Illogical

A minor incident highlighted a serious problem last week. Liberian airfield workers just could not grasp the U.S. logic in shutting down a nice strategic base like Roberts Field, on the west bulge of Africa. They missed their regular pay. The Army had buttoned up the big Air Transport base at the end of March and left a handful of G.I. guards to hold off the exuberant jungle and its prowlers from the runways and buildings.

Prowlers promptly appeared, and prowling led to trouble. Warehouses caught fire. One native tangled with a live power line and electrocuted himself. A fortnight ago, a U.S. sentry shot and fatally wounded a Liberian who had climbed into the barracks. One day the guard detachment found itself encircled by 100 Liberians armed with knives, rocks and clubs (and breathing fumes of fermented cane juice).

Two Liberian Army officers persuaded their bibulous countrymen to disperse. Now the U.S. Army has more than doubled the Roberts Field garrison--it flew in 13 more G.I.s from the occupation forces in Germany.

Liberia's True Whig Party President William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman did not hear about the trouble right away. He was busy on one of his frequent trips along the coast.* In Monrovia, Secretary of State Gabriel Dennis regretted the incident, was sure accounts were exaggerated, handsomely offered U.S. armed forces the protection of Liberian armed forces.

In Washington, the U.S. Government regretted the incident too. The Army finds the upkeep of remote Roberts Field a nuisance that it would gladly be quit of. The State Department emphatically disagrees. It believes that the airfield should be maintained, just in case. It fears that Britain or France might gladly take over the job of running the field if the U.S. pulled out. Both regard U.S. influence in Liberia with discreet but definite displeasure. The State Department still hopes to get Army funds for keeping up the field. Still greater hopes are pinned on the Navy, which is building port installations at Monrovia.

* Dazzled by the late Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he met in wartime, President Tubman wants to give Liberia's lagging political institutions a new deal, has already sponsored such progressive measures as votes for women and an income tax. Ranging far from his capital, Monrovia, Tub man keeps an eye on district commissioners and frontier forces, sometimes sacks them for "malfeasance, misfeasance and unfeasance."

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