Panama: for the U.S. it's another Suez
THE CHINA. MAIL, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1960.
WHY did the United States State Department take the unprecedented
-step of commenting on the Sharpeville shootings? And why is the United States now girding itself tó lead the pack against South Africa at the UN?
The newer is that America feels herself in desperate need of friends in coloured places,
She anxious at almost any cost, to refurbish her reputation for militant anti-colonialista. she now Inres a decisive Chalenge to her, isuratoounter, in her own colonial territories”—- Latin America.
The irony
To anyone who has studied the vellute of British power in the Middle East, and who s watched the chansy and at lunes malicious Hempts of the State to hastear it this Departmen! new situation is rich in bremy.
For in almost every particu- Ear. The U.S. position in Latin America resembles what was our own in the Middle East.
By PAUL JOHNSON
malists, gtudents. he has coine ໃນ symbolise the suirit of nationalist revolt.
that he can do so at any moment he chooses, by cutting of water supplies. For. thuugh the U.S. cun arrange in a temporary sea- borne supply of water, in the long run it would have to choose between capitulation and force,
Tedious though they inny seem To us, his trugthy distribes are Tastened to with rapt attention by every angry Young man te the
The latter, as Washington weil Continent. Te is one-man knows, would touch off an anti- the U.S. International, with tens
avalanche throughout the sands of voluntary agents. Like continent. the Posies, he can conjure up
looking But Castro
far Guantanamo -to invisible divisions with a word. beyond
As with Nasser, there is no
l'anama itacit. evidence that Castro la Com- munid. On the entrary, by uses the professional of the Party for his adworks own purposes, and there is le dubi
that Communists heads. 160, wit voll when he decides thải their time tuas come,
the forces re! nationalism right or left, just as he wishes. Hence, for the United Stales, be consiliates it MOTO serious threat, in the short Me Khrushchav.
Like us th Ameraans have Ria nyes prules red indieetly. They have governed by controlling the mathart for Latin-Arnicare 20% murder. For, Bike Nasser, he can switch
by providing a tha saints, law leasing bases, and by supplying asins They have
dagtect Support to well-disproed reglines chielly dictatorships and havn tect them 1 their
ment of berd. But notionalisso, us we have learned thronul our own dianal empire, paperies.ee, spares m eres the most enlightend.
The United States now on trial througinstal the continent, And as in on case in the Maddille East, the prosecution is being led by a shagle, ubiquitous penalty: Fidel Ca-itu the Neser of Latin America..
Other
it
Like Suez, the importance of the Panama Camal has been vastly overrated. Even strategie- ally, it is obsolecent, for li cân- 201 accommodate the super- carriers which form the basis of U.S. sea power,
The paradox
Nevertheless, it has become a symbol, both in the U.S. and throughout Latin-Amexiça.
Term, than PANAMA America
For the Great Deterrent does sot deter south of Panaus, and. in view of the melancholy ge- periences of Sir Anthony Eden, Washington is unlikely to resort even to conventional" arms to remove Senor Castro.
Indeed, there are already signs President Eisenhower that
Is
drifting into the same combina- ton of appeasement and in- decision whick-up to the Ta momelit of Suez-marked our re- lations with Nasser.
Withdrawn
THE ERA OF US, DOMINA- TION IS OVER.
Superficially, the U.S. posi tion Is strong. Britain held the Suez Canal By & mere commer cial agreement, which, in teams of international law, could be abrogated by Egy.
By contrast, the U.S. has full sovereign righta
the itself. Canal
But legally and militarily i position to defent its rights by
force.
aren
over
15
But politically? Here, indeed.
Washington the rub. gradually waking up to the fact that never again can the United States risk using force in Latin America.
Castro is something new in Latin-Ame: icaa pohties. dietators have
10 Lower Fixed then the backs ol disron- tented armies, and have been
Two months ago the U.S. hurled into exile just as capity.
Castro, like Man Tre-Tung, withdrew its ambassador from fought his own way to the top. Cuba. A few weeks ago he wis
and deplining Instructel to by mobilising
return, though the
he Castro has in no way abated his age. peasants. Henc vrstanie zools in the pupulution. Herce campaign of anti-American He is andevendent of Army papagandat.
Latort
The nexi baltle will be fought America's 5:30 million
And for these reason-unlike over all the other Latin-American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, i virtually leased from Cuca at nominal bidestructible.
rent of 3,386 dollars a year. The More his name, like Nasser's lease is a perpetual one, but it Is 145 Incoritation throughout guarantees Cuba's ultimate Latin America.
the sovereignty" over the area. among peusunts and organized workers. anung elty intellectuals.
je
There is no doubt that Castre tends to get the U.S. uut, and
They call
So once more, we come to the central paradox of the nuclear
America is one of the world's greatest powers, Panama
1s ienst vulnerable fortress
Yet Its fate, like that of Suez, seems likely to be decided in the glas-and-chroma bua cacophony of the United Nations Head- quarters.
It is there that the US. diplomats, in haste and appre- hension, are now setting up its last ditch defences.
(London Exiless, Scrulce),
him the next Sinatra
IT'S AN OLD CLAIM BUT IT COULD BE
RIGHT THIS TIME
IT is 8.45 p.m. in one of Britain's provincial
concert halls. Enter a 5ft 9in stripling of
SUNDAY
OBSERVVIO
SOCIETY
NO
LAUGHING
SUNDAY OBS. CORKS THOU SHALT NOT ENTERTAIN ON SUNDAY
"Officer That man is entertaining the public on Sunday."
THE SHADOW THAT
HAUNTS A. RICH
La Express Service
MAN
IS ONASSIS LOSING HIS
RECENTLY Mr Aristotle Onassis arrived at London Airport in a privately chartered aircraft with Sir Winston and Lady Churchill who have been cruising with him in his yacht Christina.
Did the picture of his arrival give you a slight tinge of envy?
Certainly you could be for- given for thinking how wonder- ful must be to be sa rich an Mr Onassis,
So clelt that Budgets and taxation do no! matter any more. So rich that whenever you are in the mood you can sail away to sunlit seas on the most luxurious yacht in the world.
Lights of Capri...
You may even picture yourself em the Onassis yacht gurled up In a deckchair with white couted waiters serving you with loed champaine. Or in the evening In the Intervals of a gay dance watching the lights of Capri twinkling against the backcloth of a dark velvet sky.
To you it may seem like luxury almost out of this world. How
CABSATO. HE CAN ACTUALLY SING
dark male youth. His air is jaunty, his face like By Robin Douglas-Home
a young Dean Martin's. Noises off the inevitable
screams.
with St.
The ambition
by BERNARD
HARRIS
envious you feel of a man able to live at such a standard, tree of all framelal care.
But Is Mr Onassis completely without Anancial worries? Or could he be very much less wealthy than imagines?
MILLIONS?
Six years ago there was no worrying surplus of. tankers. Onassis was making excellent profits. But he wanted to
make a lot more.
A monopoly
And the result today? There are, for more tankers in the world than there are oli cargoes to fill them.
Atis moment in ports and creeks throughout the world, 350 of them Hg idle at anchor.
In tonnage they represent
With that aim in mind he almost one-tenth of the total entered into an agreement with world feel. the Saudi Arabian Government. he was given a vir- Under t tunt monopoly to carry all the oll from the rich fields of Arabla except for that part shipped in tankers belonging to the petual oil producers.
world the
Going down
Certainly his current income must be very much smaller than once it was.
That Income comes from oil tankers. We have it on high authority-no less art authority than Mr Onassis himself--that if n tanker owner is to make a praßt he needs a rate of £2 135. a ton to carry all from the Persian Gulf to the Thames.
But the current rate for that run is only 21 65. a ton And rates on other routes have slumped just as disastrously.
Need you wonder then that Onassis his la úlenst is of his ships?
His 05,000-ton Olympic Cham- pion, which cost more than £3,000,000, has not yet left Kiel, where she was built last year. It has been impossible to find work for her.
I That is measure of the have overtaken aubles which the men whose tob, it is to move
oll around the world.
But, of course, the trouble which has avertaken Mr Onassis
It would have meant that 15 even greater than that which British, Dustith
Norwegian, afficts other tanker owners. and Italion Lankers would have been shut out of the trade in Arablan oil.
Some
that have Ilkened agreement to the fable of the dog with the bone' in his mouth who saw reflection in a pool of water and in his greed to get the second bone dropped his own f the pond.
For the agreement led to such an international uproar that re- lations between Onassis and his customers. the great all com- ponies, were steained clmost to breaking point.
And since the agreement itself never came into force it brought no offsetting prot to Onassis.
~'Biggest meąs'
It landed him. as he now in the biggest freely adraits. mess of his life.
A shipping friend of mine, who saw him at the height of the rumpus told me "Instepil, of Her
sister ship. Olympic
lus usual amiling, affable, selt Challenwer. hus carried only
single.
Now he was the picture of dejection. CATHO
oft. of
He discussed with, me, whether is unemployed until June, when she goes on long- he ought to get out of shipping
altogether." ten charter at what is sald
д
the
to be a starvation rete.
Put off
So, acute is the
crisia that
Onassis has ordered a postpone-
Onanals, in fach, was con- vinced that the malet oll companies were out to smash him by refusing to hire, his ships.
Idle
But dramatically, ho wos ment of the monster 100,000-ton Faved by Suez. His profils heights, when tanker which was due to have soared to record ben hacted over to him this every tanker that could put to Another rock 'n' roll singer slegs songs with a point, Third, In the car it was like a private most of ali? Scolland Yord. year from the Bethlehem yards sea had to be called into ser- No, sir, Someone who is well on he is hacked on dixos by the enbaret show.
vice to meet the oil crisis crused I've read many stories about It." In the U.S. the
by the closing of the Canal. The talk becoming the more than » adequate arrangO-
and the gestures way to biggest name in pop-singing. I ments of Itlchard West, Fourth, "Bay, where's the steering.
were as fast as the jokes. But About 40 per cent at the
When the risk was over lumago 15 still refer to Robert Walden Cassato, he is that intangible thing wheel got to? You know, clas 1 gathered that Darin had just Onssals
Onassis belleved that the Saudi 21, better known to 16 ever- star material with all the pical music is the only music I signed a 1,000,000-dollar seven-engaged on long-term churter
agreement was dead home I that go sten to at
get year contract growing pubile as Bobby Darin good and bad points
with Columbia (soything up to 10 years), And Arablan enough of the ulher kind in my Pictures
("Acting a my Arst bi aldes claim that the profits and forgotten. He felt sure the Darin Is on a tour of Britain. So I seemed to me when I minesS,
love, and cabaret's ali 1 do in from these slips pay for the rest oil companies had forgiven him Even now, after just one amanh¬ drove with him to a rehearsal
completely. the States") although he bug of the floet hit in "Mack The Knife” (voted in London. Earlier, in the
not yet played a film part. And
are Some of his rivals
in in the last scene of a proposed 1950's best single dine), he is hallowed precincts of the Dor- being seriously Jubelled "the new cheater foyer, I had been rash "Ultimate ambition? Well It film he is to die in the arms of clined to doubt that claim. One
of them said: Sinatra."
enough to ask him his opinion I were in polities it would be Spencer Tracy,
Billy Prezident. of Nelcon Riddle's and
But I don't 10
But the all chiefs have lon “Every young lady in the "It I had all tenker meinerles. They do not forget May's arrangeznyuka
having ambitions you ean world will be crying,” Dario's
waiting for cargoes & would, ba, or forgive no nužily. There followed a three-minute realise. Give me intangibles, mimager Golemnly assured me. Normally this would carry one-man sound effect production then you siny Happy.
lekt Mr Darin rehearsing tearing my hair out." "Say, no significance at all—the new of the differmec, between the
is that Buckingham Lonesome Road" on the singd
They determined to bulk up Sinatra"
With 0,000,000 tons of new their own fleets not merely to must be Phase 1 in two arrangers' musical Idean. Palace? Where are all there of an empty Lewisham cinoma, tankera due to go into the
That cockalipop confidence, water this year to add to the demand for old but to reduce meet The work's growing the publicity agents handbook The Darin arms failed, while guys in the fanny hats who for pushing young male singers, whistles, spluttera, grunts, don't mind it you go and laugh that huack of giving the lyric agtut there is no upo what- But you have only to listen to wheezes, entenlid, hönks, and at them? Darin to
roull that Uit de growls echoed round the walls.
pendent operptury. They placed "Sure I've got some ideas for mpécial twist that Sinatra hun-ever of a aulck lift to the de. their dependence on the Indo-
they were, both there. But not
presion. Indeed, some experts onders for hundreds of new bed label may have found its "Your car is waiting." I said new songs, I wake up in the the voent control, the sheer predict the plump will Ipst
at nervously as I caught the fall- iniddio of the night with Idens, mualetunship, the bitter-sweet least until 1942.
tankers, many of them monsters pay at last.
porter's eye.
Crazy, Yeni, Ive been called tones. But give to by
of 03,000 tons. Look
at the fetas in hi
Darin, who k hair-italian an Angry Young Mon. Guess 1 chance: Datin' 23 and our How has it come about? supcem, First, unlike half-Engllah, was dressed in a just got angry with some Buy Frank's nudging 45.
The Independents, bloated, with most of his contemporary rock white scarf, short black over, once.
Look down, look down that The odd thing is that much their Suez profite and convinced tred rivals, Darin can petundly coat, and black felt "Jaguar "Met I'm the biggest con lonesome road, Mr Frank, Mr, of it is due to Onassis film. that the good tires woukl last sing, AND write worthwhile hat of which ho seemed" ## forrgång
world. D'ya Darin's comin' on...
for years." alio enlarged their lyrics and melodies, Bocond, he tremely proud.
-(London Expense Rerpion).
building programmes.
mplu
The point
in this Tkhờw what I'd like to see berg
A
- This le what happened.
For ever present in his enind must be, this question: ---
IF
THE SLUMP EVEN DOES END SOME TIME FOR THE OTHER TANKER OWNERS, WILL IT END ALSO FOR ONASSIS? OR WILL THE OIL COMPANIES STILL
THAT REMEMBER DEAL BACK' IN 1934?
Onassis once said: vocation is to be rich."
"TY
Do not be surprised if some- imes he wonders for just how much longer he will be able to continue in his chosen vacation.
-(London Express Service),
Mid Week Selection by Friell
TRAVELLERS
CLOU
CHINAZ Tibet
EVEREST
INDIA
"And the Abominable. Snowman, it seems, is really on oppressed Chinese worker-peasont dispossessed
by the Imperialist colonial climbers."
"I regret i am a file late, in telling you to lasten your safety-bolts; I'm on a go-slow striko.”
PENTAGON
Miede
"Do you fellows realise this might well mean the end, of, civilisation.ge. we know. Ft. 2.**