Guam

THE buffet at a garden party given by a leading Guamanian businessman recently was a culinary montage of the island’s history. There were paella, frijoles, tortillas, and other foods that reflected the Spanish influence on the island, discovered by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and occupied by Spain for more than two hundred years. Hot dogs, roast beef, potato salad, and apple pie represented the period of American control, beginning with the island’s capture during the Spanish-American War, after which it was under U.S. Navy civil administration until the Japanese takeover in December, 1941. The Japanese interlude, lasting until July, 1944, was recalled by sushi (raw fish) and tempura. And coconut, bananas, pineapple, and barbecued meats and fish were prepared in the style of the Chamorros, the native inhabitants of Guam.

At the far end the table was bare, to be used as a repository for leftovers and dirty dishes. According to some local residents, the bareness could symbolize the future of this farthest-removed patch of American soil, whose citizens are beset with enormous economic problems and annoyed at the reluctance of Washington to allow full representation there or to permit local election of the island’s governor.

After World War II Guam remained under military government until May, 1946. Navy civil administration was then resumed. A locally elected legislature with little power was allowed in 1947 and began immediately to push for more self-government. In 1949, when the legislators refused the Navy governor’s order to return to session following a walkout over an infringement of rights, mass meetings were held, and the Navy sent an SOS to Washington.

The following year Congress passed and President Truman signed the Guam Organic Act, establishing the island as an unincorporated territory of the United States, conferring U.S. citizenship on its inhabitants, and giving the legislature broader powers, including the levying and collecting of taxes. The civil administration of Guam, which is 3330 miles from Honolulu and only 1358 from Tokyo, was turned over to, of all things, the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Today 70,000 Americans live among coconut palms and banana trees on Guam, 209 square miles in area, the largest of the Mariana chain. More than half of the residents of Guam are native islanders and statesiders who came to work or who remained after the war. The rest are military personnel and families of Navy and Marine units or of the Strategic Air Command.

Paper walls and grass roofs

The two most destructive forces to hit Guam have been the U.S. Navy, which shelled and bombed the Japanese-held island prior to landings in 1944, and Typhoon Karen, which did a more thorough job on November 11 last year. After World War II, Guam’s reconstruction was shoddy. The Navy realized the need for permanent structures because of the island’s location in the typhoon belt, but budget cutbacks and Washington indifference precluded this. As a result, old quonsets, makeshift shacks of corrugated steel, and other flimsy dwellings were erected. More expensive private homes and buildings were allowed to be constructed without safeguards against storms.

Typhoon Karen whisked away most of these in a day, destroying 90 percent of all homes and commercial buildings. Nine persons were killed and thousands made homeless. They are now living in tent homes, warehouses, and large “elephant” quonsets, Navy and Air Force dependent housing made to typhoon-proof specifications. President Kennedy declared Guam a disaster area, and $16 million was allocated for emergency relief. Damages were estimated at $100 million. But just as Guamanians were beginning to breathe easy and start the rebuilding task, Typhoon Olive lashed the island on April 29, undoing much of the temporary reconstruction and causing President Kennedy once again to proclaim Guam a disaster area.

Like post-war housing, Guam’s economy has been built with paper walls and a grass roof. The winds of change could cause its collapse overnight. Ironically, it is the presence of the Strategic Air Command, which provides the United States’s largest security muscle in Asia, that has made Guam’s economic future insecure.

Within fifteen minutes of the time a button is pushed at SAC headquarters in Nebraska, the classified number of B-47s on Guam can be off down the runway heading toward predetermined targets in China and Russia’s Far East. Each plane carries nuclear destructive power equal to the total power of bombs dropped in World War II.

The prop of military spending

When the Strategic Air Command came to Guam in 1954, jobs were created on an unprecedented scale. There was no unemployment on the island. Navy contracts had earlier given Guamanians considerable help in this respect, and the standard of living had increased gradually. But when SAC came, economic boom accompanied sonic boom. Guamanians left their farms and small businesses en masse to work as clerks, mechanics, waiters, houseboys, construction helpers, plumbers, and in a hundred other occupations. Soon nearly every grass hut around the capital city of Agana had a new Mercury or Oldsmobile parked beside it. Agriculture deteriorated, and the SAC base, unable to find local supply, began flying in 10,000 fresh eggs every day from Japan.

A Massachusetts doctor who had served on Guam with the Navy in 1938 and later retired there said, “It’s a shame. A whole generation is growing up not knowing how to weave a thatched roof or how to use nets to cast for fish inside the reef. Everyone wants to work for the Strategic Air Command. Today Guam actually imports fish!”

Most of the lucrative defense construction contracts have been completed. By recent Department of Defense order, SAC’s B-47s are being phased out of the Strategic Air Command. Although B-25s have never been permanently based on Guam, they will be rotated there under a new program.

Guam has been designated as the home base in the Pacific for Polaris submarines, and they will arrive this year. Construction of pens and other facilities for the Polaris subs in Apra Harbor will provide relatively little new income for the island. If SAC pulls up its manned bombers and goes home, leaving the deterrent responsibility to the Polaris, Guam’s honeymoon will be over.

Looking toward self-government

Guamanians want to prepare for that day, realizing their economy over the past decade has been built on the false foundation of crash military spending. They are also interested in building a solid foundation of self-government, as part of the United States. At present the people elect a 21-man legislature which may restrain the presidentially appointed governor. But in practice his decisions are upheld by the President, and he thus has a virtual veto power over the legislature.

Guam’s present governor is a native — 48-year-old Manuel Flores Leon Guerrero. He was appointed by President Kennedy to take over for Bill Daniel, a Texan who was the best argument for having the governor locally elected. In Daniel’s absence (he resigned effective January, 1963, but left the island for a world tour last autumn) Guerrero, as acting governor, guided the island through the emergencies created by typhoon damage and would probably win an election if one were allowed. After his formal inauguration in March, which followed a fast trip to Washington to appear before the Senate Interior Committee, the new governor got down to the island’s challenging problems.

Guerrero, who has worked for the Navy and been a businessman, farmer, and legislator, is more optimistic than most Guamanians, who seem to feel they will soon be forgotten by Washington. Rebuilding the island’s schools, hospitals, and public buildings and shepherding a vast urban renewal program, including the island’s first sewers and modern penitentiary, will test Guerrero’s ability. These projects will need additional federal assistance to be completed properly. Guererro has already asked Congress for an immediate $19 million supplementary budget and has estimated that a total of $70 million will eventually be needed to do the job right.

Taxes and independence

Guam’s annual budget is $13 million. Five million of this is from federal income taxes levied against military personnel stationed on the island. A large deficit is expected in the current budget, which has been drained by typhoon rehabilitation projects. The local tax structure is wobbly, and the failure of the legislature, as well as past governors, to push through increases on liquor, gasoline, and other commodity taxes during the boom years has been one reason Congress has been reluctant to appropriate more aid. Guerrero is determined to tackle the tax problem. He is also insisting on such measures as village planning that will make all lots of regulation size, so that villagers will be eligible for loans from the Federal Housing Authority.

“We must get our own house in order financially; then we can expect more help from Washington,” a stateside-educated Guamanian lawyer told a visiting reporter. He spoke enviously of the recent development in American Samoa which followed increased federal allotments.

Guamanians are proud of their U.S. citizenship and feel they deserve to have a liaison representative of their own permanently based in Washington to make this citizenship effective and meaningful. They reacted angrily when the State Department in 1961 asked the legislature to go along with a United Nations ruling that all non-self-governing territories should hold a plebiscite to determine whether they wanted to continue in their present status, become independent, or seek alignment with some other power.

The legislature reluctantly agreed to do this if it was necessary and would contribute an example of selfdetermination in the cold war. But since that time not a peep has been heard on the question from the State Department or the administering Department of the Interior.

Most Guamanians were displeased by the appointment of 47-year-old Bill Daniel as governor in 1961. Brother of Texas politician Price Daniel and a longtime friend of Lyndon Johnson’s, Daniel arrived in Guam direct from his Plantation Ranch at Libertyville, Texas. Upon his arrival, Daniel had the right idea in urging Guamanians to go back to the soil and started his own backyard vegetable garden as an example. He donated several prize cattle to start a beef herd. But Daniel stepped on too many toes. In one instance he aggravated the legislature by purchasing bulldozers from a Texas firm without first accepting bids from local suppliers.

Encouraging tourism

Guerrero has some ideas about making Guam a going concern when the well of military spending runs dry. One is tourism. Guam’s scenery comprises the definitive postcard from the South Seas, and the governor, along with his top assistants, thinks that some of the Pan-American air traffic that passes through en route to Manila and Saigon can be induced to stop over for a few days. The first step toward promoting tourism has been the lifting of military security restrictions which barred all visitors. Now any American citizen may visit the island. The second step has been to try to lure Honolulu hotel owners into locating on Guam. So far several have inspected oceanfront sites, and one group has purchased land and built a road.

The other area of future emphasis is expanded economic interplay with the United States Trust Territory, the galaxy of ninety-seven atolls and islands spread around Guam that is also administered by the Department of the Interior.

There have been suggestions that to be economically viable, Guam should someday be permanently linked with the larger nearby islands like Saipan, presently the Trust Territory headquarters; Tinian, base of the Hiroshima-bound American B-29s; and Rota. While plugging for more federal assistance themselves, Guamanians realize that development in the Trust Territory would in turn improve Guam’s position as the economic, communication, and transportation hub of those islands.