CANAL, CHAOS, AND COMMUNISM

Panama has been America's sotto vote Algeria for the past fifty years. Rising nationalism and racial strife between a mulatto population and a white administrative and operating class, largely transplanted from the Southern U.S., have led to increasing strain--hence the riots and deaths of January 1964. The author has made a careful, monographic study of U.S.-Panamanian relations from the birth of Panama under Yanqui auspices to the period Just prior to the 1967 draft treaty. Less a general history than an appraisal of Canal politics since the advent of Castro, the book evaluates the role of the Peace Corps, the U.S. Information Service, and the Alliance for Progress during the Kennedy years. Liss approves of the Johnson administration's recent dealings on the issue of a new sea level canal and Panama's sensitivity over its sovereign rights; but he condemns the Dominican intervention for, among other things, exacerbating anti-American nationalism in Panama. In the absence of other, comparable works, the book is a major contribution to an understanding of the Canal question.