This compact book by Colonel Immanuel J. Klette provides the reader with a concise survey of the problems, political as well as technical, involved in building a new isthmian canal. The Council on Foreign Relations is to be congratulated for sponsoring the study.
While the existing canal can handle the volume of traffic for some time to come, it is unable to provide transit for the largest cargo and military vessels. The United States is considering enlarging the present canal or building a new one. Several routes are being investigated; two in Colombia using the Atrato river, one on the San Juan river between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and the Sasardi-Morti route in Panama. Klette examines the problems of construction by either nuclear or conventional excavation. The former presents major political problems, while the latter requires substantially greater expenditures of money and time. In his opinion the Sasardi-Morti and the Nicaragua-Costa Rica routes are best from the standpoint of defense, construction, transit, and politics; but the Sasardi-Morti route is feasible only if nuclear power is employed in construction.
Among the nontechnical problems cited by the author the preeminent one is that of United States relations with the host country. Would there be an annual subvention to the host? Would the United States be permitted to maintain military forces adequate for the safeguarding of the route in the immediate vicinity of the canal? How could harmful effects of a new canal on the economy of the host country be offset? How would responsibility for the maintenance and operation of the canal be shared ? Klette poses the questions and gives some tentative, necessarily incomplete answers.
The reviewer would quibble on a few points, none of which is significant to the main thesis. Did the first interruption of Spanish commerce across Panama occur in 1579 (p. 5)? Does the Senate “ratify” treaties (p. 15)? Should not “veiled preference” (p. 37) be “veiled reference”? The allusion to the United States’ role in South Viet Nam (p. 93) detracts from the otherwise dispassionate and objective presentation. On balance this is a fine study, for the author does what he sets out to do. In a very brief compass he delineates the major problems facing those planning a new canal.
