Customer Reviews

Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch: The Panama Canal Treaties and the Rise of the Right

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Clymer uses his reporting talents and writing skills to explain how the new American right lost the fight over the Panama Canal treaty, but used the loss to help win the White House for Ronald Reagan and energize the
right wing of the Republican Party. If you like to read about how high-stake politics are played, written by an ace Washington reporter, this is the one.

Clymer's book is a good review of the role of the debate over the Panama Canal treaty's role in the 1976 and 1980 election cycles, and the role that that debate help to establish the right wing of the Republican Party. There are other factors of course, both foreign (Iran hostage crisis for example) and domestic (reaction to the Great Society of Johnson Administration) that played probably a greater role, but overall it is a good review of this one facet of American politics in the mid-to late 70's that we are still living with today. Clymer's observation at the end of the book about the Canal Treaties being a part of what resulted in politically splitting the USA (instead of the canal splitting Panama)is essentially true. Ironically, none of the claims of doom made by the conservatives that were made about the Canal Treaties and control being turned over to the Panamanians, such as inevitable eventual communist take-over, ever came true.

Adam Clymer has attempted to demonstrate that the Panama Canal Treaties strongly impacted the rise of Conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s. However, he has better demonstrated that Conservatism rose alongside of these treaties within the context of the Cold War rather than proving that the treaties were the driving force.

The evidence Clymer has elected to use in the book shows that many of those opposed to ratification of the treaty to return control of the canal to Panama were primarily concerned about the Communists influencing daily operations in the Canal Zone and the way that would impact America. There are certainly highlights in the book that demonstrate that the fight over the Canal impacted American politics, especially in the 1978 & 1980 elections, but nowhere is it clearly spelled out that this single decisive issue caused the rise of the right.

I believe that this book is good food for thought, and it gives scholars good ideas on some facets of the rise of the right in these 2 pivotal elections, but it does not adequately explain how the Panama Canal treaties influenced the political right turn taken by America in the 1980s and 90s.

"Drawing the Line" is an intriguing analysis of how the issue of the Panama Canal Treaty was exploited by Ronald Reagan to gain the nomination of the Republican Party four years later. Clymer also describes how the issue galvanized the Republican Right. An important book for those interested in current American politics.

Robert November
Scarsdale, New York