he reached for Hay’s ring. “I shall be happy that the Treaty, due to your generous policy, should bear at the same time your personal seal and that of your family.”

Such nobility of style was modestly ironic under the circumstances, a point not lost to the writer’s eye of Hay, who had occasionally composed novels, humorous poetry, and editorials. For one thing, the Napoleonic little minister represented a country that was only about the size of South Carolina. Of its jungle-covered and mountainous terrain only a strip of the serpentine isthmus between North and South America was basically habitable—and the treaty had just handed over most of that region to the absolute and sovereign control of the United States forever.

In addition, the Republic of Panama had existed amongthe family of nations for precisely twelve days—brought into being by a revolt that was foreseen, aided, and just possibly arranged by the United States. Finally, in the most bizarre touch of all, the minister was not a Panamanian, or even a citizen of Colombia, from which Panama had been detached. He was a French engineer named Philippe Bunau-Varilla, whose diplomatic career was beginning and ending with this single episode.

All in all, a most unusual international pact. It would undoubtedly get through the Senate, for the canal that it would make possible was a universally popular project. But it would always remain tainted with suspicion and resentment among Panamanians, Colombians, and some Americans as well. It was not, in fact, the treaty that Secretary Hay himself had wanted.