Honolulu, Hawaii June 8, 1968
You can be a sort of coconut Clausewitz looking at the Pacific Islands today. Or a student of comparative colonialism. Or a jet age dreamer of a new ore of political and economic development. There are many matters worth considering about this seven thousand mile sweep of sea, island, and people called Oceania. But some of the most important are summed up in four words — security, politics, transportation, and tourism.
In cold honesty, security seems the major concern of the U.S. It comes in several forms, but rightly or wrongly most think in terms of military need and strategy. It is possible to take the view that the scattered islands of the Pacific are not that important any more in terms of U.S. national security. Some argue that talk of bases and national interest here represents essentially World War II thinking in the age of satellites, missiles, and nuclear submarines. After all, they say, we have Hawaii, our major bastion, and Guam as an advance base.
Military men and some others active in the area strongly dispute such views. “All you have to do is look at the globe,” says one military thinker spreading his hand across a quarter of the earth’s surface lying between Hawaii, Asia, and Australia. “There’s just too much to say it isn’t important. The Pacific war showed that.”
The importance of not having the island area in hostile hands is one point made. Right now the Pacific Island area is mostly an American lake, dominated by our navy or the forces of other western powers. The Russians have no bases. Any Soviet missile tests, space support activity, submarine or spy ship operations require long-range sea support.
The Military View
Besides any such negative security or denial factor, there are the positive military and other uses of the area, both present and potential.
Guam’s use as a B-52 bomber base and staging area has been well publicized in the Vietnam War. It is also strategic in nuclear submarine and other naval activity. Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands of the Trust Territory is an anti-missile test site and splashdown area for test missiles launched in California. In addition, there are what military men call “other bits and pieces,” small units and stations scattered around the islands and engaged in communications and testing of air and sea. There is also scientific study; for example, the Washington Post reported recently that the U.S. Defense Department has spent $2.5 million on something called the Pacific Bird Project, which seemed to be connected with the idea of moving controversial germ warfare testing to some Pacific island.
The deeper U.S. security question, however, comes in terms of the future. Here it seems only natural that most U.S. thinking centers above the equator in the Trust Territory; this is the area we now control, and it is the one most between us and Asia.
Military men talk not of firm plans but of possibilities in the present U.S. defense line of Asian bases running from Japan to Okinawa to Taiwan to the Philippines. The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty comes up for a revision in 1970, and Japanese public opinion is uncertain. A Vietnam settlement could pave the way for reversion of Okinawa to Japan. There are less immediate questions about Taiwan and the Philippines, as well as South Korea and Thailand. Another factor is the potential for an Asian non-Communist security group to be formed, requiring not U.S. participation but backup support.
The essential point is that looking ahead; U.S. military men apparently see the likely eventual need for new and expanded Pacific Island bases. It is no great secret that to this end teams of military planners have been visiting the Trust Territory in the past year; areas getting special attention are said to include Saipan and Tinian in the Marianas, Palau, and possibly Truk. No timetables are available, and if they exist they seem as uncertain as the end of the Vietnam conflict.
Mixed in any appraisal of future military needs are the expected continuing requirements for missile test and space monitoring and communication facilities in this large section of the globe.
In the South Pacific below the equator, the U.S. seems content, and perhaps wisely so, to leave most of the security and political problems to others. France has military and naval forces and remains firm in Tahiti and New Caledonia. Britain pursues orderly transition in Fiji and the Solomons, New Zealand watches out for independent Western Samoa. Australia has a large and active interest in hew Guinea.
Security And Politics
True security in the Pacific Islands does not just mean strategic bases and enough troops to keep order in the colonies. However small their numbers, people and their politics must also be considered, including in terms of their own rights as human beings nobody should “own.”
On one level you can ask: “What good would a new Pacific defense line of bases do if in the islands east of it one government went Communist or just accepted Russian aid and offered a friendly refueling and supply base?”
Or on another level: “How much right does the U.S. or other colonial country have to continue imposing its security interests, if the Pacific peoples do not see it in their own small ‘national interest’?”
So political developments become an important part of the new Pacific in several ways. Here there are a couple of statements.
From a Washington Peace Corps official after touring the area: “The Pacific Islands today are like Africa was in 1950. Politically, they are on the verge of emerging. Economically, you can do things without the usual Cold War interference.”
From a Hawaii scholar on various Pacific colonial policies: “The British are looking for a responsible way out. The French seem determined to stay, to carry off the idea their islands are part of France. The Australians are ambivalent, involved but seemingly more occupied with Asia and America. New Zealand is interested but small and with its own economic troubles. The United 6tates has geographically the world’s l8rgest colony in the Trust Territory, plus Guam and American Samoa. But we’ve never had a colonial policy or a good idea of where we want to go. And we still don’t…All these situations leave room for trouble.”
The Pacific Islands operate under a wide variety of government systems. They include the Pacific’s last constitutional monarchy in Tonga, the world’s smallest republic in Nauru, the U.S. state of Hawaii, overseas territories that send delegates to the French National Assembly, the New Hebrides condominium run jointly by France and Britain, United Nation’s mandates, and a variety of territories, colonies, and protectorates. If the U.S. Trust Territory is the world’s most extensive colony, Pitcairn Island, with 1,200 acres and 87 persons, mostly descendents of the Bounty mutineers, may be the world’s smallest.
Nor do these systems stand alone. They overlay a variety of cultural patterns based on the village, family, or tribe. These once served quite well and still operate, often in conflict with the foreign system and other influences.
Progress And Tensions
Viewed from outside, the wonder of the Pacific is that there does seem to be so much peaceful evolution in the government process. The Papua-New Guinea area recently finished an election toward increased self-government and eventual self-determination. The U.S. Trust Territory has a Congress increasingly capable of showing its will and debating its destiny, New Zealand’s Cook Islands are now in their third year of internal self-government. The number of modern educated leaders is growing. No immediate revolutions are foreseen.
Still there are tensions and political dangers. They might be easy to exaggerate but would also be dangerous to, ignore.
There is British Fiji. The ambitious imported Indian plantation workers have multiplied to outnumber as well as outwork the easy-going Fijians, who with sympathetic Europeans have a government majority and retain control of most of the land. Continuing predictions of violence — a sort of South Sea Cyprus — are often scorned as sensational nonsense. But a serious racial, political, and economic conflict remains unsettled.
Amid waves of tourists and preparations for French nuclear bomb tests, Tahiti has its political problems with mother France.
Tahitians have a French-exiled hero of sorts, radical leader Pouvanna a Oopa. They have a cause in demands for more internal self-government. They have also had a chilly turndown from Paris.
France flew 300 paratroops to New Caledonia in February in what’s believed to be a show of force in the face of unrest in the nickel industry and a time when more internal self-government is again being advocated.
There are developments on lesser levels: Western Samoa has the kind of economic troubles that once made its leaders hint of seeking Soviet aid. Tonga’s political situation has been described as “brittle.” Micronesian leaders have sent the U.S. a couple of unsubtle messages by seeking aid from Japan.
A point made here is that what’s being sought in virtually all cases is not independence in the classic Afro-Asian sense, but more help, and the feeling and fact of more self-rule.
In a “New Leader” magazine article written after a South Pacific tour, Edouard Roditi concluded: “Only in Australian New Guinea, in fact, can one detect a nascent bona fide movement for independence. Responsible leaders, administrators and natives alike are afraid of the political chaos and economic vacuum that the sudden withdrawal of the governing powers might leave. Only irresponsible outsiders are clamoring for ‘freedom now’.”
An alternative to full independence might be greater regional cooperation and union, but that does not come easily in an area of great distances, cultural differences, and the varying views of colonial powers. The best existing vehicle might be the South Pacific Commission, the regional advisory body set up by the colonial powers in 1947.
Although the commission has carefully avoided politics, some see hope of its moving into that field. Increasing participation by the island peoples has been noted. But many attitudes seem to be like those of a Pacific expert here:
“I don’t know if the South Pacific Commission will ever come to mean anything. It was set up by the big powers to keep the lid on. You might spy it’s been fearless in attacking the rhinoceros beetle, a real problem, and pushing waterseal toilets. Whether the powers will let it do anything for men’s political aspirations is most uncertain.”
Croc Skins to Tourism
Equally uncertain but perhaps more hopeful are the economics of the area. Throughout the islands are the traditional economies with their dependence on varying commodity prices. Copra, the dried meat of the coconut used in vegetable oil products and for livestock feed, is still a mainstay. The Pacific Islands Monthly magazine also contains market prices for other exotic produce — not only coffee, cocoa, vanilla, and rubber but also beche-de-mer, crocodile skins, green snail, pearl, and turtle shells and shark fins.
As continental islands, Melanesia has mineral resources as well as vast stretches of land for agriculture and lumbering. This potential is still being explored.
For other, smaller islands scattered to the east and north the picture is less certain. Tiny, newly independent Nauru is an exception; phosphate deposits make its 6,000 people the most economically affluent per capita in the Pacific.
But other islands of Micronesia and Polynesia are caught between a subsistence economy that served comfortably in the past, the present with its rising population and rising Westernized expectations, and an uncertain future.
For parts of Micronesia, some suggest U.S. military activity will be the most important industry, as it is for Hawaii. Some look ahead and think in terms of oceanography and the potential for riches from the sea: “I know it doesn’t seem that way now,” says one man actively engaged in American planning, “but I think permanent association of Micronesia with the U.S. will someday prove equal in importance, including security, with the Louisiana Purchase or acquisition of Alaska.”
Still, any such destiny is a long way off. For now much of the immediate potential centers on tourism and the transportation that will bring it from the major markets — the U.S. and Canada, Japan, and Australia and New Zealand.
This is one of the most complex and fluid questions in the Pacific today. From the American side, two government aviation proceedings beer heavily.
One is the Trans-Pacific Route Case, where 16 U.S. airlines are seeking major trunk routes to Asia and Australia, not just from the West Coast but often direct from cities across the country. A hearing examiner has handed down a long, controversial report and appeals are now being made to the Civil Aeronautics Board. Heavy political pressures are involved, and the final decision from the President is expected late this year.
The other proceeding is the CAB’s Pacific Islands Local Service Investigation. If the Trans-Pac case involves major intercontinental arteries, this one refers to the connecting veins, the smaller routes between the islands. This local case will not involve formal awards, but it will indicate which route links the U.S. will favor.
Some indication of the potential meaning of new and improved Pacific air routes may be seen in the unrelated recently authorized new service for Micronesia.
Before, service was provided mostly by old DC-4s under a cost-plus-fee contract. To go anywhere in the Trust Territory, it was necessary to first fly to Guam, an arrangement akin to forcing visitors to the U.S. from abroad to all fly first to Chicago.
Air Micronesia, the now regular carrier, uses a 727 jet, making for twice the service at twice the speed. And its route runs from Hawaii to Majuro to Truk to Saipan to Okinawa, in effect opening up the Trust Territory at both ends for both visitors and islanders themselves.
A Last Frontier
At this point, nobody can gauge the impact of the coming Trans-Pac authorizations. But this is the last major tourism frontier and the potential is obvious.
Tourism to the Pacific Islands, Australia, and New Zealand has been booming in the last few years. But the base was small. About three times as many visitors have been going to the Orient as to the South Pacific. (In turn, Hawaii traffic is about three times that to the Orient.)
High fares west of Hawaii have held back tourism development. The hearing examiner’s report in the Trans-Pac case says. “In general, for the Orient and South Pacific, reductions on the order of 15 to 25 per cent are proposed in basic and normal fares, with liberal use of lower yield excursion and other promotional fares long missing from the Pacific.”
Beyond the high fares is the whole system and need for more carriers and modern routings. Again, the Trans-Pac report says: “The Pacific air route structure is still in its infancy. It was devised some 20 years ago when the markets were but a fraction of their present size.”
Such a major economic step as envisioned in the route case is not without its international political impact, or indeed without its political intent. Air routes can be an instrument and extension of national policy.
For example, it is possible to use either the British colony of Fiji or American Samoa as a stopping point enroute from the U.S. to Australia and New Zealand. Both will obviously be used, as they are now. But U.S. officials stress it is in the interest of American Samoa’s development to insure that routings promote it as a gateway to the central Pacific. Similarly, Guam is said to have potential as a sort of mid-Pacific Puerto Rico and gateway to the Trust Territory for the growing Japan tourist market; a new Guam-Tokyo link has already indicated the potential. Again, some might raise a political question about extensive Japanese influence in the Trust Territory at a time when policy is to encourage eventual permanent links with the U.S.
Increased contact through new or improved air routes can have a variety of results. On a local level the British Gilbert Islands (Tarawa, etc.) are a Micronesian group only a few hundred miles from the Marshall Islands of the U.S. Trust Territory. Yet the lack of any air connection restricts contact. Just a short Majuro-Tarawa link would not only bring the two together but connect with a route running down to Fiji, thus providing a new and needed tie-in between the central north and south Pacific.
On a larger scale, the political desirability of closer U.S. relations with Australia and New Zealand (and the Pacific Islands) is recognized. More air rout9s do tot automatically mean more understanding, but it increases the potential if the interest is there.
In all of this are the questions of other national interests. For as it takes two to tango it takes that and often more to reach international air agreements. A simple route from American Samoa to Western Samoa to Tongs to Fiji to New Caledonia requires approval of the two independent island governments plus the British and French. One of the big uncertainties of the Trans-Pac case is the reaction of foreign governments.
A Point of View
The above is a limited American view of some of the mixed security political, and new economic factors involved in the Pacific Islands. It is, in fact, much of a Hawaii view of islands, which should be known better to the 50th state. There are obviously other views of this great ocean area and that is the reason for a year of study and travel, based from Fiji.
There is a tendency in Hawaii to see yourself as an example, or at least as a state in search of meaning in the bigger ocean area. Politically, U.S. statehood does not seem likely for any other Pacific area at this point. Still, ten years ago Hawaiian statehood seemed unthinkable to some Americans. Now it has moved the national boundaries 2,000 miles out into the Pacific and perhaps opened national thinking from some past restraints.
Racially, there is some feeling that multi-racial Hawaii’s relative harmony and inter-marriage could serve as an example to such an area as Fiji with its Fijian-Indian tensions. But any such view has to be modified by the realities of the Fijian situation and perhaps the way others view the status of the native Hawaiians. It can be said the Polynesian Hawaiians share the American affluence of others in Hawaii and some have reached high office and stature. Still there are possibly only 500 pure Hawaiians left (along with thousands of part Hawaiians); there were 300,000 Hawaiians here when Captain Cook came some 190 years ago. Not only that, the Hawaiian racial group (pure and part) is highest or near the top in rates for crime, welfare cases, illegitimate births, and school dropouts — all sad indications of inability or unwillingness to adjust to modern Western life.
Economically, Hawaii has become not only the Pacific but also a world leader in the booming business of tourism. Hawaii already gets over a million visitors a year; the entire South Pacific may not get half that number until 1970. Tourism has such enormous implications, social as well as economic, that the University of Hawaii’s highly-regarded president, Thomas H. Hamilton, who resigned recently on a matter of principle, chose to become president of the Hawaii Visitors Bureau. Hamilton formerly headed the New York State university system and recently turned down offers from Big Ten and other universities.
But tourism is far from an unmixed blessing, especially when it gets the momentum of dramatic growth. Waikiki shows the sins of bad planning and unthinking greed. Many are starting to question the desirability of an ever-increasing flow of low-budget tourists on islands of limited size; if the flow can’t be stopped, can it even be controlled? How much tourism do you want in relation to other industry?
Other Pacific Islands may seem far from such questions. But the need to start thinking hard about them faster then Hawaii did is the big point, especially with the coming surge of new visitors expected from the air routes.
And so you take off, knowing something, but mostly how much you don’t know and may never get to learn. For comfort, there are the parting words of an old area hand: “The Pacific will never be as clear to you as it is right now.”
Received in New York June 12, 1968.
Mr. John Griffin is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner on leave from the Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii. This article may be published, with credit to Mr. Griffin, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Alicia Patterson Fund.
