Notes
Introduction. The Central American Sea-Level Canal and the Environmental History of Unbuilt Megaprojects
1. See, e.g., Caumartin, Review of Emperors in the Jungle.
2. David Kirsch, “Project Plowshare”; Frenkel, “A Hot Idea”; Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds; Kaufman, Project Plowshare.
3. Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle.
4. APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970, 41.
5. Pritchard, “Joining Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies.”
6. George Collins, “Introduction,” 12.
7. Collins, 7. The book was Ponten, Architektur.
8. Goldin and Lubell, Never Built Los Angeles; Goldin and Lubell, Never Built New York; Ovnick, “Never Built Los Angeles”; Will Heinrich, “Remember When They Wanted to Build a Parking Lot over the Hudson?,” New York Times, Sept. 21, 2017.
9. Carse and Kneas, “Unbuilt and Unfinished.”
10. Oberdeck, “Archives of the Unbuilt Environment.” See also Hindle, “Levees That Might Have Been”; Hindle, “Prototyping the Mississippi Delta.”
11. Heffernan, “Bringing the Desert to Bloom”; Heffernan, “Shifting Sands,” 618.
12. Lehmann, “Infinite Power to Change the World,” 99. See also Fleming, Fixing the Sky.
13. Scott, Seeing Like a State. See also Loren Graham, Ghost of the Executed Engineer.
14. Macfarlane, “Negotiated High Modernism,” 326. See also Reuss, “Seeing Like an Engineer.”
15. Teller, “The Plowshare Program.”
16. Regis, Monsters, 172. See also Fleming, Fixing the Sky, chap. 5.
17. Broderick, Reconstructing Strangelove, 69–72.
18. Alexis Madrigal, “7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs,” Wired, Apr. 10, 2009; Dave Gilson and Adam Weinstein, “8 of the Wackiest (or Worst) Ideas for Nuclear Weapons,” Mother Jones, Nov. 9, 2011; “Revealed: Madcap 1960s Plan to Use 23 Nuclear Bombs to Blast through California Mountains and Make Way for Highway,” Daily Mail, Sept. 25, 2014; Ed Regis, “What Could Go Wrong? The Insane 1950s Plan to Use H-Bombs to Make Roads and Redirect Rivers,” Slate, Sept. 30, 2015.
19. Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 2.
20. On the political role of scientific expertise, see Bocking, Ecologists and Environmental Politics.
21. O’Neill, Firecracker Boys.
22. David Kirsch, “Project Plowshare,” 216; O’Neill, Firecracker Boys, 83; Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 77.
23. Scott Kirsch and Mitchell, “Earth-Moving as the ‘Measure of Man’ ”; Millar and Mitchell, “Spectacular Failure, Contested Success”; Rothschild, “Environmental Awareness in the Atomic Age”; Cittadino, “Paul Sears and Plowshare.”
24. O’Neill, “Project Chariot,” 36; Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 105–6; Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival.
25. Reed, “Ecological Investigation in the Arctic,” 372; Peter Coates, “Project Chariot”; Wilt with Hacker, “Gifts of a Fertile Mind.”
26. Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 76; Scott Kirsch and Mitchell, “Earth-Moving as the ‘Measure of Man,’ ” 129.
27. Heffernan, “Bringing the Desert to Bloom,” 108; Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 8.
28. Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 222 (quote), 69; Scott Kirsch and Mitchell, “Earth-Moving as the ‘Measure of Man,’ ” 129; Bocking, Ecologists and Environmental Politics, 90. See also Buys, “Isaiah’s Prophecy”; Findlay, Nuclear Dynamite; Krygier, “Project Ketch.”
29. Bent Flyvbjerg, “Mega Delusional: The Curse of the Megaproject,” New Scientist, Nov. 30, 2013. See also Flyvbjerg, “Survival of the Unfittest.”
30. Primack and Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 173; Luther Carter, “Rio Blanco.”
31. See, e.g., Taylor, Making Bureaucracies Think; Caldwell, National Environmental Policy Act; Clark and Canter, Environmental Policy and NEPA; Lindstrom and Smith, National Environmental Policy Act; Dreyfus and Ingram, “National Environmental Policy Act”; Andrews, Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves.
32. Rome, “What Really Matters in History?”; Sutter, “The World with Us.”
33. Sutter, “Tropical Conquest and the Rise of the Environmental Management State.”
34. See, e.g., Stine, Mixing the Waters; Espeland, Struggle for Water.
35. Lifset, Power on the Hudson; Noll and Tegeder, Ditch of Dreams; Shawn Miller, “Minding the Gap”; Ficek, “Imperial Routes”; Davis, Everglades Providence; Conway, High-Speed Dreams; Suisman, “American Environmental Movement’s Lost Victory.”
36. Rozwadowski, “Engineering, Imagination, and Industry.”
37. Peyton, Unbuilt Environments, 8, 11.
38. Peyton, 18 (quote), 14. See also Scott, Seeing Like a State; Li, “Beyond ‘the State’ and Failed Schemes.”
39. Kohler, Landscapes and Labscapes; Sutter, “Nature’s Agents or Agents of Empire?”; Vetter, Knowing Global Environments; Bocking, “Situated but Mobile,” Laura Martin, “Proving Grounds,” Hersey and Vetter, “Shared Ground.” See also Billick and Price, Ecology of Place; Scoville, “Hydraulic Society and a ‘Stupid Little Fish.’ ”
40. Rankin, “Zombie Projects”; Rowe, “Promises, Promises”; d’Avignon, “Shelf Projects”; Carse and Kneas, “Unbuilt and Unfinished,” 22.
41. Redfield, Space in the Tropics, 16; Carse and Kneas, “Unbuilt and Unfinished,” 15–17.
42. Humboldt to Kelley, May 12, 1856.
43. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks on the Decision to Build a Sea Level Canal and to Negotiate a New Treaty with Panama,” in PPPUS, 1963–64, 2: 809.
44. Adas, Dominance by Design.
45. Covich, “Projects That Never Happened”; Covich, “Frank Golley’s Perspectives.”
46. On the blurring of boundaries between technology and nature, see, e.g., White, Organic Machine; Stine and Tarr, “At the Intersection of Histories”; Reuss and Cutcliffe, Illusory Boundary.
Chapter 1. Canalizing and Colonizing the Isthmus
1. Jaén Suárez, Hombres y Ecología en Panamá; Conniff, Black Labor on a White Canal; Frenkel, “Geography, Empire, and Environmental Determinism”; Castro Herrera, “On Cattle and Ships”; Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle; Newton, Silver Men; Sutter, “Nature’s Agents or Agents of Empire?”; Sutter, “Tropical Conquest and the Rise of the Environmental Management State”; Julie Greene, Canal Builders; Carse, Beyond the Big Ditch; Raby, “Ark and Archive”; Carse et al., “Panama Canal Forum”; Lasso, Erased.
2. Brady, “Historical Geography of the Earliest Colonial Routes”; McCullough, Path between the Seas; Delgado et al., Maritime Landscape of the Isthmus of Panamá.
3. “Humboldt,” New York Times, Sept. 15, 1869, 1. English language monographs include Helferich, Humboldt’s Cosmos; Sachs, Humboldt Current; Walls, Passage to Cosmos; Rebok, Humboldt and Jefferson; Wulf, Invention of Nature; Echenberg, Humboldt’s Mexico.
4. Nathaniel Rich, “The Very Great Alexander von Humboldt,” New York Review of Books, Oct. 22, 2015, 37.
5. Humboldt, Political Essay, 1:35, 4:22; Humboldt and Bonpland, Personal Narrative, 6:242–43.
6. Humboldt, Personal Narrative, 6:245.
7. Humboldt, Political Essay, 1:18. On the Raspadura Canal see Humboldt, Personal Narrative, 6:260; Frederick Collins, “The Isthmus of Darien,” 149.
8. Humboldt, Political Essay, 1:27, 1:25.
9. See, e.g., Willis Johnson, Four Centuries of the Panama Canal.
10. Humboldt, Personal Narrative, 6:285.
11. Humboldt, 6:240, 6:248.
12. Humboldt, 6:245 (emphasis in original).
13. Humboldt, Political Essay, 1:35–36.
14. Humboldt, Personal Narrative, 6:281.
15. Humboldt, 6:288–89.
16. Humboldt, 6:276.
17. See, e.g., Humboldt, Political Essay, 2:24.
18. Anthony, “Mining as the Working World of Alexander von Humboldt’s Plant Geography.”
19. Humboldt, Personal Narrative, 6:297.
20. Humboldt, 6:297–98.
21. Niles, History of South America and Mexico, 2:6.
22. Lloyd, “Account of Levellings Carried across the Isthmus of Panama”; Humboldt, Views of Nature, 292.
23. Humboldt, Views of Nature, 292.
24. Murchison, Address to the Royal Geographical Society of London, 64; Bidwell, Isthmus of Panamá, 99; Balf, Darkest Jungle, 59.
25. Mack, Land Divided; Velásquez Runk, “Creating Wild Darien.”
26. McGuinness, Path of Empire.
27. De Lesseps, “The Panama Canal”; McCullough, Path between the Seas; Clayton, “The Nicaragua Canal in the Nineteenth Century”; Brannstrom, “Almost a Canal.”
28. Kelley, Union of the Oceans by Ship-Canal without Locks, 7; Fitz-Roy, “Considerations on the Great Isthmus of Central America.”
29. Humboldt to Kelley, May 12, 1856; “Baron von Humboldt’s Encouragement”; Buel, “Piercing the American Isthmus”; Parks, Colombia and the United States, 334–35.
30. Humboldt to Kelley, May 12, 1856 (emphasis in original). See also Kelley, “On the Connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.”
31. Buel, “Piercing the American Isthmus,” 276; Walker, Report of the Isthmian Canal Commission, 72; Mehaffey, Isthmian Canal Studies—1947, 32.
32. de Lesseps, “The Panama Canal”; McCullough, Path between the Seas.
33. Frederick Collins, “The Isthmus of Darien and the Valley of the Atrato,” 148, 161–62.
34. Walker, Report of the Isthmian Canal Commission, 56.
35. McCullough, Path between the Seas.
36. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, 83.
37. Mahan, 34–35.
38. Roland, Bolster, and Keyssar, Way of the Ship, chap. 31; Smith, Boundless Sea.
39. Pérez, War of 1898.
40. Mahan, “The Panama Canal and Sea Power in the Pacific,” 155.
41. McCullough, Path between the Seas.
42. For English language scholarly studies, see, e.g., Ealy, Yanqui Politics and the Isthmian Canal; McCullough, Path between the Seas; Hogan, Panama Canal in American Politics; Parker, Panama Fever; Maurer and Yu, Big Ditch.
43. McCullough, Path between the Seas; Sutter, “Nature’s Agents or Agents of Empire?”
44. Report of the Board of Consulting Engineers for the Panama Canal, 12.
45. Report of the Board of Consulting Engineers for the Panama Canal, 35, 61.
46. Report of the Board of Consulting Engineers for the Panama Canal, 99, 100.
47. For more detail on the mechanics of the isthmian sea-level canal’s requisite tidal lock, as articulated by a later generation of engineers, see Mehaffey, Isthmian Canal Studies—1947, 66, 73, 75, 96.
48. Report of the Board of Consulting Engineers for the Panama Canal, 82, 85, 91.
49. “President Theodore Roosevelt Message to the Congress, February 19, 1906,” in ICPQ, 448–49.
50. Haskin, Panama Canal, 13–14.
51. Sutter, “Nature’s Agents or Agents of Empire?”
52. Nida, Panama and Its “Bridge of Water.”
53. Lasso, Erased; Carse, Beyond the Big Ditch, chap. 7; Carse, “ ‘Like a Work of Nature.’ ”
54. Michael Donoghue, “The Panama Canal and the United States”; Missal, Seaway to the Future.
55. Allen, Our Canal in Panama, 22–23.
56. Missal, Seaway to the Future; Henderson, “The Face of Empire”; Strong, “Jimmy Carter and the Panama Canal Treaties,” 271.
57. LaFeber, Panama Canal; Maurer and Yu, Big Ditch.
58. Mahan, “The Panama Canal and Sea Power in the Pacific,” 166.
59. Roosevelt, “On American Motherhood,” 262.
60. Mahan, “The Panama Canal and Sea Power in the Pacific,” 178.
61. Humboldt, Cosmos, 1:368.
62. English language analyses of Humboldt’s imperialist legacy include Pratt, Imperial Eyes; Sachs, “The Ultimate ‘Other’ ”; Rupke, “A Geography of Enlightenment”; Walls, Passage to Cosmos.
63. Schwarz, “Alexander von Humboldt’s Visit to Washington”; Walls, Passage to Cosmos, 121.
64. Cushman, “Humboldtian Science,” 22.
65. Frenkel, “Geography, Empire and Environmental Determinism”; Carse, Beyond the Big Ditch, 72–73.
66. Bennett, History of the Panama Canal, 146.
67. Niles, History of South America and Mexico, 2:6.
68. Nida, Panama and Its “Bridge of Water,” 84.
Chapter 2. Confronting the Canal’s Obsolescence
1. Report of the Board of Consulting Engineers for the Panama Canal, 10.
2. Conniff, Black Labor on a White Canal; Newton, Silver Men; Julie Greene, Canal Builders.
3. Allen, Our Canal in Panama, 30.
4. McCullough, Path between the Seas, 613.
5. Heckadon-Moreno, “Light and Shadows,” 33; Carse, Beyond the Big Ditch, 115–16; Mehaffey, Isthmian Canal Studies—1947, 76.
6. “Public Resolution—No. 99—70th Congress,” in Rea and Shield, Statements for the Seventieth Congress, 478–79.
7. Panama Canal Company, The Panama Canal: The Third Locks Project, 1.
8. Mehaffey, Isthmian Canal Studies—1947, 52, app. 3; Travis and Watkins, “Control of the Panama Canal,” 410–11; Conn, Engelman, and Fairchild, Guarding the United States and Its Outposts, chap. 12.
9. Bowman, “Puzzle in Panama,” 414.
10. Bowman, 407.
11. John G. Clayburn quoted in “Bomb-Proof Canal at Panama Sought,” New York Times, Jan. 17, 1946; “Sea Level Canal at Panama Urged,” New York Times, Jan. 22, 1948; James Reston, “Visit to Canal by Royall Linked to Atom Defenses,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 1948.
12. Mehaffey, Isthmian Canal Studies—1947.
13. Mehaffey, 16, 62.
14. Mehaffey, 65, 85–86.
15. Mehaffey, 110, 97.
16. FRUS, 1955–1957, 7:129; Travis and Watkins, “Control of the Panama Canal,” 410–11. See also FRUS, 1948, 9:336.
17. Flood, “Panama Canal Questions: Immediate Action Required,” U.S. Congressional Record, May 8, 1963, in ICPQ, 230.
18. LaFeber, Panama Canal; Maurer and Yu, Big Ditch.
19. Travis and Watkins, “Control of the Panama Canal,” 417.
20. Knapp, Red, White, and Blue Paradise; Missal, Seaway to the Future; Moore, Empire on Display; Michael Donoghue, Borderland on the Isthmus.
21. Travis and Watkins, “Control of the Panama Canal,” 416; Conniff, Panama and the United States, 79–81.
22. FRUS, 1955–1957, 7:152.
23. FRUS, 1955–1957, 7:157.
24. FRUS, 1955–1957, 7:154.
25. Report of the Board of Consulting Engineers for the Panama Canal, 10; APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970, V-23.
26. FRUS, 1955–1957, 7:177.
27. Michael Donoghue, Borderland on the Isthmus, 176, 252; Lindsay-Poland, “U.S. Military Bases in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
28. Travis and Watkins, “Control of the Panama Canal,” 416.
29. “Republic of Panama Flag Planted in Canal Zone by Students in Surprise Move,” Star & Herald (Panama), May 3, 1958, in ICPQ, 31–33; Ralph K. Skinner, “Students Harass Government—Riots Neutralize Panama Gains,” Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 1958, in ICPQ, 47–50. See also Tate, “The Panama Canal and Political Partnership”; LaFeber, Panama Canal, 124–131.
30. Tate, “The Panama Canal and Political Partnership,” 128; LaFeber, Panama Canal, 129; Conniff, Panama and the United States, 81–83; National Declassification Center, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, “The Panama Canal: Riots, Treaties, Elections, and a Little Military Madness, 1959–1973” (2015), https://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/panama-canal.
31. Flood, “July 23, 1958: Panama Canal: Object of Irresponsible Political Extortion,” in ICPQ, 51–72; Flood, “Monroe Doctrine or Khrushchev Doctrine?,” Congressional Record, Apr. 12, 1962, in ICPQ, 153; Flood, “Panama Canal: Key Target of Fourth Front,” Congressional Record, Apr. 19, 1960, in ICPQ, 135.
32. Hanson W. Baldwin, “The Panama Canal—II,” New York Times, Aug. 13, 1960.
33. Laleh Khalili, “How the (Closure of the) Suez Canal Changed the World,” The Gamming (blog), Aug. 31, 2014, https://thegamming.org/2014/08/31/how-the-closure-of-the-suez-canal-changed-the-world/.
34. Teller et al., Constructive Uses of Nuclear Explosives, vi. For more on this origin story, see Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 11; Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 13–14.
35. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Atoms for Peace Speech,” Dec. 8, 1953, on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s website, https://www.iaea.org/about/history/atoms-for-peace-speech. See also, e.g., Weart, Rise of Nuclear Fear, chap. 8.
36. Graves, Engineer Memoirs, 85–86.
37. Edward Teller, “We’re Going to Work Miracles,” Popular Mechanics, Mar. 1960, 97–101, 278, 280, 282 (quote on 100).
38. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency.
39. Gerald W. Johnson to John O. Pastore, Nov. 27, 1963, NSF, Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 36, Folder Nuclear—Nuclear Excavation (Sea Level Canal), LBJL.
40. Reines, “The Peaceful Nuclear Explosion”; Vortman, “Excavation of a Sea-Level Ship Canal,” 88.
41. Teller, “We’re Going to Work Miracles,” 98.
42. O’Neill, “Project Chariot”; O’Neill, Firecracker Boys; David Kirsch, “Project Plowshare”; Scott Kirsch and Mitchell, “Earth-Moving as the ‘Measure of Man’ ”; Millar and Mitchell, “Spectacular Failure, Contested Success”; Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds; Kaufman, Project Plowshare; Cittadino, “Paul Sears and Plowshare.”
43. Teller, “We’re Going to Work Miracles,” 99.
44. O’Neill, Firecracker Boys.
45. Wolfe, “The Ecological Aspects of Project Chariot,” 62; Golley, History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology, 74.
46. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac.
47. Wolfe, “The Ecological Aspects of Project Chariot,” 65–66.
48. Isthmian Canal Plans—1960, Annex VII, Box 75, Papers of William Merrill Whitman, DDEL; “Transcript of 2nd Meeting,” Entry A1 36040-C, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
49. Isthmian Canal Studies Board of Consultants, Report to the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 7. See also “Transcript of 2nd Meeting,” Entry A1 36040-C, Container 1, RG 220, NARA; APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970, V-15; W. W. Whitman to Bonner, May 5, 1964, NSF, Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 36, Folder Nuclear—Nuclear Excavation (Sea Level Canal), LBJL.
50. Flood, “Isthmian Canal Policy—An Evaluation,” Congressional Record, June 7, 1962, in ICPQ, 177.
51. FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:392.
52. Chiari to Kennedy, Sept. 8, 1961, repr. in Star & Herald (Panama), Nov. 16, 1961, in ICPQ, 162. On State Department efforts to discourage Chiari from sending the letter, see FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:394.
53. Kennedy to Chiari, Nov. 2, 1961, in ICPQ, 164–65; FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:400.
54. FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:401. See also Graves, Engineer Memoirs.
55. FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:401. Around this time, Ball, the under secretary of state, also started urging Kennedy to avoid U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and he later helped President Carter rally senatorial support for the ratification of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties. Robert D. McFadden, “George W. Ball Dies at 84; Vietnam’s Devil’s Advocate,” New York Times, May 28, 1994.
56. FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:402.
57. FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:400.
58. FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:403. On Chiari’s grievances, see FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:405; FRUS, 1961–1963, 12:408.
59. “Joint Communique and Aide Memoire Resulting from Discussions in Panama between United States and Panamanian Representatives,” Jan. 8, 1963, in ICPQ, 220–21.
60. O’Neill, “Project Chariot”; O’Neill, Firecracker Boys; David Kirsch, “Project Plowshare”; Scott Kirsch and Mitchell, “Earth-Moving as the ‘Measure of Man’ ”; Millar and Mitchell, “Spectacular Failure, Contested Success”; Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds; Kaufman, Project Plowshare; Rodgers, “From a Boon to a Threat.”
61. “Hydrogen Explosion Set Off Underground in Nevada,” New York Times, July 7, 1962; “Giant H-Bomb Shot Rips Crater in Nevada Desert,” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 1962. See also Kelly, “Moving Earth and Rock with a Nuclear Device”; Kelly testimony in U.S. Congress, Second Transisthmian Canal, 51; Nevada National Security Site, Sedan Crater (Naval Nuclear Security Administration, 2013), https://www.nnss.gov/docs/fact_sheets/DOENV_712.pdf.
62. Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 86–87; Hacker, Fallout from Plowshare, 7–8; “Suit Filed in Leukemia Deaths,” New York Times, June 16, 1984.
63. See, e.g., “Atomic Earth Mover,” Newsweek, July 16, 1962; “When Nuclear Bomb Is Harnessed for Peace,” U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1962; “Digging with H-Bombs,” Business Week, May 18, 1963; “An Atomic Blast to Help Build a U.S. Canal?,” U.S. News & World Report, May 20, 1963; “Another ‘Panama Canal’: A-Blasts May Do the Job,” U.S. News & World Report, June 10, 1963.
64. Flood, ICPQ, 453–57, 348–50.
65. Flood, “Panama Canal Questions: Immediate Action Required,” U.S. Congressional Record, May 8, 1963, in ICPQ, 230–31; Flood, “Focus of Power Politics,” U.S. Congressional Record, Mar. 9, 1964 in ICPQ, 304–18.
66. See, e.g., Maass, Muddy Waters; Shallat, Structures in the Stream.
67. See, e.g., Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival; Benjamin Greene, Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate.
68. U.S. Congress, Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, 210, 265.
69. Langer, “Project Plowshare”; “Nuclear Ditch-Digging,” Business Week, Dec. 21, 1963; “Nuclear Energy: Ploughshare Canals,” Time, Jan. 31, 1964.
70. Department of State Memorandum of Conversation to Merrill Whitman, Gerald W. Johnson, V. Lansing Collins, and H. Franklin Irwin, Nov. 22, 1963, NSF, Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 36, Folder Nuclear—Nuclear Excavation (Sea Level Canal), LBJL.
71. Gerald W. Johnson to John O. Pastore, Nov. 27, 1963, NSF, Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 36, Folder Nuclear—Nuclear Excavation (Sea Level Canal), LBJL.
Chapter 3. Mobilizing for Panama Canal II
1. Department of State Memorandum of Conversation to Merrill Whitman, Gerald W. Johnson, V. Lansing Collins, and H. Franklin Irwin, Nov. 22, 1963, NSF, Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 36, Folder Nuclear—Nuclear Excavation (Sea Level Canal), LBJL.
2. Lawrence, “Exception to the Rule?,” 40, 45.
3. Adas, Dominance by Design.
4. “Canal Called Not Vital to Navy, but Zone Is a U.S. Military Hub,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 1964.
5. Doel and Harper, “Prometheus Unleashed.” See also Harper, Make It Rain, chap. 7.
6. See, e.g., Adas, Dominance by Design, chap. 6; McNamara, In Retrospect; Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers.
7. Zierler, Invention of Ecocide; Martini, Agent Orange.
8. See, e.g., Doel and Harper, “Prometheus Unleashed”; Doel, “Scientists as Policymakers”; Dorsey, “Dealing with the Dinosaur”; Hamblin, Oceanographers and the Cold War; McNeill and Unger, Environmental Histories of the Cold War; Hecht, Entangled Geographies; Hamblin, Arming Mother Nature; Audra Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets; Bocking and Heidt, Cold Science.
9. Flood, “Congress Must Save the Panama Canal,” Congressional Record, Apr. 9, 1963, in ICPQ, 211; “More Panama Flags to Go Up in Canal Zone,” Panama American, Oct. 28, 1963, in ICPQ, 291–92.
10. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “Ugly Americans,” Washington Post, Nov. 1, 1963, in ICPQ, 301–2.
11. “ ‘Firm’ Policy on Panama Favored by Americans,” Washington Post, Feb. 12, 1964.
12. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:372; Jorden, Panama Odyssey; LaFeber, Panama Canal, 138–40; McPherson, “From ‘Punks’ to Geopoliticians”; McPherson, Yankee, No!, chap. 3.
13. “Let’s Act Our Age in Panama,” Life, Jan. 24, 1964, 4. See also Trevor Armbrister, “Panama: Why They Hate Us,” Saturday Evening Post 237, Mar. 7, 1964, 75–79.
14. Michael Donoghue, Borderland on the Isthmus, 247.
15. “Gunfire Flares: Relations Severed till Pacts Are Altered Chiari Asserts,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 1964; “Canal Called Not Vital to Navy, but Zone Is a U.S. Military Hub,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 1964; “Job Differences Persist in Zone Despite U.S. Equal-Pay Policy,” New York Times, Jan. 12, 1964.
16. Belinfante, Petren, and Vakil, Report on the Events in Panama, January 9–12, 1964.
17. McPherson, “Courts of World Opinion.”
18. Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 99–100.
19. The U.S. government owned the Panama Canal Company and was represented by the secretary of the army, whom the annual reports referred to as the stockholder and personal representative of the U.S. president. See, e.g., Panama Canal Company and Canal Zone Government, Annual Report: 1965, 1.
20. Vance, Memorandum for the President, Feb. 10, 1964, NSF, Box 65, Folder 2, LBJL.
21. “Text of the Second Half of 1964 Republican Platform,” New York Times, July 13, 1964.
22. FRUS, 1964–1968, 11:7; Bundy, Memorandum for Holders of NSAM No. 282, July 20, 1964, Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 41, Folder 1, LBJL; Hacker, Fallout from Plowshare, 9; Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 109–10. On the broader ways in which natural forces influenced the U.S. nuclear testing program, see Oatsvall, “Weather, Otters, and Bombs.”
23. U.S. Congress, Second Transisthmian Canal, 12–13.
24. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks Following the Signing of a Joint Declaration with Panama,” Apr. 3, 1964, in PPPUS, 1963–64, 1:245.
25. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:408; Thomas Mann interview by Jorden, p. 24, Box 22, Personal Papers of William J. Jorden, LBJL.
26. Lawrence, “Exception to the Rule?”
27. Robert Anderson interview by Jorden, May 14, 1979, pp. 1, 4, Box 21, Personal Papers of William J. Jorden, LBJL. See also Jorden, Panama Odyssey, chap. 5; Ashley Morrow, “An Unexpected Journey: Spacecraft Transit the Panama Canal,” NASA, Apr. 9, 2015, https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/an-unexpected-journey-spacecraft-transit-the-panama-canal.
28. Panama Review Group Meeting [Minutes], Apr. 7, 1964, NSF, Box 66, Folder 4, LBJL.
29. Panama Review Group Meeting [Minutes], Apr. 7, 1964.
30. Sandars, America’s Overseas Garrisons; Lutz, Bases of Empire.
31. Belinfante, Petren, and Vakil, Report on the Events in Panama, January 9–12, 1964.
32. Merrill Whitman, Panama Review Group Meeting [Minutes], Apr. 7, 1964, NSF, Box 66, Folder 4, LBJL.
33. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:420. See also “Briefing Paper: Panama,” Apr. 28, 1964, NSF, Box 66, Folder 3, LBJL.
34. Stephen Ailes, Memorandum to the President on Canal Zone Policies, July 23, 1964, NSF, Box 66, Folder 6, LBJL.
35. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:417.
36. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:421. See also FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:420.
37. On this argument, see “Briefing Paper: Panama,” Apr. 28, 1964, NSF, Box 66, Folder 3, LBJL; FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:420.
38. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:417.
39. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:417.
40. See, e.g., Ted Szulc, “Crisis in Panama Spurs U.S. Study of a New Canal,” New York Times, Jan. 20, 1964; John W. Finney, “Cost of Atom-Dug Sea-Level Canal Is Put at $500 Million,” New York Times, Jan. 21, 1964.
41. Graves et al., Isthmian Canal Studies—1964, 1.
42. Graves et al., Isthmian Canal Studies—1964, 3, 42.
43. U.S. Congress, Authorizing the President to Appoint a Commission, 2.
44. “Determination of Site for Construction of a Sea Level Canal Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” Congressional Record—Senate, Mar. 26, 1964, 6467.
45. U.S. Congress, Second Transisthmian Canal, 30. See also Lawrence Galton, “A New Canal—Dug by Atom Bombs,” New York Times, Sept. 20, 1964.
46. U.S. Congress, Second Transisthmian Canal, 34. See also Fleming, Fixing the Sky, 201–4; Adler, Neptune’s Laboratory, 119.
47. Frederick G. Dutton to Herbert C. Bonner, Apr. 22, 1964, NSF, Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 36, Folder Nuclear—Nuclear Excavation (Sea Level Canal), LBJL; Edward A. McDermott to Herbert C. Bonner, May 5, 1964, NSF, Files of Charles E. Johnson, Box 36, Folder Nuclear—Nuclear Excavation (Sea Level Canal), LBJL; “Interoceanic Canal Problem: Inquiry or Cover Up? Sequel,” Congressional Record, July 29, 1965, in ICPQ, 453–516; “Statement of the Honorable Daniel J. Flood . . . Before the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives,” June 4, 1964, in ICPQ, 457–60.
48. “Interoceanic Canal Problem,” in ICPQ, 453–57; Jorden, Panama Odyssey, 99; Spear, Daniel J. Flood, 71.
49. Robert M. Sayre to McGeorge Bundy, Dec. 4, 1964, Folder 6, Box 67, Country File: Latin America—Panama, NSF, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJL.
50. McPherson, Yankee No!, 112–14.
51. “Statement of Panama Review Committee, November 6, 1964,” NSC Histories, Panama Crisis, 1964, Folder 1, LBJL.
52. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:419.
53. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:420.
54. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:420.
55. Even Robert Anderson referred to the 1903 treaty as “an emotional problem with Panama.” FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:421. See also McPherson, “Rioting for Dignity.”
56. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:420. See also FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:421, 31:423.
57. Harry McPherson interview by Jorden, Mar. 28, 1979, Box 22, Personal Papers of William J. Jorden, LBJL.
58. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks on the Decision to Build a Sea Level Canal and to Negotiate a New Treaty with Panama,” Dec. 18, 1964, in PPPUS, 1963–64, 2:809; Ted Szulc, “U.S. Decides to Dig a New Canal at Sea Level in Latin America and Renegotiate Panama Pact,” New York Times, Dec. 19, 1964.
59. Lawrence, “Exception to the Rule?”
60. Paul P. Kennedy, “Panama Ponders Policy on Canal,” New York Times, Dec. 21, 1964.
61. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:422.
62. Paul P. Kennedy, “Panama Observes Riot Anniversary,” New York Times, Jan. 10, 1965.
63. Remarks by Chairman Robert B. Anderson at the APICSC meeting with Secretaries of State, Treasury, Commerce, Army; Deputy Secretary of Defense; Chairman of AEC; Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff; President’s Assistant for Science and Technology, Mar. 17, 1966, Office Files of Harry McPherson, Box 12, Folder Panama Canal, LBJL.
64. Graves, Engineer Memoirs, 89.
65. McNeill and Unger, “Introduction: The Big Picture,” in Environmental Histories of the Cold War, 16.
Chapter 4. Navigating High Modernism
1. Daniel J. Flood, “Preconceived Plan for Sea-Level Canal Destroyed: Time for Action on Terminal Lake–Third Locks Plan Has Come,” Congressional Record, May 20, 1970, H4619–H4622; Strom Thurmond, “Introduction of the Panama Canal Modernization Act,” Congressional Record—Senate, Feb. 10, 1971, 2453–60; Commoner, Closing Circle, 60; Boffey, “Sea-Level Canal”; Newman, “National Academy of Science Committee”; Dunson, “Sea Snakes and the Sea Level Canal Controversy”; Rubinoff, “Sea-Level Canal in Panama”; Beeton, Report of the Committee on Ecological Effects; Sapp, What Is Natural, 125; Sapp, Coexistence, 103.
2. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Message to the Congress Transmitting First Annual Report of the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission,” August 3, 1965, in PPPUS, 1965, 1:400.
3. See especially Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 5–6.
4. Raymond Hill, “28th Meeting (9–10 July 1970) Transcript,” p. 224, Container 5, RG 220, NARA.
5. Loo, “People in the Way.”
6. Scott, Seeing Like a State.
7. Walt Rostow to Dean Rusk, Jan. 25, 1965, Folder 2, Box 67, Country File: Latin America—Panama, NSF, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJL.
8. Carson, Silent Spring, 127.
9. Macfarlane, “Negotiated High Modernism.”
10. See, e.g., Rycroft and Szyliowicz, “Decision-Making in a Technological Environment”; Josephson, Industrialized Nature; Zipp, Manhattan Projects; Zierler, Invention of Ecocide; Martini, Agent Orange; McNeill and Unger, Environmental Histories of the Cold War.
11. See also Frenkel, “A Hot Idea?”; Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, chap. 3.
12. Audra Wolfe quoted in Daniel A. Gross, “Can a Nuclear Explosion Be Peaceful? US Scientists Used to Think So,” Public Radio International, July 11, 2017, https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-11/can-nuclear-explosion-be-peaceful-us-scientists-used-think-so.
13. An Act to Provide for an Investigation and Study to Determine a Site for the Construction of a Sea Level Canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Public Law 88–609, Sept. 22, 1964, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-78/pdf/STATUTE-78-Pg990.pdf.
14. Langer, “ACDA”; Foster, “Risks of Nuclear Proliferation.”
15. FRUS, 1964–1968, 31:424.
16. “Interoceanic Canal Problem: Inquiry or Cover Up?,” Congressional Record, Apr. 1, 1965, in ICPQ, 432, 433.
17. McPherson, “Courts of World Opinion,” 92; Daniel J. Flood to Stephen Ailes, Jan. 25, 1965, in ICPQ, 444–46; Spear, Daniel J. Flood, 70. Flood’s own subsequent volume of his addresses on the Panama Canal from 1958 to 1966—ICPQ—totaled 523 pages. See also “Bibliography of Panama Canal Issues,” Congressional Record—Senate, July 10, 1967, 18114–19.
18. Sheffey to Harry C. McPherson Jr., Aug. 25, 1965, Box 4, Folder Personnel thru 1965, APICSC Administrative File, Entry 36040-F, RG 220, NARA.
19. Sheffey, “Transcript of 11th Mtg—23 June 1966,” p. 19, Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
20. Noble, “Transcript of Proceedings—14th Mtg—22 June 67,” p. 114, Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
21. Jorden, Panama Odyssey, 107; Sheffey interview by Jorden, May 8, 1979, Box 23, Personal Papers of William J. Jorden, LBJL.
22. Eisenhower, Wine Is Bitter.
23. Jorden, Panama Odyssey, 107; Phillips, Hall, and Black, Reining in the Rio Grande, chap. 7; “A Guide to the Raymond A. Hill Papers, 1890–1945,” Briscoe Center for American History, accessed Mar. 29, 2020, https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/01461/cah-01461.html.
24. Lawrence Van Gelder, “K.E. Fields, Engineer Who Led Atomic Energy Unit, Dies at 87,” New York Times, July 10, 1996; Alice Buck, The Atomic Energy Commission (U.S. Department of Energy, 1983), https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/AEC%20History.pdf.
25. Edward Tomlinson, “More Panama Demands Likely—Ike’s Brother Stirs Trouble,” Washington Daily News, July 18, 1958; Flood, “Panama Canal and the Milton Eisenhower Paper,” Congressional Record, May 21, 1964, in ICPQ, 399–408; “Interoceanic Canal Problem: Inquiry or Cover Up? Sequel,” Congressional Record, July 29, 1965, in ICPQ, 455.
26. Sheffey did not assume the official title of executive director until mid-1967; prior to then, he was called the acting executive director or executive secretary, but his duties remained the same. Sheffey to Anderson, Aug. 11, 1965, Box 4, Folder Personnel thru 1965, APICSC Administrative File, Entry 36040-F, RG 220, NARA; “Transcript of Proceedings—14th Mtg—22 June 67,” Container 2, RG 220, NARA; “Col. John Sheffey, 70, Dies; Expert on the Panama Canal,” Washington Post, Nov. 24, 1989.
27. Sheffey interview by Jorden, May 8, 1979, p. 22, Box 23, Personal Papers of William J. Jorden, LBJL.
28. Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 161–63; Graves, Engineer Memoirs.
29. Noble replaced Woodbury in June 1967, and Groves replaced Noble in June 1969. “Transcript of Proceedings—14th Mtg—22 June 67,” Container 2, RG 220, NARA; “Transcript of Proceedings—Twenty-Third Meeting (24 June 1969),” Container 4, RG 220, NARA.
30. Graves, “Nuclear Excavation of a Sea-level, Isthmian Canal,” 369.
31. U.S. Congress, Peaceful Applications of Nuclear Explosives, 2–53.
32. “Transcript of Second Meeting,” June 11, 1965, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
33. “Transcript of Second Meeting,” June 11, 1965; “Transcript of 5th Meeting—17–18 Sept 65,” Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
34. UPI, “Johnson Urges Speed Up of $$ for Canal Survey,” El Panama America, Aug. 4, 1965; “Funds for Canal Surveys,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 8, 1965.
35. “Transcript of Second Meeting,” June 11, 1965, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
36. “Transcript of Third Meeting,” July 16, 1965, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
37. See, e.g., Hagen, Entangled Bank; Golley, History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology; Bocking, Ecologists and Environmental Politics, Laura Martin, “Proving Grounds.”
38. Jorden, Panama Odyssey, 97–98; Irwin, Interview with John N. Irwin II, by Gordon W. Evans, May 30, 1991; Nick Ravo, “John N. Irwin II, 86, Diplomat and Ex-Aide to MacArthur,” New York Times, Feb. 29, 2000.
39. New York Zoological Society, 1965 Annual Report, 89–90.
40. “Transcript of Third Meeting,” July 16, 1965, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
41. Rubinoff, “Mixing Oceans and Species,” 69. Recent studies date the emergence of the Panama land bridge and sea barrier to around 2.8 million years ago, but during the 1960s researchers estimated that the eastern Pacific and western Atlantic marine populations had remained separated for as little as 2 million years and as much as 5 million years or more. See, e.g., Woodring, “The Panama Land Bridge as a Sea Barrier,” 425; Rubinoff, “Central American Sea-Level Canal,” 858; O’Dea et al., “Formation of the Isthmus of Panama.”
42. “Transcript of Third Meeting,” July 16, 1965, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
43. “Transcript of Third Meeting,” July 16, 1965.
44. “Transcript of 5th Meeting—17–18 Sept 65,” Container 1, RG 220, NARA; “Transcript of 8th Meeting—16 Dec 65,” Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
45. See, e.g., Robertson, Malthusian Moment; Flippen, Conservative Conservationist.
46. “Transcript of 5th Meeting—17–18 Sept 65,” p. 64, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
47. “Transcript of 5th Meeting—17–18 Sept 65,” p. 135.
48. Willard Libby quoted in “Plowshare Future Tied to Soviets,” Christian Science Monitor, Apr. 6, 1966.
49. Weart, Rise of Nuclear Fear. See also Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 38–39.
50. “Transcript of Third Meeting,” July 16, 1965, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
51. APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970, V-23.
52. “Press Release: US Canal Study Commission Inspecting Routes in Panama,” Aug. 21, 1965, APICSC Scrapbook, Container 1, RG 220, NARA.
53. “Transcript—7th Meeting (18 Nov 65),” Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
54. “Transcript—7th Meeting (18 Nov 65).”
55. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Annual Budget Message to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1967,” Jan. 24, 1966, in PPPUS, 1966, 1:26.
56. Seaborg, “Transcript of 9th Meeting—14 January 1966,” Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
57. Hill, “Transcript of 9th Meeting—14 January 1966,” Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
58. Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 129–33.
59. “Transcript of 8th Meeting—16 Dec 65,” p. 55, Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
60. “Inter-Sea Canal Aired,” Miami Herald, May 20, 1966; “The Panama Canal Study Hurting for Time, Money,” Oakland Times, May 26, 1966. See also “LBJ Told Poverty Dented, But Canal Plans Slowed,” Tulsa Daily World, Aug 16, 1966.
61. “Panamanians Marking Riots Burn a U.S. Flag,” New York Times, Jan. 10, 1966.
62. Richard E. Bevir, “We Built Our Own Road through the Darien Gap,” Popular Mechanics, Aug. 1961, 206. See also Joseph C. Ingraham, “American Roller-Coaster,” New York Times, Feb. 7, 1960; “2 in Heavy-Duty Car Blaze Trail through Panama’s Dense Jungle,” New York Times, June 13, 1960; Kip Ross, “We Drove Panama’s Darién Gap,” National Geographic 119 (1961): 368–89; Hanbury-Tenison and Burton, “Should the Darien Gap Be Closed?”
63. These figures came from the 1960 census, as reported in Torres de Araúz, Demographic Characteristics of Human Groups. See also Anthony Coates, Central America.
64. “Army Engineer Unit Set Up in Zone for New Canal Study,” New York Times, Aug. 8, 1965; A. G. Sutton, “Sea-Level Canal,” Military Engineer 60 (1968): 105.
65. Reuss, “The Art of Scientific Precision.”
66. Reeve Waring, “Darien Sea-Level Canal Survey Starts,” Sunday American (Panama), Mar. 20, 1966; “Darien Indians Protest US ‘Invasion,’ ” Panama American, Mar. 22, 1966. See also “The Panama Canal Study Hurting for Time, Money,” Oakland Times, May 26, 1966.
67. Technical Liaison Officer and Staff, Press Analysis, June 1, 1966, APICSC Scrapbook (quote), RG 220, NARA; “AEC Studying Nuclear Effects in R.P. Minister Confirms Atomic Canal Study,” Sunday American (Panama), Apr. 10, 1966; “Bar Flays Eleta-Adair Notes on Sea-Level Canal Studies,” Panama American, Jan. 18, 1967.
68. “Panama tab: ‘Confidential: APICSC Public Information Study Group Questionnaire for Panama,’ ” n.d. [ca. Feb. 21, 1967], Folder Public Information Questionnaires and Responses (Confidential), Container 12, RG 220, NARA. The information about Eleta’s degree is from “Fallece Fernando Eleta Almarán, pionero de la televisión panameña,” Telemetro.com, Aug. 12, 2011, http://www.telemetro.com/nacionales/Fallece-Fernando-Eleta-Almaran-television_0_395660436.html. See also Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, 93, 231n61.
69. OICS Technical Liaison Officer and Staff, Press Analysis, June 1, 1966, APICSC Scrapbook, RG 220, NARA; Kenneth Smart, “Panama’s Big Ditch Poses Big Problems,” Dallas Times Herald, Apr. 10, 1966; Bruce Biossat, “If Panama Canal Is on Way Out, Then What?,” Washington Daily News, Apr. 11, 1966; John M. Goshko, “Planned A-Tests Alarm Latins,” Washington Post, Apr. 21, 1966; “Latin Nations Differ on Atom-Free Pact,” Washington Post, Apr. 21, 1966; John W. Finney, “U.S. Delays A-Test as Aid to Treaty,” New York Times, Feb. 11, 1967; “Sucre, US Envoy Play Hosts at ‘Atoms in Action’ Opening,” Panama American, May 8, 1967; Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, 94, 231n62.
70. Christobal Sarmiento, “What’s Happening in Darien Survey?,” Panama American, May 29, 1966.
71. OICS Technical Liaison Officer and Staff, Press Analysis, June 1, 1966, APICSC Scrapbook, RG 220, NARA; “Transcript of 11th Mtg—23 June 1966,” p. 33, Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
72. Reuters, “Bulldozers Prowl for New Canal Site,” Christian Science Monitor, June 6, 1966.
73. Howe, People Who Would Not Kneel; Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, 95–96, 101.
74. “Transcript of 11th Mtg—23 June 1966,” p. 22, Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
75. Bevir, “We Built Our Own Road through the Darien Gap,” Popular Mechanics, Aug. 1961; Howe, Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers, 194; Scott Doggett, “Birds versus Buzz Saws in Jungle Joust,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21, 2004.
76. Christobal Sarmiento, “What’s Happening in Darien Survey?,” Panama American, May 29, 1966 (quote); “Transcript of 11th Mtg—23 June 1966,” p. 37, Container 2, RG 220, NARA. See also “Jungle Quest for Answers to Future Canal Near End,” Star & Herald (Panama), Feb. 14, 1968.
77. The sea-level canal studies by Reina Torres de Araúz include Human Ecology Studies, Panama, Phase 1: Final Report (Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Memorial Institute, 1967); Demographic Characteristics of Human Groups Inhabiting the Eastern Region of the Republic of Panama (Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Memorial Institute, 1968); Shrimp Fishery of Panama (Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Memorial Institute, 1968); “Demographic and Dietary Data for Human Groups Inhabiting the Eastern Region of the Republic of Darien,” BioScience 19 (1969): 331–35; and Human Ecology of Route 17 (Sasardi-Morti) Region, Darien, Panama, transl. and ed. F. W. McBryde (Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Memorial Institute, 1970).
78. Battelle Memorial Institute, Environmental Impact Assessment for Darien Gap Highway.
79. “Panama Presses New Canal Study: Scientists Assay Nuclear Excavation in the Jungles,” New York Times, Feb. 27, 1967. See also Judy Burton, “Storey Inspects Proposed Sites for New Canal,” Dallas Morning News, Apr. 20, 1967.
80. “US Pushes Study of Route for Sea-Level Canal in RP,” Weekend American (Panama), Feb. 25, 1967; Colin Hale, “Canal Studies in Darien Are Not All Milk and Honey,” Panama American, Apr. 3, 1967.
81. APICSC, Third Annual Report, July 31, 1967, Entry A1 36040-D, Container 3, RG 220, NARA.
82. Henry Giniger, “ ‘Martyrs’ of Riot Hailed in Panama,” New York Times, Jan. 10, 1967.
83. “Canal Studies Agreements Identical in RP, Colombia,” Panama American, Mar. 2, 1967; Panama Canal Information Office, Daily Digest of News and Editorial Opinion of Panama News Media, n.d. [ca. Mar. 4, 1967], APICSC Scrapbook, RG 220, NARA.
84. “Agitators Try to Stir Canal Studies Trouble,” Panama American, June 12, 1967.
85. Arlen J. Large, “Blocked Canal,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 6, 1967; “US Sea-Level Canal Studies Going Smoothly, OICS Says,” Panama American, Sept. 7, 1967; “Sea-Level Canal Studies Going Well, Chief Says,” Star & Herald (Panama), Sept. 8, 1967; “OICS Phasing Out Studies of RP Sea-Level Canal Site,” Panama American, Sept. 8, 1967.
86. AEC, “AEC to Conduct Plowshare Cratering Experiment in Nevada,” Jan. 23, 1967, APICSC Scrapbook, RG 220, NARA; Representative Craig Hosmer quoted in “AEC May Disrupt New Canal Plans: Congressman Denounces Act of Atom Group,” Star & Herald (Panama), Feb. 11, 1967.
87. “Fallout Spread over Six States from Nevada Test, AEC Reports,” Washington Post, Apr. 29, 1966; John W. Finney, “U.S. Delays A-Test as Aid to Treaty,” New York Times, Feb. 11, 1967; Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, 99; Hunt, “Mexican Nuclear Diplomacy.”
88. Victor K. McElheny, “U.S. Peaceful A-Use Program Opposed,” Washington Post, Mar. 13, 1967.
89. John W. Finney, “Maneuvering Is On over ‘Panama Canal II,’ ” New York Times, Nov. 27, 1966.
90. “Panama–United States Joint Announcement of Agreement on Texts of Three New Canal Treaties, June 26, 1947,” in Congressional Research Service, Background Documents Relating to the Panama Canal, 1148; “Surrender in Panama,” Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1967; Chesly Manly, “Full Panama Treaty Text,” Chicago Tribune, July 15, 1967; LaFeber, Panama Canal, 147–48; Major, Prize Possession.
91. “Transcript of Proceedings—16th Mtg—7 Sept 67,” Container 2, RG 220, NARA; Dean Rusk, Department of State Bulletin, Aug. 7, 1967, in Congressional Research Service, Background Documents, 1148, note 78.
92. Arlen J. Large, “Blocked Canal,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 6, 1967.
93. David Kirsch, “Project Plowshare”; Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds.
94. Morgenstern and Heiss, General Report on the Economics of the Peaceful Uses of Underground Nuclear Explosions, 5 (emphasis in original)
95. Martini, Agent Orange; Zierler, Invention of Ecocide.
96. David Kirsch, Electric Car and the Burden of History; Laird, Solar Energy, Technology Policy, and Institutional Values.
97. Inglis and Sandler, “Special Report on Plowshare,” 49.
98. “Transcript of Proceedings—16th Mtg—7 Sept 67,” p. 10, Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
Chapter 5. Assessing Mankind’s Most Gigantic Biological Experiment
1. Bowler, Earth Encompassed, 208.
2. See, e.g., BioScience 19 (1969); William Martin et al., Symposium on Sea-level Canal Bioenvironmental Studies; Torres de Araúz, Demographic Characteristics of Human Groups; APICSC, Annual Reports, Entry A1 36040-D, Container 3, RG 220, NARA.
3. See, e.g., Covich, “Projects That Never Happened”; Covich, “Frank Golley’s Perspectives”; John Motyka, “James Duke, 88, Globe-Trotting Authority on Healing Plants, Is Dead,” New York Times, Dec. 5, 2018; G. Wayne Clough, personal communication; Torres de Araúz, Demographic Characteristics of Human Groups.
4. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
5. Quote from “Transcript of Proceedings—18th Mtg—7 March 1968,” Entry A1 36040-C, Container 4, RG 220, NARA.
6. Rubinoff, “Central American Sea-Level Canal,” 857.
7. See, e.g., O’Neill, Firecracker Boys.
8. Seaborg, Stemming the Tide, 326–39; Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 129–33.
9. “Canals and the Atom,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Apr. 18, 1968.
10. Thomas O’Toole, “Super-Clean Nuclear Explosive Now Appears within U.S. Grasp,” Washington Post, May 12, 1968.
11. “RP Envoy Scores Nuclear Canal Idea,” Panama American, n.d. [ca. Aug. 1968].
12. John W. Finney, “Maneuvering Is On over ‘Panama Canal II,’ ” New York Times, Nov. 27, 1966; Bruce Biossat, “If Panama Canal Is on Way Out, Then What?,” Washington Daily News, Apr. 11, 1966; “Gulf Oil Orders Six 300,000-Ton Japanese Ships,” Washington Star, May 9, 1966.
13. Tania Long, “Lloyd’s Register Plans 500,000-Ton Tanker,” New York Times, Jan. 4, 1966; “1 million-Ton Cargo Ship Called Feasible,” Washington News, Dec. 14, 1966.
14. “Transcript of Proceedings—18th Mtg—7 March 1968,” p. 98, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 4, RG 220, NARA. See also Graves, Engineer Memoirs; Coulombe, “Searching for Stability.”
15. “Transcript of Proceedings—18th Mtg—7 March 1968,” p. 98, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 4, RG 220, NARA.
16. “Transcript of the Executive Session of the 26th Meeting of the APICSC, 12 March 1970,” Entry A1 36040-C, Container 5, RG 220, NARA.
17. Milton S. Eisenhower to John Sheffey, Mar. 11, 1968, Box 1: Foreign Policy Study 1965–68, Folder 1: Foreign Policy Study, 1965 thru 1968, Entry 36040-H, RG 220, NARA.
18. “Transcript of Proceedings—16th Mtg—7 Sept 67,” pp. 17–18, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 2, RG 220, NARA.
19. See, e.g., Tate and Allen, “The Proposed New Treaties for the Panama Canal,” 276.
20. “Transcript of Proceedings—19th Mtg—23 May 1968,” Entry A1 36040-C, Container 4, RG 220, NARA.
21. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Message to the Congress Transmitting the Fourth Annual Report of the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission,” Sept. 5, 1968, in PPPUS, 1968–1969, 2:466.
22. Leonard Carmichael to Glenn Seaborg, Mar. 14, 1963, RU 155, Box 57, Folder General Correspondence—1963–1965, SIA; Carmichael to James E. Reeves, Aug. 13, 1963, RU 155, Box 57, Folder General Correspondence—1963–1965, SIA.
23. Wallen, “A Long Term Biological Study of the Marine Organisms on Both Sides of the Middle American Isthmus,” 1965, RU 108, Box 41, Folder 6, SIA; John N. Wolfe to I. E. Wallen, July 19, 1965, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA; Harve J. Carlson to I. E. Wallen, Sept. 21, 1965, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA; Charles L. Dunham to T. Dale Stewart, Jan. 4, 1966, RU 155, Box 59, Folder A Long Term Biological Study of Marine Organisms, SIA.
24. Cowan et al., “Meetings”; Ritterbush, “Biology and the Smithsonian Institution”; S. Dillon Ripley to James E. Reeves, June 2, 1964, RU 155, Box 57, Folder General Correspondence—1963–1965, SIA; I. E. Wallen to Dr. Ripley, Mar. 13, 1964, RU 155, Box 57, Folder General Correspondence—1963–1965, SIA.
25. I. E. Wallen to S. Dillon Ripley, Dec. 14, 1964, RU 155, Box 57, Folder General Correspondence—1963–1965, SIA; Wallen, “Proposal to Atomic Energy Commission,” Dec. 21, 1964, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA.
26. Golley et al., “The Structure of Tropical Forests in Panama and Colombia”; Ethan Walther to I. E. Wallen, Jan. 8, 1964, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA.
27. Wallen to Ripley, Feb. 25, 1965, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA; Wallen to Ripley, Apr. 16, 1965, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA.
28. John N. Wolfe to I. E. Wallen, July 19, 1965, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA.
29. Ripley, Trail of the Money Bird, 14–15.
30. Henson, “Baseline Environmental Survey.”
31. Raby, “Ark and Archive”; Raby, American Tropics.
32. Richards, “What the Tropics Can Contribute”; Ripley, “Perspectives in Tropical Biology”; AIBS Committee, “Preliminary Report: Panama Tropical Center for Biological Research,” 1965, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA; Wallen to Ripley, June 7, 1965, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 2, SIA.
33. Hagen, “Problems in the Institutionalization of Tropical Biology.”
34. Woodring, “Panama Land Bridge as a Sea Barrier.”
35. Henson, “Baseline Environmental Survey.”
36. Mayr, “Geographic Speciation in Tropical Echinoids,” 2; Mayr to Ira Rubinoff, Feb. 28, 1966, Box 13, Folder 900, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA. Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives.
37. Mayr to Harvey Brooks, Jan. 8, 1965, Box 11, Folder 862, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA.
38. Mayr to Harvey Brooks, Jan. 8, 1965.
39. Milam, “Equally Wonderful Field.”
40. Haffer, Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy, 130–31.
41. Rubinoff to Mayr, Apr. 22, 1961, Box 8, Folder 795, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA; Rubinoff to Mayr, May 23, 1962, Box 8, Folder 795, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA.
42. Rubinoff, Statement, Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Panama Canal; Christen, “At Home in the Field.”
43. Ripley, “Announcement,” Apr. 18, 1966, RU 254, Box 39, Folder 1, SIA.
44. Rubinoff, “Mixing Oceans and Species.”
45. Rubinoff, “Mixing Oceans and Species,” 72; Aronova, Baker, and Oreskes, “Big Science and Big Data in Biology.”
46. Rubinoff to Mayr, Nov. 26, 1965, Box 13, Folder 900, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA; Rosenblatt, “Zoogeographic Relationships of the Marine Shore Fishes”; Briggs, “Relationship of the Tropical Shelf Regions.”
47. R. S. Davidson to Sidney R. Galler, May 6, 1966, RU 155, Box 57, Folder General Correspondence—1966, SIA. See also William E. Martin to Sidney R. Galler, Aug. 10, 1966, RU 155, Box 58, Folder General Correspondence—1966, SIA.
48. Galler to Ripley, May 16, 1966, RU 136, Box 1, Folder 3, SIA.
49. R. S. Cowan to [MNH] Department Chairmen, Dr. Moynihan and Dr. Klein, Mar. 14, 1966, RU 155, Box 57, Folder General Correspondence—1966, SIA; Cowan to Ripley, Apr. 20, 1966, RU 155, Box 58, Folder General Correspondence—1966, SIA.
50. H. G. Woodbury, Memorandum for the Record, Aug. 8, 1966, RU 155, Box 58, Folder General Correspondence—1966, SIA.
51. “Detailed Minutes: Meeting on Tropical Research,” Aug. 3, 1966, RU 155, Box 58, Folder General Correspondence—1966, SIA; William E. Martin, “BMI Report on Official Travel,” Aug. 8, 1966, RU 155, Box 58, Folder General Correspondence—1966, SIA.
52. John P. Sheffey to Sidney R. Galler, Aug. 29, 1966, RU 108, Box 3, Folder 5, SIA.
53. Cowan to Ripley, through Galler, Aug. 26, 1966, RU 155, Box 58, Folder General Correspondence—1966, SIA.
54. “Panama Conference on Tropical Biology,” RU 155, Box 58, Folder Panama Conference Transcript, SIA; Buechner and Fosberg, “Contribution toward a World Program.”
55. Galler, Memorandum for the Files, Feb. 8, 1968, RU 108, Box 3, Folder 5, SIA.
56. Rubinoff and Rubinoff, “Interoceanic Colonization of a Marine Goby”; Rubinoff and Rubinoff, “Observations on the Migration of a Marine Goby.”
57. These authors included Chesher, Topp, Menzies, Glynn, Dunson, Newman, and Jones, and to a lesser extent, Graham, Hubbs, Kropach, Porter, and Vermeij. “Bibliography of Research Supported through the Facilities of the STRI Marine Laboratories during their First Ten Years,” 1977, RU 329, Box 125, Folder 3, SIA.
58. Rubinoff, “Mixing Oceans and Species.”
59. Aron and Por, “Tribute to Heinz Steinitz (1909–1971) and Gunnar Thorson (1906–1971).”
60. Por, “One Hundred Years of Suez Canal”; Safriel, “The ‘Lessepsian Invasion.’ ”
61. Woodbury to Ripley, Nov. 25, 1966; Ripley to Woodbury, Dec. 13, 1966, RU 108, Box 3, Folder 5, SIA; “Panama Conference on Tropical Biology,” p. 30, RU 155, Box 58, Folder Panama Conference Transcript, SIA.
62. Ripley to Woodbury, Jan. 23, 1967, RU 108, Box 3, Folder 5, SIA; Charles C. Noble to S. Dillon Ripley, Sept. 14, 1967, RU 99, Box 50, Folder Sea Level Canal, SIA; Galler to Ripley, Dec. 7, 1967, RU 108, Box 3, Folder 5, SIA; F. Raymond Fosberg, “Program for Ecological Research in Relation to the Proposed Sea-Level Canal,” Dec. 1, 1967, RU 136, Box 1, Folder 3, SIA.
63. Galler to Ripley, Mar. 10, 1967, RU 470, Box 37, Folder NSF Paper, SIA.
64. Galler, Memorandum for the Files, Feb. 8, 1968, RU 108, Box 3, Folder 5, SIA; Rubinoff to Russell B. Stevens, Aug. 28, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Data Accumulation, 1969, NAS.
65. Cole, “Can the World Be Saved?,” BioScience; LaMont C. Cole, “Can the World Be Saved?,” New York Times Magazine, Mar. 31, 1968, 35, 95, 97, 100.
66. Rubinoff, “Central American Sea-Level Canal,” 857.
67. See also Hubbs and Pope, “Spread of the Sea Lamprey through the Great Lakes”; Aron and Smith, “Ship Canals and Aquatic Ecosystems.”
68. Rubinoff, “Central American Sea-Level Canal,” 858.
69. Rubinoff, 860.
70. “Text of Kennedy’s Address to Academy of Natural Sciences,” New York Times, Oct. 23, 1963, 24; Rubinoff, “Central American Sea-Level Canal,” 860.
71. Rubinoff, “Central American Sea-Level Canal,” 861.
72. Dreyfus and Ingram, “National Environmental Policy Act”; Taylor, Making Bureaucracies Think; Caldwell, National Environmental Policy Act; Andrews, Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves; Lindstrom and Smith, National Environmental Policy Act.
73. Moon et al., “Multidisciplinary Conceptualization of Conservation Opportunity,” 1488.
74. Rubinoff to Russell B. Stevens, Aug. 28, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Data Accumulation, NAS.
75. See, e.g., Kingsland, Evolution of American Ecology; Kristin Johnson, “Natural History as Stamp Collecting”; Hagen, “Problems in the Institutionalization of Tropical Biology”; Billick and Price, Ecology of Place; Raby, “Ark and Archive.”
76. See especially Norse and Crowder, Marine Conservation Biology, xviii; Kroll, America’s Ocean Wilderness; Oreskes, “Scaling Up Our Vision”; Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses.
77. Charles Elton, Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, 100.
78. Szylvian, “Transforming Lake Michigan”; Mann, Exotic Species in Mariculture.
79. Kinsey, “ ‘Seeding the Water as the Earth’ ”; Keiner, Oyster Question.
80. Elton, Ecology of Invasions, 96. See also Carlton, “Blue Immigrants”; Nelson, “Ravages of Teredo.”
81. Elton, Ecology of Invasions, 94; Hildebrand, “Panama Canal as a Passageway for Fishes”
82. Rubinoff and Rubinoff, “Interoceanic Colonization of a Marine Goby,” 477.
83. Sheffey, “When Caribbean and Pacific Waters Mix,” 1329. See also Sheffey to Philip H. Abelson, Oct. 22, 1968, RU 108, Box 3, Folder 5, SIA.
84. Rubinoff, letter to editor, 762.
85. John Hillaby, “A Risky Mix,” New Scientist, 1969, 280–81.
86. Briggs, “Panama’s Sea-Level Canal”; Briggs, Marine Zoogeography.
87. Briggs, “Panama’s Sea-Level Canal,” 512.
88. Briggs, “The Sea-Level Panama Canal,” 47.
89. Rubinoff, “Sea-Level Canal Controversy”; Porter, “Ecology and Species Diversity of Coral Reefs.”
90. Voss, “Biological Results of the University of Miami Deep-Sea Expeditions,” 56.
91. Carl Hubbs to Philip Handler, Feb. 17, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1969, NAS.
92. See, e.g., Doel, “Constituting the Postwar Earth Sciences.”
93. Hubbs, “Need for Thorough Inventory,” 468; Aron and Smith, “Ship Canals and Aquatic Ecosystems.”
94. Hubbs, “Need for Thorough Inventory,” 467.
95. Topp, “Interoceanic Sea-Level Canal,” 1324. STRI scientists confirmed this hypothesis decades later, though without referencing Topp. Smith, Bell, and Bermingham, “Cross-Cordillera Exchange.”
96. Menzies, “Transport of Marine Life.”
97. Chesher, “Transport of Marine Plankton.”
98. Topp, “Interoceanic Sea-Level Canal,” 1326.
99. Sheffey to Burton Benjamin, Apr. 7, 1969, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 1, SIA.
100. Rubinoff, “Sea-Level Canal Controversy,” 34; Meredith Jones, “Panamic Biota”; Dawson, “Occurrence of an Exotic Eleotrid Fish”; Jones and Dawson, “Salinity-Temperature Profiles in the Panama Canal Locks.” See also Carlton, “Transoceanic and Interoceanic Dispersal of Coastal Marine Organisms,” 319.
101. APICSC, “Fifth Annual Report,” July 31, 1969, pp. 3–7, Entry A1 36040-D, Container 3, RG 220, NARA; Richard Nixon, “Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report of the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission,” Aug. 6, 1969, PPPUS, 1969, 314.
102. Thomas O’Toole, “U.S. A-Test Linked to Canada Fallout,” Washington Post, Jan. 9, 1969; Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 169–70.
103. “RP Establishes Office to Study Canal Routes,” Panama American, n.d. [ca. Nov 1968]; APICSC, “Fifth Annual Report,” July 31, 1969, 9.
104. William H. Gorishek, “Dream of Nuclear Canal Turns into Pick and Shovel Nightmare,” Panama American, Apr. 22, 1969.
Chapter 6. Avoiding an Elastic Collision with Knowledge
1. See, e.g., Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring; Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival; Rubinson, Rethinking the American Antinuclear Movement; Spears, Rethinking the American Environmental Movement.
2. Richard Nixon, “Statement about the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969,” Jan. 1, 1970, in PPPUS, 1970, 2.
3. Flippen, Nixon and the Environment.
4. Boffey, “Sea-Level Canal”; Newman, “National Academy of Science Committee,” 256 (quote); Leslie A. Pray, “Ernst Mayr Dies,” The Scientist, Feb. 4, 2005; Sapp, What Is Natural; Sapp, Coexistence.
5. Ira Rubinoff to Ernst Mayr, Apr. 4, 1968, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: General, 1968, NAS; Carl Hubbs to Philip Handler, Feb. 17, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1969, NAS.
6. Luther Carter, “National Academy of Sciences”; Boffey, Brain Bank of America.
7. LaMont C. Cole to Ernst Mayr, Feb. 13, 1968, Box 15, Folder 952, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA.
8. Mayr to Cole, Feb. 8, 1968, Box 15, Folder 952, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA.
9. Cole to Mayr, Feb. 13, 1968, Box 15, Folder 952 Mayr Papers, HUA. Cole’s statement is poignant given that three years later the academy’s governing council apparently cut him from a list of nominees due to his environmental activism. See Walsh, “National Academy of Sciences”; Rome, Genius of Earth Day.
10. Mayr to Frederick Seitz, Apr. 16, 1968, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: General, 1968, NAS.
11. Seitz to Mayr, Apr. 19, 1968, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: General, 1968, NAS; Seitz to Mayr, May 22, 1968 [quote]; Mayr to Frederick Seitz, Apr. 16, 1968, Folder BIOLOGY & Agriculture: CERIC: General, 1968, NAS.
12. Seitz to Ripley, May 12, 1969, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 1, SIA; Mayr to Ripley, May 16, 1969, RU 108, Box 42, Folder 1, SIA. For more detail, see Keiner, “Two-Ocean Bouillabaisse,” 859–60.
13. Robert B. Anderson to S. Dillon Ripley, Aug. 9, 1968, RU 108, Box 41, Folder 8, SIA; David Challinor to S. D. Ripley, S. R. Galler, I. E. Wallen, L. M. Talbot, M. Moynihan, H. Buechner, T. Jorling, Nov. 13, 1968, RU 108, Box 41, Folder 8, SIA; Challinor to Ripley, Galler, Wallen, Talbot, Moynihan, Buechner, Jorling, Nov. 22, 1968, RU 108, Box 41, Folder 8, SIA.
14. Ripley to Anderson, Dec. 2, 1968, RU 108, Box 41, Folder 8, SIA; Paula Ullmann to Lynne Mac Elroy, Dec. 2, 1968, RU 99, Box 216, Folder Sea Level Canal, SIA.
15. Anderson to Seitz, Dec. 6, 1968, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: General, 1968, NAS.
16. Sheffey to C. E. Sunderlin, Dec. 30, 1968, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Background Data, Battelle Memorial Inst Proposals, NAS; Russell B. Stevens to A. G. Norman, Jan. 13, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: Interoceanic Canal, Com. on Ecological Research for: Battelle Inst. Report & Proposal, 1968–69, NAS; A. G. Norman to Stephen H. Spurr, Feb. 9, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Beginning of Program, 1968–1969, NAS.
17. National Research Council, Division of Biology and Agriculture, “For Action New Projects,” Feb. 9, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1969, NAS.
18. B. L. Kropp and R. B. Stevens, “Proposal for Planning for Long-Term Ecological Studies of an Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal to Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission, February 15, 1969–June 30, 1970,” Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1969, NAS.
19. Mueller, “New Canal,” 167.
20. Sheffey to Philip H. Abelson, Jan. 21, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1969, NAS.
21. “Transcript—Proceedings of 21st Mtg (13 Jan 69),” Entry A1 36040-C, Container 4, RG 220, NARA.
22. “Transcript—Proceedings of 21st Mtg (13 Jan 69).”
23. “Transcript—Proceedings of 21st Mtg (13 Jan 69).”
24. “Transcript of Proceedings—Twenty-Third Meeting (24 June 1969),” pp. 76, 78, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 4, RG 220, NARA.
25. “Transcript of 24th Meeting (Oct 23, 1969),” Entry A1 36040-C, Container 4, RG 220, NARA.
26. FRUS, 1969–1976, E-10:524, E-10:521.
27. “Transcript of 24th Meeting (Oct 23, 1969),” p. 36, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 4, RG 220, NARA.
28. Henry Ramont, “2 Latin Lands Set New Canal Route,” New York Times, Sept. 29, 1969; “RP, Colombia Propose New Canal to Cross Border of 2 Countries,” Panama American, Sept. 30, 1969.
29. Nixon, “Statement about the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.”
30. Thompson, “Improving the Quality of Life,” 2. For the 1959 hearings see U.S. Congress, Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War.
31. Thompson, “Improving the Quality of Life,” 4. On earlier environmental criticisms of the AEC, see, e.g., Balogh, Chain Reaction, 258–65; Hamblin, Poison in the Well, chap. 8.
32. Werth, “Closing Remarks,” 1775.
33. Ramey, “Calvert Cliffs Campaign,” 140. See also Balogh, Chain Reaction, chap. 8; Caldwell, National Environmental Policy Act, 43; Lindstrom and Smith, National Environmental Policy Act, 115–17.
34. Murphy, “National Environmental Policy Act and the Licensing Process,” 963.
35. “Transcript of the Executive Session of the 26th Meeting of the APICSC, 12 March 1970,” p. 20, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 5, RG 220, NARA.
36. “28th Meeting (9–10 July 1970) Transcript,” pp. 85–86, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 5, RG 220, NARA.
37. Shor, Rosenblatt, and Isaacs, “Carl Leavitt Hubbs,” 230.
38. “Transcript of the Executive Session of the 26th Meeting of the APICSC, 12 March 1970,” p. 65, Entry A1 36040-C, Container #5, RG 220, NARA.
39. “Transcript of the Executive Session of the 26th Meeting of the APICSC, 12 March 1970,” p. 65.
40. Joshua Lederberg, “Sea-Level Canal Points up Need for Environmental Data,” Washington Post, Feb. 1, 1969.
41. Seitz to Mayr, Dec. 24, 1968, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: General, 1968, NAS; Mayr to Seitz, Jan. 6, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1969, NAS.
42. Norman to R. B. Stevens, Mar. 3, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Beginning of Program, 1968–1969, NAS; “Draft Minutes—Ad Hoc Group Meeting to Discuss Ecological Research Related to Sea-Level Canal, March 17, 1969,” Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Beginning of Program, 1968–1969, NAS.
43. Mayr to Russell B. Stevens, Apr. 8, 1969, Box 17, Folder 1023, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA.
44. Mayr to Russell B. Stevens, May 19, 1969, Box 17, Folder 1023, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA; Stevens, “Memorandum to Participants, Meeting of March 17th,” Apr. 14, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Beginning of Program, 1968–1969, NAS; Alan R. Longhurst to Russell B. Stevens, Dec. 16, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Subcom on Oceanography, Ad hoc, 1969, NAS; Stevens to Luna B. Leopold, Nov. 13, 1969, Folder Ad Hoc Committee on Hydrology, 1969–1970, NAS. For more detail, see Keiner, “Two-Ocean Bouillabaisse,” 863–64.
45. Bayer, Voss, and Robins, Bioenvironmental and Radiological Safety Feasibility Studies, 9; Voss, “Biological Results of the University of Miami Deep-Sea Expeditions.”
46. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 204–5.
47. MacArthur and Wilson, Theory of Island Biogeography.
48. Baker and Stebbins, Genetics of Colonizing Species; Blu Buhs, Fire Ant Wars.
49. National Research Council, Division of Biology and Agriculture, “Revised Summary Report—Workshop on Biology of Dispersal, Woods Hole, Mass., 20 Aug 1969,” Folder Biology & Agriculture: Interoceanic Canal, Com. on Ecological Res for: Workshop on Biology of Dispersal, Aug. 20, 1969, NAS.
50. National Research Council, “Revised Summary Report.”
51. Bakus to Russell B. Stevens, Apr. 30, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: Interoceanic Canal, Com. on Ecological Res. for: Corres. re submission of Rept. & Comments thereon, 1970–73, NAS.
52. Bakus to Stevens, Dec. 2, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Data Accumulation, 1969, NAS; Bakus to Brian J. Rothschild, Mar. 16, 1970, Folder Correspondence: Reading File—1970, NAS.
53. William Randolph Taylor to Bakus, Feb. 11, 1970, Folder General 1, 1969–70, NAS.
54. Bakus to Mayr, Dec. 10, 1969, Folder Correspondence: Reading File, 1969, NAS; Bakus to Mayr, Mar. 30, 1970, Folder Correspondence: Reading File—1970, NAS.
55. Voss, “Biological Results of the University of Miami Deep-Sea Expeditions.”
56. Bakus to Longhurst, Dec. 15, 1969, Folder Correspondence: Reading File, 1969, NAS.
57. Mayr to Sheffey, Aug. 19, 1969, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC: Data Accumulation, 1969, NAS.
58. Bakus to Mayr, Feb. 26, 1970, Folder Correspondence: Reading File—1970, NAS.
59. Rubinoff, “Sea-Level Canal Controversy,” 35.
60. Bakus, “AAAS Sea-Level Canal Symposium, 30 Dec 1969,” Jan. 5, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: Interoceanic Canal, Com. on Ecological Research on: Meeting January 15–19, 1970, NAS.
61. Vermeij, Biogeography and Adaptation, 259, 266.
62. Kingsland, Evolution of American Ecology; Kristin Johnson, “Natural History as Stamp Collecting.”
63. Chesher, “Destruction of Pacific Corals”; Sapp, What Is Natural.
64. Bakus, “AAAS Sea-Level Canal Symposium, 30 Dec 1969,” Jan. 5, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: Interoceanic Canal, Com. on Ecological Research on: Meeting January 15–19, 1970, NAS; David L. Pawson to Bakus, Feb. 5, 1970, Folder General 1, 1969–70, NAS.
65. “Sea-Level Mysteries: Ecology and the Canal,” Science News, Apr. 11, 1970, 364–65.
66. Rubinoff to Carl J. George, Mar. 24, 1969, RU 108, Box 42, Folder Sea Level Canal Correspondence (1), SIA; Rubinoff and Kropach, “Differential Reactions of Atlantic and Pacific Predators.”
67. Graham, Rubinoff, and Hecht, “Temperature Physiology of the Sea Snake.”
68. Sheffey to Wallen, Apr. 9, 1969, RU 108, Box 42, Folder Sea Level Canal Correspondence (1), SIA.
69. Rubinoff to Peter S. Hunt, Jan. 20, 1969, RU 108, Box 42, Folder Sea Level Canal Correspondence (1), SIA.
70. CERIC, Marine Ecological Research, 2, 188.
71. Victor Cohn, “A-Canal Dealt Blow,” Washington Post, Apr. 13, 1970.
72. Mayr to Bakus, Apr. 16, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1970, NAS; Stevens to John S. Coleman, Apr. 23, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1970, NAS.
73. Daniel J. Flood to John C. Briggs, Oct. 13, 1969, Folder Studies re Sea-Level Canal, 1969–1972 (2), Box 46, Papers of William Merrill Whitman, DDEL.
74. Daniel J. Flood, “Preconceived Plan for Sea-Level Canal Destroyed: Time for Action on Terminal Lake–Third Locks Plan Has Come,” Congressional Record—House, May 20, 1970, H4619–H4622; Spear, Daniel J. Flood, 75.
75. R. H. Groves to John S. Coleman, May 11, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1970, NAS; Sheffey to Bakus, May 18, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1970, NAS.
76. William A. Newman to John S. Coleman, May 28, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1970, NAS; Howard L. Sanders to Sheffey, June 1, 1970, Folder Biology & Agriculture: CERIC 1970, NAS.
77. Newman, “National Academy of Science Committee,” 256.
78. Bayer, Voss, and Robins, Bioenvironmental and Radiological Safety Feasibility Studies.
79. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 374.
80. Voss, “Biological Results of the University of Miami Deep-Sea Expeditions,” 54.
81. “Battelle Memorial Institute Report on Possible Effects of a Sea-Level Canal on the Marine Ecology of the American Isthmian Region,” quoted in APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970, 61.
82. “28th Meeting (9–10 July 1970) Transcript,” pp. 202–4, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 5, RG 220, NARA; CERIC, Marine Ecological Research, 155.
83. “28th Meeting (9–10 July 1970) Transcript,” pp. 202–4.
84. “28th Meeting (9–10 July 1970) Transcript,” pp. 223–24.
85. “28th Meeting (9–10 July 1970) Transcript,” p. 226.
86. Richard Halloran, “Route Is Chosen for New Panama Canal,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 1970; Thomas O’Toole, “Study Seen Urging 2d Panama Canal,” Washington Post, Nov. 14, 1970.
87. APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970.
88. “Transcript of the Executive Session of the 26th Meeting of the APICSC, 12 March 1970,” p. 31, Entry A1 36040-C, Container 5, RG 220, NARA.
89. APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970; U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 302–20.
90. APICSC to the President, Dec. 1, 1970 (8-31-70 version), Folder Final Report of Commission, Entry A1 36040-D, Container 7, RG 220, NARA.
91. Robert M. Sayre to Anderson, Dec. 16, 1970, Box 264, Folder P July–Dec. 1970 (1), Papers of Robert B. Anderson, DDEL. See also Sayre, Interview with Robert M. Sayre, by Thomas J. Dunnigan, Oct. 31, 1995.
92. Richard Halloran, “Route Is Chosen for New Panama Canal,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 1970.
93. Commoner, Closing Circle, 60.
94. APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970, 62.
95. Laycock, Diligent Destroyers; Elizabeth Drew, “Dam Outrage—The Story of the Army Engineers,” Atlantic Monthly (Apr. 1970): 51–62; Morgan, Dams and Other Disasters.
96. Boffey, “Sea-Level Canal,” 355.
97. Boffey, 358.
98. The full passage is: “The Commission ‘leaked’ a report to the News media in which the Academy’s report is mentioned, but most of the attention is paid to the report of the Batelle [sic] report about the value of which we entirely agree with you. It is at this point that I got in touch with Mr. Boffey and this, in turn, resulted in his write-up in Science.” Mayr to Longhurst, Aug. 11, 1971, Box 20, Folder 1124, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA.
99. Mayr to Rubinoff, Nov. 24, 1970, Box 19, Folder 1088, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA.
100. Longhurst to Mayr, July 27, 1971, Box 20, Folder 1124, Papers of Ernst Mayr, HUA; Mayr to Longhurst, Aug. 11, 1971.
101. Newman, “National Academy of Science Committee”; Dunson, “Sea Snakes and the Sea Level Canal Controversy”; Rubinoff, “Sea-Level Canal in Panama”; Beeton, Report of the Committee on Ecological Effects, 194; Sapp, Coexistence, 103.
102. APICSC, Interoceanic Canal Studies 1970, V-303.
103. Sapp, What Is Natural, 125; Sapp, Coexistence, 103.
104. Mayr, Growth of Biological Thought, 1.
105. Flood, “1971 Statement before the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs,” 72; Francis B. Kent, “The Biological Unknowns of a New Panama Canal,” Washington Post, Jan. 18, 1972. See also Strom Thurmond Statement, Department of State Memorandum of Conversation, July 30, 1971, Congressional Visit—Panama Treaty Negotiations, Box 270, Folder Congressional Meetings, Visits or Telephone Conversations (2), Papers of Robert B. Anderson, DDEL; Associated Press, “Sea Life Presents Problem to Canal,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Dec. 10, 1971; Meredith L. Jones and R. B. Manning, “A Two-Ocean Bouillabaisse Can Result If and When Sea-Level Canal is Dug,” Smithsonian 2, no. 9 (1971): 12–21.
106. Acting Secretary of State, Memorandum for the President, Dec. 31, 1971, p. 4, Box 269, Folder APICSC 1971–73, Papers of Robert B. Anderson, DDEL.
107. John N. Irwin II, “NSC Under Secretaries Committee Memorandum for the President,” June 10, 1971, in Declassified Documents Reference System.
108. See also Stine, Mixing the Waters; Noll and Tegeder, Ditch of Dreams.
Chapter 7. Optioning the Sea-Level Canal for the Energy Crisis
1. Informally named after Panamanian general Omar Torrijos and U.S. president Jimmy Carter, the two pacts are officially titled “The Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal,” which grants the United States permanent rights to defend the canal, and “The Panama Canal Treaty,” which grants Panama full sovereignty over the waterway; the two accords are commonly called the Panama Canal Treaties. Major studies of the negotiations and ratification process include LaFeber, Panama Canal; Jorden, Panama Odyssey; Moffett, Limits of Victory; Major, Prize Possession. On the long-term domestic political and economic effects of the treaties, see Moffett, Limits of Victory, chap. 5; Clymer, Drawing the Line; Zaretsky, “Restraint or Retreat?”; Maurer and Yu, Big Ditch.
2. Glad, Outsider in the White House, 93.
3. Moffett, Limits of Victory, 40; Linowitz, Making of a Public Man, 168.
4. Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, 74; Kaufman, Project Plowshare, 192.
5. Stine, “Environmental Policy during the Carter Presidency”; Reisner, Cadillac Desert, chap. 9; Daynes and Sussman, White House Politics and the Environment, chap. 4; Eastman, “Hit List”; Eizenstat, President Carter, chap. 12.
6. Stine, “Environmental Policy during the Carter Presidency.”
7. Charles Jones, Trusteeship Presidency.
8. Kaufman and Kaufman, Presidency of James Earl Carter, 32; Godbold, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, 176; Kaufman, Plans Unraveled, 16.
9. See, e.g., Morris, Jimmy Carter; Greenberg, “What the Heck Are You Up To.”
10. An image of the newspaper headline is available at Margaret Kriz Hobson, “Big Finds, Bitter Clashes and NEPA: The Tale of Trans-Alaska,” E&E News, Aug. 2, 2017, https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060058240.
11. J. G. Phillips, “Alaskan Oil Boom,” Editorial Research Reports 2 (1969).
12. Coen, Breaking Ice for Arctic Oil.
13. Scott Kirsch and Mitchell, “Earth-Moving as the ‘Measure of Man,’ ” 128. See also Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 202; “Harbor on North Slope Dug by Nuclear Blast Is Mulled, Teller Says,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 25, 1969.
14. Cicchetti, Alaskan Oil; Gravel, Panama Canal, 40.
15. Peter Coates, Trans-Alaska Pipeline Controversy, 178.
16. Turner, David Brower, 179.
17. McKloskey, In the Thick of It, 104.
18. Peter Coates, Trans-Alaska Pipeline Controversy, 189.
19. Coates, 196–206.
20. “Mondale, Walter F.—RNC Quotebooks (1),” Ron Nessen Papers, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0204/1512122.pdf. See also Peter Coates, Trans-Alaska Pipeline Controversy, 241; J. P. Smith, “Alaskan Oil to Begin Flowing Today; Pipeline Oil to Create Glut on West Coast,” Washington Post, June 20, 1977, A1; “Senate Rejected Mondale’s ’73 Prediction of Disaster,” Boston Globe, Mar. 29, 1989.
21. U.S. Department of the Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement, 1:1.
22. Peter Coates, Trans-Alaska Pipeline Controversy, 227–47.
23. Liroff, “NEPA Litigation in the 1970s,” 316; Dowie, Losing Ground.
24. Peter Coates, Trans-Alaska Pipeline Controversy, 265; Michael Storper, Laura Baker, and Mary Lou Seaver, “Alaskan Oil: Too Much, Too Soon (Too Bad),” Not Man Apart (Apr. 1977), repr. in Congressional Record, Feb. 22, 1977, 4876–78.
25. Wallace Turner, “Was This Pipeline Necessary,” New York Times, June 26, 1977.
26. J. P. Smith, “Alaskan Oil to Begin Flowing Today,” Washington Post, June 20, 1977.
27. John Jacobs, “Calif. Hit for Stalling Pipeline,” Washington Post, Aug. 11, 1977.
28. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 278; Storper et al., “Alaskan Oil,” 4877.
29. Lou Cannon, “California Cool to Alaska Oil Terminal,” Washington Post, July 18, 1977; Wallace Turner, “Was This Pipeline Necessary,” New York Times, June 26, 1977; Bill Richards, “Energy vs. Environment: Oil, Environment Clash on West Coast,” Washington Post, Jan. 10, 1977.
30. “Summary of Facts and Opinions Presented to the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission in Reference to the Future Attractiveness of a Sea-Level Isthmian Canal to the Shippers of Petroleum,” Box 65, Folder Oil Company and Shipping Company File, Entry A1 36040-B APICSC Working Files, Studies and Reports, Container 9, RG 220, NARA. See also Associated Press, “Panama Canal Has Lost Strategic Value,” News & Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), Mar. 13, 1988.
31. Ryan, Panama Canal Controversy, 83; Department of State, Final EIS, 34.
32. Zbigniew Brzezinski to Jimmy Carter, Memorandum: Panama Canal Treaty—Last Decisions, July 28, 1977, Office of the Chief of Staff Files, Hamilton Jordan’s Confidential Files, Panama Canal Treaty 6–7/77, Container 36, JCPL.
33. Ryan, Panama Canal Controversy, 83; Gravel, Panama Canal, 25.
34. Jorden, Panama Odyssey, 5.
35. Linowitz, Making of a Public Man, 168.
36. FRUS, 1969–1976, 22:95.
37. Jorden, Panama Odyssey, 289; Major, Prize Possession, 348.
38. LaFeber, Panama Canal, 190–91; Clymer, Drawing the Line.
39. Linowitz, Making of a Public Man; Major, Prize Possession, 345–49.
40. Daniel J. Flood to Jimmy Carter, Jan. 27, 1977, Folder FO 3-1/Panama Canal 1/20/77–4/13/77, Box FO-15, WHCF Subject File Federal Government—Organization, JCPL.
41. Frisch and Kelly, Jimmy Carter and the Water Wars, 39–40; Stine, “Environmental Policy during the Carter Presidency,” 184.
42. Flood, “1971 Statement before the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs,” 72; Francis B. Kent, “The Biological Unknowns of a New Panama Canal,” Washington Post, Jan. 18, 1972; Spear, Daniel J. Flood, 75.
43. Testimony of Strom Thurmond on S. 2330, “A Bill to Provide for the Increase of Capacity and the Improvement of Operations of the Panama Canal,” Congressional Record, Aug. 2, 1973, S15407.
44. Dunson, “Sea Snakes and the Sea Level Canal Controversy,” 518.
45. “Hearings on the Value of the Panama Canal,” Congressional Record, July 10, 1973, 23091.
46. Turner, David Brower; Brower, For Earth’s Sake.
47. U.S. Congress, National Outdoor Recreation Programs and Policies, 298; Alderson, “Interview with George Alderson,” by Ted Hudson, 1989; Suisman, “American Environmental Movement’s Lost Victory”; Conway, High-Speed Dreams, 140, 145; Alderson, How You Can Influence Congress.
48. Gary Soucie to Katherine Fletcher, May 20, 1977, Folder FO 3-1/Panama Canal, 1/20/77–9/6/77, Box FO-22, WHCF, Foreign Affairs, JCPL.
49. “Proposed Sea Level Panama Canal Gets Little Support from Shipping Interests,” New York Times, July 22, 1973.
50. George Alderson to Leonor K. Sullivan, Aug. 14, 1973, Papers of Walter F. Mondale, Minnesota Historical Society; Alderson to Robert L. Leggett, Aug. 14, 1973, Papers of Walter F. Mondale, Minnesota Historical Society.
51. Briggs, “International Symposium,” 61.
52. Ortman testimony, U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 369.
53. Dee Arntz, “Fletcher, Kathy (b. 1950),” Essay 9369, HistoryLink.org, Mar. 28, 2010, http://www.historylink.org/File/9369.
54. Walter Pincus, “When a Campaign Vow Crashes into a Pork Barrel,” Washington Post, Apr. 1, 1977.
55. George Alderson to Katherine Fletcher, Mar. 21, 1977, Folder FO 3-1/Panama Canal, 1/20/77–9/6/77, Box FO-22, WHCF, Foreign Affairs, JCPL.
56. Aron and Smith, “Ship Canals and Aquatic Ecosystems.”
57. Fletcher to Alderson, Apr. 6, 1977, Folder FO 3-1/Panama Canal, 1/20/77–9/6/77, Box FO-22, WHCF, Foreign Affairs, JCPL.
58. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 36.
59. Gravel to Carter, May 5, 1977, Folder FO 3-1/Panama Canal 4/14/77–7/31/77, Box FO-15, WHCF Subject File Federal Government—Organization, JCPL. See also FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:64.
60. Gravel, Panama Canal, 43.
61. Gravel, 33–43.
62. Alderson to Fletcher, May 16, 1977, Folder FO 3-1/Panama Canal, 1/20/77–9/6/77, Box FO-22, WHCF, Foreign Affairs, JCPL.
63. Gary Soucie to Fletcher, May 20, 1977, Folder FO 3-1/Panama Canal, 1/20/77–9/6/77, Box FO-22, WHCF, Foreign Affairs, JCPL.
64. Fletcher to Alderson, June 23, 1977, Folder 2, Box 21, Series Domestic Policy Staff: Kathy Fletcher’s Subject Files, JCPL; Fletcher to Soucie, June 23, 1977, Folder 2, Box 21, Series Domestic Policy Staff: Kathy Fletcher’s Subject Files, JCPL. Alderson later transmitted his files to his FOE successor David Ortman, who shared the letter with Congress during the 1978 hearings addressed in chapter 8. David E. Ortman to George D. Moffett, Sept. 10, 1981, Folder 6, Box 7, George D. Moffett Papers, JCPL; Ortman testimony, U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 369. See also “Enemies of the Sea-Level Canal,” New Scientist, Nov. 3, 1977, 271.
65. Memorandum re: Approved Presidential Activity from Tim Kraft to Frank Moore, 6/30/77: Meeting with Senator Mike Gravel, Folder FO 3-1/Panama Canal 4/14/77–7/31/77, Box FO-15, WHCF Subject File Federal Government—Organization, JCPL; FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:64.
66. Briefing Paper prepared by Frank Moore, July 12, 1977, for Meeting with Senator Mike Gravel, July 13, 1977, Folder 7/13/77 [2], Box 31, Office of Staff Secretary Handwriting File, Presidential Files, JCPL.
67. Jimmy Carter, “Remarks on a Question-and-Answer Session at a Public Meeting,” July 21, 1977, in PPPUS, 1977, 2:1326.
68. Austin Scott, “Carter Visits Floating Oil Rig, Muses on a Sea-Level Canal,” Washington Post, July 22, 1977; James Nelson Goodsell, “Carter Remarks on Panama Stir Up a Tempest,” Christian Science Monitor, July 25, 1977; “Question-and-Answer Session with Reporters,” July 22, 1977, in PPPUS, Jimmy Carter, 1977, 2:1338–39.
69. The $5.29 billion figure is from Gravel’s Panama Canal (p. 35), which identified the source as a May 5, 1977, letter by Army Corps of Engineers general Ernest Graves. The Panama Canal Company also used the figure of $5.2 billion in testimony before the Committee on Environment and Public Works on July 22, 1977.
70. Graham Hovey, “Carter Talk May Offend Panama,” New York Times, July 22, 1977.
71. “Question-and-Answer Session with Reporters,” July 22, 1977, in PPPUS, Jimmy Carter, 1977, 2:1339; Office of the White House Press Secretary, “Remarks of the President and Question and Answer Session at the Airport Hilton Hotel,” July 22, 1977, Records of the Domestic Policy Staff, Folder Sea Level Canal, 1971–5/20/80, Box 70, JCPL.
72. Phil Smith to Raph [sic] Kasper, July 27, 1977, Folder Memos and Correspondence–Presidentials, 5/25/77–8/3/77 (2), Box 1, Science & Tech. Advisor to the President—Press, JCPL.
73. Frank Press to Jimmy Carter, Aug. 1, 1977, Folder Memos and Correspondence–Presidentials, 5/25/77–8/3/77 (2), Box 1, Science & Tech. Advisor to the President—Press, JCPL.
74. Jorden, Panama Odyssey, 6–7, 16–19, 429–31, 433–37, 453–56; Linowitz, Making of a Public Man, 171.
75. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:64.
76. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:64.
77. Memorandum for Hamilton Jordan from the Vice President, July 29, 1977, 2, Papers of Walter F. Mondale, Minnesota Historical Society, available online as page 22 of the PDF at http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00697/pdfa/00697-00081-1.pdf.
78. Quoted in Eleanor Randolph, “Talk of Another Canal,” Chicago Tribune, Aug. 14, 1977.
79. Ernest F. Hollings, “The Panama Canal,” The Fritz Hollings Report (Sept. 1977), p. 3, Papers of Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries, http://digital.tcl.sc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/how/id/245.
80. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:76.
81. Graham Hovey, “Panamanians Say Carter’s Idea for Sea-Level Canal Imperiled Talks,” New York Times, Aug. 25, 1977.
82. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:76.
83. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:76; see also FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:76, Tab A, 29:84.
84. Ernest F. Hollings, “The Panama Canal,” The Fritz Hollings Report (Sept. 1977), p. 3, Papers of Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries, http://digital.tcl.sc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/how/id/245.
85. Larry Pressler, letter to the editor, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 12, 1977.
86. “Who Slipped This In?,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 10, 1977.
87. “Remarks of the President on Panama Canal Treaties,” Feb. 1, 1978, Folder 2, Box 60, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Panama, JCPL.
88. Linowitz, Making of a Public Man, 170.
89. Graham Hovey, “Panamanians Say Carter’s Idea for Sea-Level Canal Imperiled Talks,” New York Times, Aug. 25, 1977.
90. “Text of a Telegram Sent to President Carter by 11 National Environmental Organizations on September 6, 1977,” repr. in U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 370–71.
91. Edward Flattau, “Sea-Level Canal: A Passage to Ecological Disaster,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 10, 1977.
92. Jimmy Carter, “The Environment Message to the Congress,” May 23, 1977, in PPPUS, 1977, 1:967. See also Luther Carter, “Carter Places Environment High on Agenda.”
93. Jimmy Carter, “Remarks at the Signing Ceremony at the Pan American Union Building, September 7, 1977,” in PPPUS, 1977, 2:1543; Graham Hovey, “Carter, Torrijos Sign Canal Pacts in the Presence of Latin Leaders,” New York Times, Sept. 8, 1977.
94. Graham Hovey, “Panamanians Say Carter’s Idea for Sea-Level Canal Imperiled Talks,” New York Times, Aug. 25, 1977.
95. Carter, “The Environment Message to the Congress,” May 23, 1977, in PPPUS, 1977, 1:967.
96. Bourne, Jimmy Carter, 72–77; Godbold, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, 66–68.
97. Godbold, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, 83, 134.
98. Jon Hardheimer, “Yes, That Was a Georgia Governor Speaking,” New York Times, Jan. 17, 1971, quoted in Godbold, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, 174.
99. Richard D. Lyons, “House, by 232–131, Kills Carter Plan for Energy Board,” New York Times, June 28, 1980; Robert D. Hershey Jr., “Blessing or Boondoggle? The $88 Billion Quest for Synthetic Fuels,” New York Times, Sept. 1, 1980.
100. Stine, “Environmental Policy during the Carter Presidency,” 187, 191, 195.
101. See, e.g., Doel, “Constituting the Postwar Earth Sciences”; Kroll, America’s Ocean Wilderness; Hamblin, Poison in the Well; Finley, All the Fish in the Sea; Dorsey, Whales and Nations.
102. Carter, An Outdoor Journal, 6.
Chapter 8. Containing the Panama Canal Treaty’s Environmental Fallout
1. Moffett, Limits of Victory; Hogan, “Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy.”
2. In addition, several of the implementation agreements for specific treaty articles pertained to environmental issues. These included canal water conservation; the continuation of the research facilities of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, U.S. Army Tropic Test Center, and Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventive Medicine; and the removal of hazards from defense sites. Department of State, Final EIS; U.S. Department of State, “Panama Canal Treaty, 313–14. On the U.S. military’s refusal to meet its treaty obligations regarding the cleanup of munitions, see Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, chap. 5.
3. Robinson, “Environmentalist Looks at the Panama Canal Treaties”; Robinson, “Introduction.”
4. See, e.g., Peter Coates, Trans-Alaska Pipeline Controversy; Ramey, “Calvert Cliffs Campaign”; Dreyfus and Ingram, “National Environmental Policy Act”; Taylor, Making Bureaucracies Think; Caldwell, National Environmental Policy Act; Clark and Canter, Environmental Policy and NEPA.
5. U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, Fifth Annual Report, 392, 399–400. See also Stein, “United States Council on Environmental Quality Memorandum”; Weinstein-Bacall, “The Darien Gap Case”; Lindstrom and Smith, National Environmental Policy Act, 95–96; Macekura, Of Limits and Growth, chap. 5.
6. Department of State, Final EIS, 48. See also Lewis H. Diuguid, “U.S. Study of Canal Pacts Cites Peril to Watershed,” Washington Post, Oct. 10, 1977; Leonard C. Meeker and Don G. Scroggin to William Mansfield III, Sept. 28, 1977, in Department of State, Final EIS, P-25.
7. Harold B. Green Jr., Patricia T. Fulton, Charlotte Kennedy, Jeri Steele, and Melvin Borenam to William Mansfield III, Sept. 26, 1977, p. 5, in Department of State, Final EIS, P-41.
8. Although Carter nominated her as one of the three members of CEQ on May 16, 1977, she withdrew her name in January 1978 after senators delayed action on her confirmation due to her lobbying activities. “Council on Environmental Quality: Nomination of Marion Edey to Be a Member,” May 16, 1977, in PPPUS, Jimmy Carter, 1977, 1:885; “Notes on People,” New York Times, Jan. 28, 1978.
9. Marion Edey to Stuart Eizenstat, Aug. 1, 1977, Folder 6, Box 7, George D. Moffett Papers, JCPL.
10. Frank Press to Jimmy Carter, Aug. 1, 1977, Folder Memos and Correspondence–Presidentials, 5/25/77–8/3/77 (2), Box 1, Science & Tech. Advisor to the President—Press, JCPL.
11. Ortman testimony in U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 369; Beeton, Report of the Committee on Ecological Effects.
12. Marion Edey to Frank Press, Aug. 23, 1977, Folder 6, Box 7, George D. Moffett Papers, JCPL. This letter was also reprinted in U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 346–48.
13. Panama Audubon Society Attachment, in Department of State, Final EIS, P-33; Bill L. Long to Ambler Moss, Nov. 1, 1977, Folder Environmentalists [and Canal] 7/75–12/77, Box 19, Assistant to the President Joseph Aragon, JCPL.
14. Lewis H. Diuguid, “U.S. Study of Canal Pacts Cites Peril to Watershed,” Washington Post, Oct. 10, 1977, A30; Department of State, Final EIS, Q-4.
15. Department of State, Final EIS, P-17, P-24 to P-28.
16. Department of State, P-33, P-39.
17. Springer, “Resolution on the Panama Canal,” 336; Meredith L. Jones, “Resolution Concerning the Maintenance of the Existing Fresh Water Barrier in the Panama Canal” (1973), RU 526, Box 13, Folder Panama Canal Alternatives Study, 1973–1983, SIA.
18. The historic water shortage also provided an opportunity for foresters to emphasize links between rural land use, deforestation, and the canal system. See Wadsworth, “Deforestation: Death to the Panama Canal,” 22–25; Carse, “Nature as Infrastructure”; Carse, “Infrastructural Event.”
19. See, e.g., Department of State, Final EIS, P-24 to P-27.
20. R. Michael Wright to William Mansfield III, Sept. 7, 1977, in Department of State, Final EIS, P-37.
21. Department of State, Final EIS, P-4.
22. Department of State, P-41.
23. “Unavoidable Adverse Environmental Impacts of Proposed Treaties,” Congressional Record, Sept. 28, 1977, S15797, in U.S. Congress, The Proposed Panama Canal Treaties, 195–201.
24. Department of State, Final EIS, 48–49.
25. “Endangered Species in the Canal Zone,” in Department of State, Final EIS, Tab E.
26. Department of State, Final EIS, 21, 39. On RENARE’s institutional weakness, see Carse, “Nature as Infrastructure.”
27. Department of State, Final EIS, 7.
28. Department of State, 32, 33.
29. Beeton, Report of the Committee on Ecological Effects.
30. Rubinoff, “Sea-Level Canal in Panama,” 261.
31. Beeton, Report of the Committee on Ecological Effects, appendix.
32. Beeton, Report of the Committee on Ecological Effects, 3 (quote), passim.
33. Press to Carter, Oct. 3, 1977, Folder Memos and Correspondence–Presidentials, 8/12/77–10/3/77, Box 1, Science & Tech. Advisor to the President—Press, JCPL.
34. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:108.
35. Moffett, Limits to Victory, 211 (polling data), chap. 5.
36. See, e.g., Moffett, Limits to Victory; LaFeber, Panama Canal; Clymer, Drawing the Line; Zaretsky, “Restraint or Retreat?”
37. Macekura, Of Limits and Growth, chap. 5.
38. “Panama Canal Treaty Ratification Campaign, September 15th Meeting,” Office of the Chief of Staff Files, Hamilton Jordan’s Confidential Files, Panama Canal Treaty 9/77, Container 36, JCPL.
39. Walter Sullivan, “Sea-Level Canal Could Imperil Marine Life at Either End, Biologists Say,” New York Times, Oct. 10, 1977. See also Walter Sullivan, “Panama Canal: What if Sea Snakes and Starfish Change Oceans?” New York Times, Dec. 13, 1970.
40. “Enemies of the Sea-Level Canal,” New Scientist, Nov. 3, 1977, 271. See also “Environmentalists Barge In on Panama Canal Treaty,” New Scientist, Nov. 3, 1977, 270–271.
41. Brower, “We Cannot Stand By Silent,” 1.
42. Brower quoted in “Enemies of the Sea-Level Canal,” New Scientist, Nov. 3, 1977, 271.
43. Robert Goodland, “Triple Threat to Panama’s Ecology,” Washington Post, Dec. 10, 1977; “Goodland to World Bank,” Cary Arboretum Newsletter 4 (Jan.–Feb. 1978): 4. The Post article was based on Goodland’s peer-reviewed study “Panamanian Development and the Global Environment,” Oikos 29 (1977): 195–208. On the Bayano dam, see Wali Alaka, “In Eastern Panama, Land Is the Key to Survival,” Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, Sept. 1989.
44. Ross Simons to Joseph W. Aragon, Nov. 18, 1977, Folder Environmentalists [and Canal] 7/75–12/77, Box 19, Assistant to the President Joseph Aragon, JCPL.
45. David E. Ortman to George D. Moffett, Sept. 10, 1981, Folder 6, Box 7, George D. Moffett Papers, JCPL.
46. Jim Barnes to David Ortman, Chap Barnes, Tom Stoel, Bill Bulter, Michael Wright, Toby Cooper, Lew Regenstein, Dec. 14, 1977, Folder Environmentalists [and Canal] 7/75–12/77, Box 19, Assistant to the President Joseph Aragon, JCPL.
47. David E. Ortman to George D. Moffett, Sept. 10, 1981, Folder 6, Box 7, George D. Moffett Papers, JCPL.
48. Ortman, “Mingling the Two Oceans,” in U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 364.
49. Ortman, 368.
50. Ortman, 369.
51. McKloskey, In the Thick of It, chap. 11.
52. The summary findings of the cases, Sierra Club v. Coleman 405 F. Supp. 53 (1975) and 421 F. Supp. 63 (1976), are available at http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/405/53/1432761/ and http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/421/63/1769598/.
53. Miller, “Minding the Gap”; Ficek, “Imperial Routes.”
54. Editor’s note, “Statement on the Panama Canal Treaties and Environmental Protection,” Sierra (Apr. 1978): 24; Bill L. Long to Ambler Moss, Nov. 1, 1977, Folder Environmentalists [and Canal] 7/75–12/77, Box 19, Assistant to the President Joseph Aragon, JCPL; James N. Barnes to Ambler Moss, Dec. 1, 1977, Folder Environmentalists [and Canal] 7/75–12/77, Box 19, Assistant to the President Joseph Aragon, JCPL; Jim Barnes to David Ortman, Chap Barnes, Tom Stoel, Bill Bulter, Michael Wright, Toby Cooper, Lew Regenstein, Dec. 14, 1977, Folder Environmentalists [and Canal] 7/75–12/77, Box 19, Assistant to the President Joseph Aragon, JCPL.
55. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:127.
56. Jim Barnes to David Ortman, Chap Barnes, Tom Stoel, Bill Bulter, Michael Wright, Toby Cooper, Lew Regenstein, Dec. 14, 1977, Folder Environmentalists [and Canal] 7/75–12/77, Box 19, Assistant to the President Joseph Aragon, JCPL.
57. Warren Christopher, “Statement on the Panama Canal Treaties and Environmental Protection,” Jan. 1978, repr. in FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:127 (emphasis in original).
58. Christopher, “Statement on the Panama Canal Treaties and Environmental Protection.”
59. Robinson, “Introduction,” 238.
60. Christopher, “Statement on the Panama Canal Treaties and Environmental Protection.”
61. Robinson, “Environmentalist Looks at the Panama Canal Treaties.”
62. Robinson, “Extraterritorial Environmental Protection Obligations,” 270. On the broader role of environmental NGOs in forcing foreign policy agencies to comply with NEPA during the 1970s, see Macekura, Of Limits and Growth, chap. 5.
63. Robinson, “Environmentalist Looks at the Panama Canal Treaties,” 25–26.
64. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:133.
65. LaFeber, Panama Canal, 178–79.
66. Zaretsky, “Restraint or Retreat?,” 561.
67. Representative Gene Snyder, in U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 32.
68. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 36, 38, 48, 42.
69. Strong, “Jimmy Carter and the Panama Canal Treaties,” 272.
70. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 41.
71. U.S. Congress, 38.
72. Stephen Haycox quoted in David Westphal, “Gravel was a Maverick in the ’70s, and His Politickin’ Hasn’t Changed,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, Jan. 2, 2008.
73. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 244–45.
74. U.S. Congress, 374–75.
75. “A Tropical Science Legacy,” Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apr. 27, 2018, https://stri.si.edu/story/tropical-science-legacy.
76. Newman, “The National Academy of Science Committee on the Ecology of the Interoceanic Canal,” repr. in U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 350–62; John McCosker to Alfred Beeton, Aug. 29, 1977, repr. in U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 344–45; McCosker and Dawson, “Biotic Passage through the Panama Canal.”
77. Voss, “Panama Sea-Level Canal—II.”
78. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 309–10, 315–19; Interoceanic Canal Study Act, H.R. 13176, 95th Congress (1977–78), https://www.congress.gov/bill/95th-congress/house-bill/13176?s=1&r=20.
79. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 310.
80. U.S. Congress, 316.
81. U.S. Congress, 315, 320.
82. Wall Street Journal, Dec. 1, 1970 cited in Flood, “The Monroe Doctrine, Latin America and Panama Canal,” CR House, Feb. 9, 1971, 2265, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1971-pt2/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1971-pt2-6-2.pdf; U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 107.
83. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 323.
84. Sheffey interview by Jorden, May 8, 1979, p. 22, Box 23, Personal Papers of William J. Jorden, LBJL.
85. U.S. Congress, Sea-Level Canal Studies, 319.
86. For related insights see especially Heffernan, “Bringing the Desert to Bloom,” 108; Scott Kirsch, Proving Grounds, 8; Peyton, Unbuilt Environments; Sutter, “The World with Us”; Scoville, “Hydraulic Society and a ‘Stupid Little Fish.’ ”
87. Rubinoff, “Sea-Level Canal in Panama.”
88. “A Tropical Science Legacy,” Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apr. 27, 2018, https://stri.si.edu/story/tropical-science-legacy.
89. Wilson, Nature Revealed, 595.
90. Edward O. Wilson, “The Conservation of Life,” Harvard Magazine, 1974, 29, 31, repr. in Wilson, Nature Revealed, 595–602; Wilson and Willis, “Applied Biogeography.”
91. Wilson quoted in Claudia Dreifus, “At 90, E. O. Wilson Still Thrives on Being a Scientific Provocateur,” Quanta Magazine, May 15, 2019. See also Sapp, Coexistence; Raby, American Tropics.
92. Leslie A. Pray, “Ernst Mayr Dies,” The Scientist, Feb. 4, 2005.
93. Zaretsky, “Restraint or Retreat?”
Conclusion. Remembering the Unbuilt Canal
1. Robert B. Anderson, Mar. 17, 1966, meeting, Office Files of Harry McPherson, Box 12, Folder Panama Canal, LBJL.
2. Brower et al. to Jimmy Carter, Jan. 30, 1979, 84–85.
3. Office of Technology Assessment, “Environmental Issues Affecting the Panama Canal.”
4. Charlotte Elton, “Japan and Panama: Who Is Setting the Agenda?,” 9. See also Charlotte Elton, “Japan and Panama: The Role of the Panama Canal.”
5. Henry Scott Stokes, “Japan Is Hoping to Build a New Canal in Panama,” New York Times, Mar. 26, 1980.
6. Charlotte Elton, “Japan and Panama: Who Is Setting the Agenda?” 8; Henry Scott Stokes, “Japan Is Hoping to Build a New Canal,” New York Times, Mar. 26, 1980; Geoffrey Murray, “New Panama Canal: Shigeo Nagano Says He Can Do It,” Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 1980.
7. “The Second Panama Canal Project.”
8. Stephen Kinzer, “A Century Later, Idea for a Sea-Level Canal Revived,” Boston Globe, Feb. 3, 1980; William Chapman, “Japan, U.S. Mull New Panama Canal,” Washington Post, Mar. 27, 1980.
9. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:266.
10. FRUS, 1977–1980, 29:264.
11. Mike Gravel interview by Jorden, Mar. 28, 1979, Box 22, Personal Papers of William J. Jorden, LBJL; Morgan quoted in Stephen Kinzer, “A Century Later, Idea for a Sea-Level Canal Revived,” Boston Globe, Feb. 3, 1980.
12. Gravel interview by Jorden, LBJL.
13. Warren Christopher interview by Jorden, Box 21, Personal Papers of William J. Jorden, LBJL; Wallace Turner, “Gravel Loses a Bitter Fight in Senate Primary in Alaska,” New York Times, Aug. 28, 1980.
14. Eric Pace, “Panama Oil Pipeline Job Is Assigned,” New York Times, Mar. 19, 1981; Suman, “Socioenvironmental Impacts of Panama’s Trans-Isthmian Oil Pipeline.” Until its closure in 1996, the TPP carried 2.7 billion barrels of Alaska North Slope crude; the pipeline was reopened in 2003 to transport Ecuadorian oil, and its flow direction reversed in 2008. Sandy Fielden, “The Crude from Transpanama,” RBN Energy Daily Blog, Aug. 15, 2013, https://rbnenergy.com/the-crude-from-transpanama-pipeline-shipments-from-the-gulf-to-the-pacific-coasts.
15. Luther Carter, “Pipeline Problems Exacerbate West Coast Oil Surplus”; Iver Peterson, “Sohio Cancels a Pipeline to Carry Alaskan Oil from Coast to Texas,” New York Times, Mar. 14, 1979; G. P. Smith, “Sohio Dropped Pactex Pipeline for Profit Gains, Experts Say,” Washington Post, Mar. 16, 1979. A similar 1980s-era initiative to revive the project was also unsuccessful.
16. U.S. General Accounting Office, Establishment of Commission to Study Sea-Level Canal and Alternatives; Joan Donoghue, “Japan-Panama-United States,” Clyde Haberman, “U.S., Japan and Panama Plan Study of Canal,” New York Times, Sept. 5, 1985.
17. Leschine, “Panamanian Sea-Level Canal.”
18. “The Second Panama Canal Project,” 307.
19. Ken Wells, “Think Tank Thinks Gigantic Thoughts, and Expensive Ones,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 28, 1986; “Col. John Sheffey, 70, Dies; Expert on the Panama Canal,” Washington Post, Nov. 24, 1989.
20. Elena Lombardo, “Panama Canal Alternatives Study Environmental Assessment and Biological Inventory: Historical Perspective,” July 8, 1987, RU 526, Box 14, Folder Panama Canal Alternatives Studies 1987, SIA. See also Edward Flattau, “Ecological Dangers of a Sea-Level Canal,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 20, 1990.
21. Ross B. Simons to David Sciacchitano, July 5, 1990, RU 526, Box 14, Folder Panama Alternatives Study 1990, SIA.
22. Hayashi and Prescott, “The 1990s in Japan.”
23. Kim Keisling quoted in Thomas M. Defrank, “The Canal Zone Is Paradise Lost,” New York Daily News, Nov. 19, 1999. See also, e.g., Stephen Kinzer, “The Shift is Painful for Panama Zonians,” Boston Globe, Feb. 18, 1982; Darryl Fears, “For Some, Panama Canal Treaty Symbolizes a Paradise Lost,” Washington Post, Dec. 31, 1999; Niko Price, “ ‘Zonians’ Mourn Dying Society,” Tulsa World, Aug. 9, 1998; Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, 174.
24. Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle, chap. 5; Heckadon-Moreno, “Light and Shadows”; Carse, Beyond the Big Ditch.
25. Maurer and Yu, Big Ditch.
26. Comision de Estudio de las Alternativas al Canal de Panama, Informe Final de la Comision para el Estudio de las Alternativas al Canal de Panama (1993) and Proceedings of the Universal Congress of the Panama Canal (Sept. 7–10, 1997), cited in Brooks, “Economic Growth, Ecological Limits, and the Expansion of the Panama Canal,” 24. See also Jaén Suárez, Hombres y Ecología en Panamá, chap. 5.
27. Marc Lacey, “Panamanians Vote Overwhelmingly to Expand Canal,” New York Times, Oct. 23, 2006.
28. Gonzalez, “Environmental Impact Assessment in Post-Colonial Societies,” 343.
29. Steven Mufson, “An Expanded Panama Canal Opens for Ships,” Chicago Tribune, June 2, 2016.
30. Andrea Gawrylewski, “Opening Pandora’s Locks,” The Scientist, Oct. 2007, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/25464/title/Opening-Pandora-s-Locks/; Ruiz, Torchin, and Grant, “Using the Panama Canal to Test Predictions”; “Smithsonian Celebrates Panama Canal Expansion!” Smithsonian Insider, June 28, 2016, http://insider.si.edu/2016/06/smithsonian-celebrates-panama-canal-expansion/.
31. See, e.g., Schlöder et al., “Pacific Bivalve Anomia peruviana”; Ros et al., “The Panama Canal and the Transoceanic Dispersal of Marine Invertebrates.
32. Freestone, Ruiz, and Torchin, “Stronger Biotic Resistance in Tropics.”
33. Geburzi and McCarthy, “How Do They Do It?”; Chan and Briski, “Overview of Recent Research in Marine Biological Invasions.”
34. Muirhead et al., “Projected Effects of the Panama Canal Expansion.”
35. Marco Evers, “Russia Moves to Boost Arctic Shipping,” Spiegel Online, Aug. 22, 2013.
36. McKeon et al., “Melting Barriers to Faunal Exchange,” 465. See also A. Whitman Miller and Ruiz, “Arctic Shipping and Marine Invaders”; Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato, “If Atlantic and Pacific Sea Worlds Collide, Does That Spell Catastrophe?,” Smithsonian, Nov. 30, 2015; Cheryl Katz, “Alien Waters: Neighboring Seas Are Flowing into a Warming Arctic Ocean,” Yale Environment 360, May 10, 2018.
37. “China COSCO Shipping Wins Draw for First Transit through Expanded Panama Canal,” MENA Report, May 6, 2016; Jenny W. Hsu, “U.S. LNG for China Arrives via Panama Canal,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 24, 2016; Ryan Collins and Naureen S. Malik, “A First for Panama Canal: Three LNG Tankers Crossed in a Day,” Bloomberg, Apr. 18, 2018; Mason Hamilton, “Panama Canal Expansion Allows More Transits of Propane and Other Hydrocarbon Gas Liquids,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, Apr. 29, 2019, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39272.
38. “Nicaragua Canal Plan Not a Joke,” BBC News, June 26, 2013.
39. Huete-Pérez, Tundisi, and Alvarez, “Will Nicaragua’s Interoceanic Canal Result in an Environmental Catastrophe”; Huete-Pérez, Meyer, and Alvarez, “Rethink the Nicaragua Canal”; Huete-Pérez et al., “Scientists Raise Alarms”; Huete-Pérez et al., “Critical Uncertainties and Gaps”; Härer, Torres‐Dowdall, and Meyer, “Imperiled Fish Fauna.” For alternative viewpoints, see Condit, “Extracting Environmental Benefits.”
40. Suzanne Daley, “Lost in Nicaragua, a Chinese Tycoon’s Canal Plan,” New York Times, Apr. 4, 2016; Stephen Gibbs and Lucinda Elliott, “China Puts Nicaraguan Canal Plan on Hold,” Sunday Times (London), June 19, 2017; Andréas Oppenheimer, “Four Years Later, Nicaragua’s $40 Billion Interoceanic Canal Remains a Pipe Dream,” Miami Herald, July 5, 2017; “Nicaragua’s US$50B Rival to Panama Canal ‘Going Ahead Slowly’ as Funding Evaporates and Chinese Investor Keeps Low Profile,” South China Morning Post, Feb. 22, 2018; Nicholas Muller, “Nicaragua’s Chinese-Financed Canal Project Still in Limbo,” Diplomat, Aug. 20, 2019.
41. Fred Pearce, “Mega-Canals Could Slice through Continents for Giant Ships,” New Scientist, Apr. 11, 2017.
42. William Laurance, “Is the Global Era of Massive Infrastructure Projects Coming to an End?,” Yale Environment 360, July 10, 2018; McCall and Taylor, “Nicaragua’s ‘Grand Canal,’ ” 195. See also Flyvbjerg, “Survival of the Unfittest.”
43. Henry Fountain, “Water Levels Drop at Panama Canal, as Climate Change Alters Weather Patterns,” New York Times, May 18, 2019; Carse, “Infrastructural Event.”
44. Covich, “Projects That Never Happened”; Covich, “Frank Golley’s Perspectives.”