The Bases of Peace

Before the blood was dry on the white beaches of Tarawa and the black ash of Iwo, the U.S. naval and military brass hats were determined that never again would they be handicapped by having to capture bases in the midst of war. They wanted bases needed (for Navy and Air Forces) from Greenland to the South Seas. Although military airmen's eyes were fixed on the North Polar icecap as the likeliest no man's land of a future war (because the military strength of the world is in the northern hemisphere), most of the proposed new bases were much nearer the Equator.

By last week the U.S. had learned how tough obtaining bases in peacetime could be. It had suffered one defeat in Iceland, when the infant republic truculently asserted its neutrality, signed a trade treaty with Russia, and decided to keep both U.S. and U.S.S.R. military forces out of the island. Greenland, whose bases border the Arctic Circle, would be less trouble.

Temporary Embarrassment. In the Azores, the U.S. had another setback. Portugal's Dictator-Premier Salazar had been ready to sign a far-reaching agreement, but premature publicity embarrassed both him and the State Department. Last week Secretary Byrnes announced that the U.S.-built air base on Santa Maria island was being turned back to Portugal for peaceful development. The U.S. got a sop: temporary (18 months) transit rights. The State Department could base a hope on the French adage: "Nothing endures as long as the temporary."

Temporarily, at least, the military meridian which U.S. strategists had sought to push eastward across the Atlantic was rectified in midocean. But far to the south, it bent eastward: the little ash-heap of Ascension, whose importance was not realized until midway in the war, was under British sovereignty, and the British would be reasonable. Nearer home, the chain of Western Hemisphere bases from Newfoundland to British Guiana, obtained in the destroyer deal of 1940, was secure for 93 more years.

Permanent Possession. In the Pacific, complexities were almost as numerous as the flyspeck islands. The U.S. wanted to draw a military Equator across that ocean and assert its claim to one-power control of everything north of the line. The military Equator closely follows the geographic, save for a zig to the north to exclude Dutch Morotai, and a zag to the south to take in Australian-mandated Manus. South of this line (in Indonesia and Melanesia) the U.S. would be content with transit privileges for ships and aircraft.

In Micronesia, each of the three great archipelagoes (Marshalls, Marianas and Carolines) has some atolls or mountain tops which the U.S. wants: Kwajalein and Eniwetok, Saipan and Tinian, Truk and Palau. The U.S. does not need the numberless neighboring islands, with tens of thousands of backward, simple natives, but has announced no policy for their trusteeship or control--because the military and civilian departments within the Government are fighting with each other. Final disposition of the islands must await the signing of a peace treaty--and the Russians are already warming up a propaganda campaign against "U.S. imperialism."

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