Pacific Ocean or American Lake?

Abstract

We have been told frequently in recent months that the United States proposes to make an American lake out of the Pacific Ocean. Few voices have been raised to question by what authority we claim the right to do so, or what effect our claims are having on our relations with other nations which have interests in the Pacific. Statements to the press by Navy officials and congressional committees do not seem to tie in with other statements made by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman or their emissaries, in the Atlantic Charter, at Cairo, San Francisco and Pots? dam. The State Department has in recent months been conspicuously silent on the subject, and all of this has resulted in a good deal of confusion in the public mind concerning Pacific Island bases. On September 5 a press conference in Washington was informed by Mr. H. Struve Hensel, Assistant Sec? retary of the Navy, that the Navy wants a minimum of nine major bases in the Pacific; to which list, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal acknowledged, more bases might later be added. In addition to the major bases, according to Mr. Hensel, the Navy may want fleet anchorages and air strips in such places as Wake, Midway, Eniwetok, Kwajalein and Truk, and the Army may also want other places for Army air bases. The major bases they listed for the Pacific are Hawaii; Kodiak and Adak in the Aleutians; Balboa on the Pacific side of the Canal Zone; Guam, Saipan and Tinian in the Marianas; Manus in the Australian mandated islands; Iwo Jima in the one-time Japanese Volcano Islands; Okinawa in the Liuchius (Ryukyus); and one base in the Philippines. Secretary Forrestal has not committed himself as to whether he favors absolute possession of new bases won in the war or operation of them under international trusteeship, but Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief of the Fleet, stated at a meeting of the House Naval Affairs Committee on September 19 that he preferred sovereignty to trusteeships. Some further light on this question, as well as some indication as to what further bases the Navy may ask for, may be gleaned from the report of a subcommittee of the House Naval Affairs Committee published in August, as this report is believed by many in Washing? ton to reflect Navy policy, or at least the policy of an important segment of the Navy policy-makers. After a 21,000 mile inspection tour of the islands of the Pacific last August this subcommittee recom? mended that the United States should take outright the Japanese mandated islands and the outlying Jap? anese islands, should be given specific and substantial rights to American bases constructed on island terri? tories of Allied Nations, and full title to certain bases on islands owned or controlled by our allies.