NORTH AFRICA: Empty Base

Just 35 miles from Casablanca sits the spanking new $23 million base of Boulhaut, built for the U.S. Air Force. Finished five months ahead of schedule, it is the last of four Strategic Air Command bases built by the U.S. in Morocco since. 1951, and is complete to housing, code rooms, radar, cold-storage plant, glass-walled servicemen’s club and movie theater. Last week, after six months, Boulhaut had yet to see the first plane touch down on its 10,000-foot runway, and the total base personnel was one Air Force captain, one master sergeant and a girl secretary.

When the French authorized the U.S. to build bases in Morocco, in the jittery months after the Korean war began, the French stipulated that U.S. forces should be limited to some 7,500 men at any one time. The three bases at Sidi Slimane, Benguerir and Nouasseur absorbed the full quota of Americans. The French will not let any more in: they are jealous of their own prestige, fearful of U.S. political appeal for the restive Moroccans, and no longer so worried about a general war. Last week, caught in this embarrassing spot, the U.S. Air Force in Washington insisted that it had never really intended to use Boulhaut as an operational base, and had spent the $23 million on it only to provide a standby base in case of emergency. If so, it was news to its builders and the officers of the U.S. Seventeenth Air Force.