty, The protectorate was formally ended but in fact remained in effect. Defense requirements and war84 5 85 From Gunboats to the Nuclear Age time mobilization led to new demands that Panama give priority to the national interests of the United States. World War II saw the high tide of U.S. impositions on Panama but also the beginning of the ebb. The governments of the two Panamas—the Republic and the Canal Zone—stabilized after the close of World War I, and relations between them consisted of unsuccessful treaty negotiations, punctuated with desultory exchanges of accusations and denials, Belisario Porras, who had dominated the country in and out of the presidency since 1912, remained powerful through the 19205, Porras had good antiAmerican credentials, having opposed independence at the hands of the United States and the treaty of 1903, but he also favored the order and progress that decent relations with the colossus could bring. In a moment of unfortunate candor, Porras even said that Panama existed "because of and for the canal"1 His hand-picked successor, Rodolfo Chiari, continued his policy of peaceful coexistence while also promoting foreign investment and private enterprise, The Canal Zone remained a mixed civilian-military compound loosely supervised by the secretary of war, who occasionally sought the president's approval for major decisions. About 2,000 white American supervisors and tradesmen on the gold roll managed the canal, while some seventy-six hundred West Indian blacksand Panamanians on the silver roll performed the necessary manual labor. The governor, as would become tradition, was a senior officer in the Army Corps of Engineers, promoted from chief of maintenance. It would soon become clear that the State Department had very littleinfluence over the canal and its relationship withPanama. Power emanated from the imposing Canal Zone administration building atop a hill in Balboa Heights. There the governor set policy for his enterprise and for the republic as well. Twice during the 19205, at the request of two presidents, he sent troops into Panama to disperse protesters. These were mild affairs, however, compared to earlier interventions, and Americans no longer supervised Panama's elections. Usually the mere threat of intervention produced the desired behavior in Panama, as in the case of a major canal strike in 1920. When the strikers organized their pickets and held demonstrations 86 PANAMA AND THE U N I T E D STATES in Panama City and Colon, the governor forced the president to bar such meetings under threat of militaryoccupation.2 A number of issues soured relationsbetween the two countries dur ing the 19205. First, there were housekeeping problems: tenements owned by the railroad in the terminal cities; access to the ports;commissary sales to nonemployees of the canal;waterrates; and land fora cemetery in Colon. President Porras requested a new or revised treaty to settle such issues and suggested internationalarbitration of differences...