Micronesia: A Sprawling Trust

Micronesia’s 2,141 islands are so widely dispersed over 3,000,000 sq. mi. of cobalt-blue Pacific that Magellan sailed through their very midst without sighting a single one. In their glittering lagoons and rain-forested redoubts, the Japanese positioned their power to control all the Pacific in World War II—and the U.S. fight to thwart them made a litany and legacy forever of such unlikely flecks on the map as Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Saipan, Tinian and Peleliu. The Enola Gay roared off from Tinian to drop the A-bomb on Hiroshima; years later the shock waves of the world’s first H-bomb tests rolled out from Micronesia, denuding the little atolls of Bikini and Eniwetok. Today, Nike X antiballistic missiles zoom up from Kwajalein in test interceptions, and Atlas and Titan missiles from California end their long trial runs with gigantic splashes in the Kwajalein lagoon.

Harsh But Effective. Almost unnoticed in the vitriolic debate over the Viet Nam war and the U.S. presence on the Asian mainland is the U.S. responsibility for these sprawling islands. Their 95,000 inhabitants range from the brainy and enterprising Palauans of the Carolines chain to the grass-skirted inhabitants of Yap. After the U.S. took over the islands in a military caretakership of the spoils of war, the United Nations in 1947 bequeathed them to the U.S. as a trust territory. Ever since then, the U.S. has been a benign, if a bit abstracted, presence in the vital geopolitical center of the Western Pacific. It is not a duty that the U.S. has performed with any notable enthusiasm, particularly in contrast with Micronesia’s previous rulers, the Japanese.

Japan took over Micronesia from Germany after World War I and immediately set about seriously developing and colonizing the islands. Japanese methods were often harsh, but they were vigorous and effective. Koror (see map) became a miniature Miami Beach for winter-weary Japanese, a sophisticated city of 30,000 replete with fine restaurants, geisha houses and Shinto shrines. Trading vessels from Japan were soon exporting great quantities of fish, pineapple, sugar and pearls from the islands. The Japanese paved roads, built hospitals and ports and laid down a rudimentary infrastructure for economic growth.

Less Than the Navajos. Today, with few exceptions, Micronesia looks—and is—a poorer place than in the heyday of the Japanese, reports TIME Correspondent Frank McCulloch after a five week tour of the islands. Occupying U.S. forces leveled much of what the Japanese built that was still intact after the war. Even what survived was seldom maintained, such as the once excellent water system on the island of Dublon, in Truk lagoon, now rusting in disuse, or the jungle-swallowed road on Babelthuap that once enabled outlying copra farmers and fishermen to bring their goods to market.

Micronesia’s plight is not the result of malice or considered U.S. policy but of the islands’ place far down on any list of Washington priorities. Supplies ordered through the Department of the Interior can take as long as 16 months to reach the islands, and money for Micronesia is hard to come by. This year Washington has budgeted $14 million for the vast territory, a sum that disgruntled local U.S. officials like to point out is only a fifth of that targeted for a single Navajo reservation in the U.S. The Micronesians’ copra and fishing trade hardly enables them to do much to help themselves: the entire trust territory has a gross national product of about $12 million.

But the U.S. performance is not altogether bad, and in some areas is looking up sharply. Four short years ago, for example, there was only a single public high school in all Micronesia; today there are eight. In addition, 325 new elementary classrooms have been built, so that some 20,000 Micronesian children are receiving U.S.-sponsored education; another 5,500 are in missionary schools operated by U.S. Catholics and Protestants. Many of the schools are manned by the 600 Peace Corpsmen who work throughout the islands—a massive invasion in per capita terms that was ordered by President Johnson in 1966.

Roller Skating. The missionaries, mainly Jesuit, are among the most effective Americans in Micronesia. “If you want to get 500 out of every dollar, let the government do it,” says one U.S. trust-territory officer. “If you want to wring $1.10 out of every dollar, let the missionaries do it.” Best known of the missionaries is Father Hugh F. Costigan, who runs the Jesuits’ Ponape Agricultural and Trade School, training 160 Micronesians at a time in such basic skills as mechanics, construction and animal husbandry. Another hard-driving missionary is the Rev. Edmund Kalau, a Lutheran and onetime Luftwaffe pilot (now a U.S. citizen), who is building a youth center in his home base of Colonia featuring hobby shops, an art studio, handball and tennis courts and Micronesia’s first roller-skating rink.

In his own free-enterprising fashion, Kenneth T. Jones, a big, affable North Carolinian who came to the Pacific as a Seabee during the war, is as effective as the missionaries. Jones stayed on in the U.S. possession of Guam, amassed a $10 million fortune in supermarkets, department stores, motels, hotels, a construction company and ranching—and is increasingly spreading out into the nearby trust territories. Next week on Saipan he will open Micronesia’s first modern hotel, the Royal Taga. Already booked for months in advance, the Taga is certain to bring tourists and money to Saipan; Jones is offering native Micronesians a cut in the profits through $10 shares of stock in the hotel. But his largest investment in Micronesia’s future has been carved out of the jungle on Tinian: a cattle ranch of a planned 7,500 acres, 12,000 head of cattle and an equal number of hogs and chickens.

Perhaps the largest official legacy the U.S. is creating for the Micronesians is the fostering of a slow but steady growth of Micronesian political consciousness. At municipal, district and territory-wide levels, the Micronesians have been taught to elect their own officials and legislative bodies, and to begin to establish the appurtenances of self-rule. So far they are only appurtenances, since the word of U.S. High Commissioner William R. Norwood—and ultimately of the U.S. Congress—remains final law.

Last August, at President Johnson’s request, Congress shaped a resolution, now under consideration, that would grant the Micronesians a vote on their future by 1972. Few seem interested in complete independence from the U.S., but the debate leading up to such a vote might well have the beneficial effect of placing Micronesia a little higher on the list of U.S. priorities and increasing its share of U.S. aid and know-how. As World War II demonstrated, Micronesia, the Pacific’s heartland, is far too important a part of the world to let fall by default into malevolent hands.