Paradise with Rough Edges

Welcome to dropouts, bureaucrats and bone pickers

To get the flavor of America's far-flung Pacific territories, TIME Correspondent David De Voss island-hopped for 2 1/2 weeks. His impressions:

"Ladies and gentlemen," the intercom Li crackles, "out of the left side of the cabin are the remains of the Japanese Imperial Fleet." Banking sharply into the sunset, the Air Micronesia 727 circles the Truk lagoon. Coral reefs color the water in pastels of orange, yellow and green, interspersed with the darker shapes of sunken hulls. "It was on Feb. 16, 1944, that we spotted 'em," the voice continues enthusiastically. "Our fighters dive-bombed all day, and next morning when they finished mopping up, more than 60 ships were on the bottom." Only after a second turn around the exposed mast of the aircraft transport freighter Fujikawa Maru does the plane begin its descent.

Air Micronesia--"Air Mike," as it is known locally--is the pony express of the Pacific. Three times each week the airline's two jets, both coated with Teflon to fight the corrosive effects of salty coral runways, hop among Micronesia's six island airports on Truk, Kwajalein, Yap, Ponape, Majuro and Palau. It is a measure of the region's isolation--the nights range up to 1,451 miles nonstop--that no plane travels without a mechanic and spare parts. Says Captain Lee Minors, 43, who prepped for atoll landings on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Hornet in the 1950s: "This is the last place in the world where flying is fun. No fancy strobe lights or air controllers out here. Just dots that shimmer toward you through the void."

Most of the dots, and all of the void, are of vital concern to the U.S. military. Unless they have specific clearance, Air Mike passengers are barred from leaving the plane during refueling stops on Johnston, a storage dump for poisonous gas; nobody gets off at Kwajalein, a target for missiles test-fired from California. Says Commander David Burt, Navy liaison to the trust territory government: "The fact that they're smack dab in the middle of the ocean makes all these islands important."

They also have a flavor of 19th century colonialism. On Kwajalein, 500 natives often perform jobs of equal status with those of the 3,000 Americans, but are forbidden access to the golf course, swimming pool, free movies and subsidized food available to the outsiders. For security reasons, only Americans can live on the island. Every night the natives must commute by boat three miles to Ebeye, a slum island where 7,000 people are segregated on just 73 acres.

In addition to controlling Kwajalein, Johnston, Midway and Wake islands, the military has reserved substantial acreage in Palau and the Marianas. The highest naval profile is on Guam, where two-thirds of the island--including the best beach, the only lake and the one patch of tillable soil--remains off limits to the population save for 8,800 U.S. servicemen and Pentagon civilian employees.

America's day begins on Guam at 6 a.m. when the large McDonald's (328 seats, parking for 105 cars) begins serving Egg McMuffins. By 9 o'clock the five-story Ben Franklin department store is vying for the local shopping dollar. TV sitcoms, complete with commercials, start at 10 a.m. Guam's main road, Marine Drive, is a snarled jam of rust-eviscerated autos, and buses packed with Japanese honey mooners.

With a $38 million budget deficit, high unemployment and 25,000 of its people on food stamps, Guam has plenty of problems. Elected following a campaign stressing "77 years of [U.S.] neglect," Guam Governor Ricardo Bordallo blames Washington for all the difficulties. "You'd be shocked at the number of sophisticates who know nothing about the Pacific," he sighs. "On my first trip to Washington, one Congressman asked me what was the citizenship of the Guamanian people. When I tried to cash a Government of Guam check, one bank manager demanded the address of my embassy."

Many of Guam's regulations reflect U.S. domestic politics more than common sense. The Environmental Protection Agency orders power stations to use low-sulfur oil even though the island is washed by a brisk 10 m.p.h. trade wind that blows away pollution. The Jones Act requires that all commodities shipped between U.S. ports be carried on U.S. vessels. The former rule adds $10 million to Guam's annual fuel bill; the latter has made the island's economy vulnerable to longshoremen's disputes that take place thousands of miles away. "We're always at the mercy of a small group of lobbyists," complains Joseph Ada, 33, speaker of Guam's unicameral legislature. "We have no leverage when we bargain with the U.S."

Guamanians hope that their leverage will increase dramatically as a result of a new tax code that has been passed by the island's legislature. Federal law allows U.S. territories to keep tax revenues paid by residents. Guam's code would extend "residency" status to any persons or companies wanting it, regardless of where they reside or do business. Those who file Guamian returns would be rewarded with a 75% tax rebate. Says Senator Edward Calvo, the tax code's author: "Once the multinationals hear about this, our budget worries are over." Well, not really. Federal lawyers are sure to challenge the great Guamian tax caper.

Of all the U.S. islands in the Pacific, Ponape, located in the Carolines, comes closest to perfection. Its people are gentle; the jungle is unscarred. Eight years ago, Bob Arthur, an industrial designer who developed the electric carving knife, sold his house in Laguna Beach, Calif., and began looking for a better way of life. Today his Village Hotel reflects the fantasy of every '60s dropout. Papaya, mango, avocado and coconut trees grow dense and wild around the hotel's thatched bungalows, each of which has a wrap-around view of the lagoon. Every evening Arthur, his wife Patti and their four children munch breadfruit chips; dinner is a choice between fresh tuna and turtle steak. Says Arthur: "The minute I crossed the reef I knew I'd found paradise."

In Ponape, paradise has rough edges.

There are no paved roads, despite 30 years of U.S. administration. Electricity comes in irregular spurts. There is no long distance telephone service. The people seldom pay their bills. Once proficient fishermen, the islanders of Ponape and, indeed, of the rest of Micronesia rarely put to sea any more, preferring to collect a range of federal social benefits. (Though its waters are among the world's richest tuna grounds, Micronesia imports more than $ 1 million worth of canned fish annually.) Says Ponape District Attorney Minor Pounds, a native Texan: "If we're going to have a Western society, some of our Western standards will have to start rubbing off on the common man."

One of Micronesia's most stalwart fighters against social erosion is Father Hugh F. Costigan. A former New York police department chaplain, Costigan directs the Ponape agriculture and trade school, an isolated 200-acre experimental farm reachable only by boat. Assisted by a volunteer staff of 40, the cigar-chomping Jesuit offers 155 Micronesians courses in construction, mechanics, horticulture and animal husbandry. When not in class, teachers work on such projects as manufacturing coconut soap and designing miniature diesel tractors and other small farming equipment. Says Costigan: "The most gratifying reward after 30 years in Micronesia is seeing my school kids now in positions of authority and accomplishment as governors, administrators, teachers, farmers and tradesmen."

On Saipan, more than 400 years of foreign stewardship--by the U.S., Japan, Germany and Spain--have left their ecological mark. Giant African snails brought in by the Japanese as wartime survival food now ooze all over the island. America's legacy is tangantangan, a spindly ground cover planted after the war to prevent erosion. Saipan's soil was saved, but, alas, it seldom is visible since the tangantangan has voraciously rooted throughout the island.

About the only things on Saipan as intractable as tangantangan are some of the symbols of modern U.S. civilization. Large supermarkets offer a wide variety of frozen goods. Many homes are air conditioned; so are most of the cars that whiz at alarming rates along the asphalt roads. Cinder block typhoon houses are neatly arranged, as is the golf course, which could be in the U.S. were it not for the crudely lettered sign outside the clubhouse door reading DO NOT GET ON THIS ROOF

TO GET MANGOS.

Of all the Pacific islands, none have adopted the American system of government as Saipan has. Bureaucrats constitute 50% of the work force. The new commonwealth government has budgeted $700,000 for a bicameral legislature to serve a population of only 14,000.

The Marianas, to which Saipan belongs, have 12% of the trust territory's population, but receive 32% of the territorial income. The Marianas also eagerly accept all kinds of federal aid, including free medical care and bulk food grants of commodities like wheat. "It's sort of a welfare state," says silvery Erwin Can-ham, the Marianas' resident commissioner and a former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, who will return to the U.S. later this month. "If I tried to eliminate the free surplus commodities, I'd have a lynch mob down here."

A few Saipanese worry about their top-heavy bureaucracy, but it has not discouraged all initiative --at least on the part of incoming Japanese. They have asked for permission to raise eels and harvest seaweed around Saipan. A more grandiose scheme calls for coffee, rice and frogs to be raised on Tinian, just south of Saipan. Farther away, on Palau, Japanese investors plan to build a $325 million supertanker port if they get permission from local chiefs.

The Marianas offer a honeymoon resort and war shrine. Thirty thousand Japanese soldiers died on Saipan, and every year Japan Air Lines sends "bone-picker charters" to the island. They bring hundreds of cash customers who thwack through the tangantangan in search of ancestral skeletons --though any human bones will do. These are then burned to release the spirits of the dead, while the living grow nostalgically misty-eyed on tours of old bunkers. Says one local bureaucrat with profound seriousness: "The only problem I can foresee for the Marianas is running out of bones. We are aware of the shortage, and one of our men in resources development is looking for realistic substitutes."

There are about 150 Americans on Majuro (pop. 7,500), and it is difficult for them not to stick together. The district center of the Marshall Islands is a bacillus-shaped coral atoll less than 100 yds. wide. A palm-fringed island with a glistening lagoon, Majuro shelters the most unusual mix of American expatriates in the Pacific. The island's biggest contractor is a Portuguese Hawaiian. A Massachusetts Jew manages the copra-processing plant. They are a demonstrative lot. When Majuro's American Chamber of Commerce got no satisfaction at a meeting to protest air-freight rate increases, members pelted the two Air Mike representatives with banana cream pies.

Every evening Majuro's Americans gather at the yacht club. It is a reunion of sorts, since many breakfasted together at the Kozy Korner diner. The yacht club is a converted garage decorated with reef charts and Japanese fishing floats. From either side of the club one can hit the Pacific with an ice cube.

"If a person gets an ulcer here, it's because of his diet and drinking, not worry," says Ben Barry, 48, who has lived on Majuro since 1969. "This is an alcoholic's paradise. Where else can you get Black Label for 800 and listen to good jazz while you drink it?"

American Samoa's rural villages are clean and dotted with palm-frond fales (houses), instead of the jumble of cinder block and clapboard houses commonly found in Micronesia. The magnificent Pago Pago harbor that initially attracted the U.S. Navy in 1900 is no longer pristine, but two busy canneries make the trade-off acceptable.

Blessed with an average monthly temperature of 80DEG, fertile soil and rich offshore fishing, American Samoa is nearly idyllic. That is fortunate, since the U.S.'s 78-year administration of Samoa is a story of embarrassing ineptitude. Despite an annual rainfall of more than 200 in., the main island of Tutuila periodically experiences water shortages, since no reservoirs were ever built. Historically, Pago Pago has been a sinking-ground for the faithful of U.S. political parties. During one 18-month span in the mid-'50s, American Samoa had four Governors. Says outgoing Governor H. Rex Lee, once a U.S. Federal Communications Commissioner: "Most of the guys who've held this job were political castoffs who shouldn't have been dog catchers."

Political incompetence has not hindered the flow of money. Today the U.S. spends more than $42 million annually on American Samoa's 29,000 residents. "The current budget is a waste of money," says Lee. "The money kills incentive." The appropriated sums do not always accomplish the desired goals. The Federal Government spends $981 per pupil for American Samoan children, but local community colleges are not accredited by any mainland or Hawaiian university.

American Samoa has more than its share of boondoggles. One man got a $24,000 salary to administer a $26,000 federal vocational-education grant. A $600,000 road--built to Pago's mountaintop television transmitter last year by military engineers brought in from Hawaii --lasted one week before being washed away. An additional $500,000 of federal money has been appropriated for a proposed bridge between two outer islands, even though it will serve no more than seven cars a day.

Election of Peter Coleman, 67, in November as Governor of American Samoa was a victory for the more progressive forces of the Pacific; of all the candidates, only Coleman was not a tribal chief.

With over a decade's administrative experience in the trust terri tory, including service as assistant high commissioner, he truly is a Pacific man.

He has a refreshing sense of informality; at his election victory party he was the first to hit the dance floor with a modified version of the Frug. At the same party, another celebrator somberly raised one of the great challenges Coleman faces. Wondered Chief Tomoto Pele: "This election proves were all Americans, but who is Samoan?"

The Governor has grand economic plans. In shallow bays like the one near his house he wants to raise oysters that could be turned into stew at local canner ies. He intends to open offices in Honolulu and Los Angeles to lure Samoans back home. With a larger labor force, he believes, textiles could be imported and stamped with Polynesian designs. Says Coleman, watching an inner tube sway beneath the limb of a breadfruit tree:

"There never will be big fortunes made in the Pacific. But we can build agriculture."

Then he adds: "Western civilization, with the stress on the individual, doesn't work on islands, where the community comes first. If people are competitive, you can't exist in a close system. We people are born on small islands in the Pacific, not large land masses. If we are to survive, we must hang together."

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