New York, Aug. 22—So far as one can judge (before the text of the proposed treaty and its surrounding protocols has been released) there is only one substantive objection to it, and that is its provenance. Mr. Ronald Reagan is targeted for special disdain by the lobbyists for the new treaty because they view his arguments as simplistic, amounting to nothing more than warmed-over chauvinism. In fact his objections are shared by critics whose turn of mind is not that of, say, the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Mr. Herman Phleger, one of the most distinguished lawyers in the country, legal advisor to the Department of State under President Eisenhower, and architect of the far-seeing, far-reaching Antarctic Treaty, heatedly denounces the new Panama Treaty —on the same ground as Reagan, namely: the United States negotiated under duress.
The other arguments against revising the Treaty are frail. It is conceded by our military that the Panama Canal is simply not defensible against sabotage or missilebombing. Efforts to protect it against sabotage would need the cooperation of the Panamanians themselves—and even then, an enterprising saboteur could conceivably put the Canal out of action for a while.
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