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Maybe we would do well to concede that the business of managing the Colorado River involves issues as sensitive to the parties as the issues that characterize international diplomacy. This means that success will only be possible and only be lasting if we are free to discuss all the vari- ous, related interests of the parties instead of dealing with them piecemeal; and if we have the benefit of full, reliable facts. We must accept that a long-range coopera- tive solution is possible only if it is left open to continual tinkering. So we have a need for a big table, we must tackle a complex agenda, and we have to be flexible. Perhaps, as MacDonnell and Driver suggest, the best way to approach this problem is with a permanent Colorado River basin institution charged with multi- ple responsibilities and with reconciling multiple interests, such as river management, recreation, power generation, water releases, and getting and using power revenues. As one who has championed a similar idea in the past, I know how controversial it is. But this workshop could be a breakthrough in getting peo- ple to talk with one another. Who knows, the last ses- sion on Wednesday, when the MacDonnell-Driver idea is discussed, may see us all coalescing around the con- cept of a new institution. And as Commissioner Martinez arrives, he will be here just in time to sign a new compact setting up a Colorado River Basin com- mission. Maybe. But whether or not we all can embrace a single idea, we will deserve to declare success at the end of the work- shop if we only have reached a new plateau of under- standing that enables us to talk to one another about the future of the river, creatively, respectfully.H 15