Life (Magazine) January 24, 1964
Of the Life teams covering the Panama crisis, Correspondents Miguel Acoca, Philip Hager and Maynard Parker concentrated on the resentments beneath the flag fight. This is their combined report.

Photo from Life Magazine

I GUESS I STARTED THIS WHOLE THING

Balboa, Canal Zone

It all began because there was one vacant flagpole at Balboa High School. In 1960, after a series of riots in Panama, President Eisenhower ordered that Panama's flag should fly side by side with the Stars and Stripes at the U.S. Canal Zone building. President Kennedy later extended the order to the rest of the enclave. Since the chief objections to this broadened directive came from American students, with parental encouragement, zone officials ordered that, as of Jan. 1, no flags should be flown in front of schools. Outraged, Zonian teenagers saw the empty flagpoles as a challenge not to be ignored. On Jan. 7 and 8, amid rising tensions, students at Balboa High School ran up a U.S. flag. On the third day, demonstrating Panamanian students entered the school grounds and sang their national anthem, but the Balboa students blocked them from raising their flag. There was a scuffle - and the Panamaninas retreated in outrage, claiming their flag had been ripped by the Zonians. A few hours later when the Panamanians returned, it was no student demonstration, it was a mob - out for blood. At the height of the violence, James Jenkins - a 17-year-old senior at Balboa High - held a press conference behind the Tivoli Guest House. He there assessed his role in this bizarre crises. "I guess you could say I'm, the guy that started this whole thing," the Balboa High School senior said, smiling. "I'm, sort of the ring-leader. I circulated the petition to keep our flag flying. Then me and the others raised the flag. The school authorities left it up becuse they knew we'd walk out." Young Jenkins, a math student whose mother is a budget analyst for the Panama Canal Co., and whose father is a towing-locomotive operator at the locks, defended his view:  "Balboa is an American school attended mostly by Americans. We're used to our flag. It's the only one that should fly." At the Caribbean end of the Canal Zone, a 17-year-old girl, Connie Lasher, had headed a similar movement of students who, despite authorities, had raised U.S. flags at Cristobal High and three elementary schools. "We want just the American flag flying - it proves our sovereignty." Connie insisted, "The next step, if they have their way, will be just to fly the Panamanian flag."  Mrs. Charles Park, wife of another towing-locomotive operator, said, "I've been down here for 24 years, and this is the worst thing that's ever happened.  I've just got into an argument with our maid over this . . . We've been so generous. After all, we've paid our rent." Sam Roe, Canal Zone policeman and a third-generation Zonian, stated his case bitterly: "Every federal employee knows our State Department stinks. It's Congress who takes care of us. They do everything for us, from changing our diapers to putting us in the grave. We're no ugly American. We're lost Americans - lost because we're the victims of internationalism." There were other interviews - many of them. These Zonians scattered the blame widely among Latin American politicians, Communists, Castroites, hoodlums, hot-tempered Panamanian students, irresponsible Panamanian radio broadcasts. None accepted any responsibility whatever for the sheding of blood. Their share of America is precisely 10 miles wide and 50 miles long and crowded with illusions built on the glory of the men who built the canal and the women who helped them. Living as they do, where they do, they feel deeply about the flag issue. As one explained. "The Stars and Stripes is our identity with home. When it flies alone, we feel that the zone is American, that it _is_ home." Last week, during the tense negotiations between Panama and the U.S., young James Jenkins summed up the short-range prospect. "We're going to have to comply.  But they're going to have a devil of a time getting us to like it."

Click Back Button To Return To Previous Page