Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (40 page)

35
. Hall and Pérez Brignoli,
Historical Atlas of Central America
, 228.

36
. Ibid., 228; Lindsay-Poland,
Emperors in the Jungle
, 27.

37
. C. T. Sandars,
America’s Overseas Garrisons: The Leasehold Empire
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 140.

38
. Friedman,
Creating an American Lake
, 3.

39
. See Desch,
When the Third World Matters
; Sandars,
America’s Overseas Garrisons
; Blaker,
United States Overseas Basing
, 29.

40
. Blaker,
United States Overseas Basing
.

41
. Desch,
When the Third World Matters
, 183 n.123; Lindsay-Poland,
Emperors in the Jungle
, 45.

42
. Sandars,
America’s Overseas Garrisons
, 4–5.

43
. Ibid., 4–6.

44
. Hayes et al.,
American Lake
, 18–19.

45
. David Hanlon,
Remaking Micronesia: Discourses over Development in a Pacific Territory 1944–1982
(Honolulu, HA: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), 24–26.

46
. Although U.S. histories of this and other battles in the Pacific always note the “bloody” nature of the fighting, the attention is almost always on the (relatively few) U.S. soldiers who died, not on the Japanese and certainly not on the Marshallese.

47
. Jonathan Weisgall,
Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 43.

48
. Blaker,
United States Overseas Basing
, 23, 9.

49
. Sandars,
America’s Overseas Garrisons
, 59.

50
. Hayes et al.,
American Lake
, 23–24.

51
. Donald F. McHenry,
Micronesia: Trust Betrayed
(New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1975), 67, 66.

52
. Friedman,
Creating an American Lake
, 1–2.

53
. Hayes et al.,
American Lake
, 28.

54
. Stanley de Smith, quoted in Roy H. Smith,
The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement: After Mururoa
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1997), 42.

55
. Blaker,
United States Overseas Basing
, 32.

56
. George Stambuk,
American Military Forces Abroad: Their Impact on the Western State System
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1963), 9.

57
. Sandars,
America’s Overseas Garrisons
, 21, 101.

58
. Hayes et al.,
American Lake
, 25.

59
. Smith,
American Empire
, 2, 14–16, 21.

60
. Carole McGranahan, “A Nonviolent History of War: Global Politics, Refugee Activism, and Forgetting Tibet,” conference paper, “Forgotten Conflicts, Permanent Catastrophes?” Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, April 2007.

61
. Smith,
American Empire
; Chalmers Johnson,
Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Empire
(New York: Metropolitan/Owl, 2004[2000]), “America’s Empire of Bases,”
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid1181
, January 15, 2004;
Monthly Review
, “U.S. Military Bases and Empire.”

62
.
Monthly Review
, “U.S. Military Bases and Empire.”

63
. Joseph Gerson, “The Sun Never Sets,” in
The Sun Never Sets: Confronting the Network of Foreign U.S. Military Bases
, ed. Joseph Gerson and Bruce Birchard (Boston: South End Press, 1991), 14; see also
Monthly Review
, “U.S. Military Bases and Empire.”

64
. Lutz, “Empire Is in the Details.”

65
. Smith,
American Empire
, 349, 360.

66
. Blaker,
United States Overseas Basing
, 32. For military and civilian leaders, the war further cemented the importance of maintaining large bases in the eastern Pacific, on Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan, on Guam, and in South Korea—a pattern that remains in place to this day. Hayes et al.,
American Lake
, 29–30, 45.

67
. Blaker,
United States Overseas Basing
, 32.

Chapter Three
The Strategic Island Concept and a Changing of the Imperial Guard

1
. Edis,
Peak of Limuria
, 63, 109 n.1; Bandjunis,
Diego Garcia
, 13.

2
. Edis,
Peak of Limuria
, 62–64, 68; Ashley Jackson,
War and Empire in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean
(Hampshire, UK: Palgrave, 2001), 42, 44–47.

3
. See John Lewis Gaddis,
Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

4
. Ibid., 90–91.

5
. Claude Ricketts, Study on Strategic Requirements for Guam, memorandum for the Chief of Naval Operations, February 21, 1963, NHC: 00 Files, 1963, 11000/1, Tab B.

6
. Stambuk,
American Military Forces Abroad
, 13.

7
. Baker,
American Soldiers Overseas
, 49.

8
. Lutz,
Homefront
, 86.

9
. Ibid., 47–48.

10
. Sherry,
In the Shadows of War
; Lens,
Permanent War
.

11
. Lens,
Permanent War
, 22.

12
. Sherry,
In the Shadows of War
, 235.

13
. Lutz,
Homefront
, 9.

14
. Bezboruah,
U.S. Strategy in the Indian Ocean
, 59, 83, 227; Bandjunis,
Diego Garcia
, 1.

15
. Barber, letter to Ryan, April 26, 1982, 2.

16
. Ibid., 2.

17
. Stuart B. Barber, letter to Senator Ted Stevens, October 3, 1975.

18
. Bezboruah,
U.S. Strategy in the Indian Ocean
, 58.

19
. The United States had major advantages in bombers, air defenses, submarines, and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and thus in first and second strike nuclear capabilities. The United States had its unparalleled system of bases, a navy with uncontested control of the seas, and a related ability, unmatched by any other competitor, to deploy its military power almost anywhere in the world. Gareth Porter,
Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005), 14, 4–10.

20
. Ibid., vii–1. Although my interviewees almost all stressed the importance of the Cold War to understanding Diego Garcia, strikingly absent from their comments and the archival record is any concern among officials about the reaction
of the Soviet Union or China to U.S. plans for Diego. Government officials were unworried that the Soviets or Chinese would respond militarily by creating bases of their own, increase their naval presence, or make other military moves to resist the creation of a base in a neighboring region. The only fear expressed was that the Soviets and others might inflict some political or propaganda damage on the United States for militarizing a previously peaceful ocean.

21
. Thomas H. Moorer, memorandum for Chief of Naval Operations, January 2, 1962, NHC: 00 Files, 1962, Box 12, 11000, 2.

22
. Rivero, “Assuring a Future Base Structure,” 5. Stu’s memory and Bandjunis’s history are in disagreement about the timing of the survey. Bandjunis says it took place in the summer of 1957, when the Navy sent Admiral Jerauld Wright, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and Supreme Allied Commander for the Atlantic, to the island. Stu’s recollection is that he began work on the idea in 1958. See Bandjunis,
Diego Garcia
, 2.

23
. Weisgall,
Operation Crossroads
, 32.

24
. Naval Historical Center, “Admiral Horacio Rivero, United States, Navy, Retired,” biographies, July 26, 1972 NHC: Operational Archives Branch.

25
. Weisgall,
Operation Crossroads
, 32, 328 n. 41.

26
. Ibid., 32–33.

27
. Ibid., 106–7.

28
. Ibid., 107–8.

29
. Ibid., 308–9.

30
. Ibid., 309–14.

31
. Hanlon,
Remaking Micronesia
, 186.

32
. See Weisgall,
Operation Crossroads
, 302–5.

33
. E.g., Robert C. Kiste,
The Bikinians: A Study in Forced Migration
(Menlo Park, CA: Cummings Publishing, 1974); Catherine Lutz, “Introduction,” in
Micronesia as Strategic Colony: The Impact of U.S. Policy on Micronesian Health and Culture
, ed. Catherine Lutz, Cultural Survival Occasional Papers, 12 (Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, 1984).

In 1968, President Johnson allowed the Bikinians to return to their islands after a cleanup. They returned in 1969, although they were shocked to find the islands decimated, many parts having disappeared altogether. In 1978, medical tests revealed that the cleanup had been inadequate and that “the people may have ingested the largest amounts of radioactive material of any known population.” They were again moved. After fifteen years of lawsuits and negotiations, the Bikinians received a $75 million settlement for the taking and use of their islands. $110 million was put into a trust for the decontamination and resettlement of the islands. After an extensive cleanup, some have now returned. Weisgall,
Operation Crossroads
, 314–15.

34
. U.S. Naval Institute, “Reminiscences of Admiral Horacio Rivero, Jr.,” 302–3.

35
. See also Vine, “Empire’s Footprint,” for a full discussion of these dynamics.

36
. Kinzer,
Overthrow
, 15. I have recently learned of land expropriations and possible displacements in the Waikane and Makua valleys.

37
. Cheryl Lewis, “Kaho’olawe and the Military,” ICE case study, Washington, DC, Spring 2001,
http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/hawaiibombs.htm
.

38
. Globalsecurity.org, “Guam,” 2003,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guam.htm;
James Brooke, “Threats and Responses: U.S. Bases,”
New York Times
, March 10, 2003.

39
. Lindsay-Poland,
Emperors in the Jungle
, 28–29, 42–43, 192.

40
. McCaffrey,
Military Power and Popular Protest
, 9; Anna Piatek, “Displacement by Military Bases,” unpublished paper, George Washington University, April 2006; Roland G. Simbulan,
The Bases of Our Insecurity
(Manila: BALAI Fellowship, 1985).

41
. Barbara Rose Johnston, “Reparations and the Right to Remedy,” contributing paper, World Commission on Dams, July 1, 2000.

42
. McCaffrey,
Military Power and Popular Protest
, 38–39.

43
. Ibid., 70–72.

44
. By 1995, about 800 remained in Bolivia with their offspring. Okinawa remains home to 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan, though it represents only 1 percent of Japanese land. It also remains the poorest of Japan’s prefectures. C. Johnson,
The Sorrows of Empire
, 50–53, 200; C. Johnson,
Blowback
, 11; Kensei Yoshida,
Democracy Betrayed: Okinawa under U.S. Occupation
(Bellingham, WA: Western Washington University, n.d.[2001]); Kozy K. Amemiya, “The Bolivian Connection: U.S. Bases and Okinawan Emigration,” in
Okinawa: Cold War Island
, ed. Chalmers Johnson (n.p.: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999), 63.

45
. Aqqaluk Lynge,
The Right to Return: Fifty Years of Struggle by Relocated Inughuit in Greenland
(n.p: Atuagkat Publishers, 2002); D. L. Brown, “Trail of Frozen Tears,”
Washington Post
, October 22, 2002, C1; J. M. Olsen, “US Agrees to Return to Denmark Unused Area near Greenland Military Base,” Associated Press Worldstream, September 24, 2002.

46
. Lynge,
The Right to Return
, 10, 27, 32–36.

47
. Hanlon,
Remaking Micronesia
, 189–91, 201–2.

48
. Ibid., 193; Peter Marks, “Paradise Lost; The Americanization of the Pacific,”
Newsday
, January 12, 1986, 10.

49
. PCRC, “The Kwajalein Atoll and the New Arms Race: The US Anti-Ballistic Weapons System and Consequences for the Marshall Islands of the Pacific,”
Indigenous Affairs
2 (2001): 38–43. U.S. Representative John Seiberling, visiting the atoll in 1984, summed up the conditions in Ebeye by comparing them to those on the base: “The contrast couldn’t be greater or more dramatic. Kwajalein is like Fort Lauderdale or one of our Miami resort areas, with palm-lined beaches, swimming pools, a golf course, people bicycling everywhere, a first-class hospital and a good school; and Ebeye, on the other hand, is an island slum, over-populated, treeless filthy lagoon, littered beaches, a dilapidated hospital, and contaminated water supply, and so forth.” Hanlon,
Remaking Micronesia
, 201.

50
. Andrew Bell-Fialkoff,
Ethnic Cleansing
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 54, 3–4.

51
. McCaffrey,
Military Power and Popular Protest
, 9–10.

52
. In the case of Fayetteville, North Carolina’s Fort Bragg Army base, the location of the base was determined in no small part by the ease with which the government could evict black, Scotch, and Native American farmers and sharecroppers, as well as smallholders and renters, the majority of the population in the area. Lutz,
Homefront
, 26–27.