A recently published message mentioned John McCain and the Canal Zone.
I wanted to only relay that, in the Army (in the 70s), and as a
civilian employee of the Army (1970s-1995) in Europe, I ran into many
soliders who were born both on US Bases in the Zone as well as off
base in the Zone. All said they were given US passports as though
they were in the US, and on the inside, place of birth was only shown
as "Canal Zone". Nobody whose passport I actually got to see had
"PANAMA Canal Zone" entered. I often wondered what a child's
citizenship was when the American parents were inadvertently driven to
a hospital in Colon enclave, which was IN the Canal Zone, but not part
of it. That's because the US law I don't think says one is a US
citizen by birth if the birth occurs on US soil, only if one is "born
in the US". Given that the US, under the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty
acted in the Zone only "as though it were sovereign" during it's stay
there, it wasn't IN the US and, strictly speaking, passports wouldn't
or couldn't have been so easily given (save perhaps for some other law
providing for an exception). Titular sovereignty over the territory
occupied by the Zone always belonged to Panama.

All who I asked about the giveaway of the Zone were upset that their
"country" was being liquidated. I guess that is how the East Germans
felt, too, around 1989. The East Germans had it worse in one sense -
they had to give up their passports for one from what was, to most of
them, another country. At least they could remain "German Citizens".

Len Nadybal