Common Defense

Reading about the Arctic trials of the U.S. Army's Operation Frigid, Americans of both hemispheres inevitably wondered about the state of their common defenses. For instance: What about the chain of bases the U.S. had constructed for hemispheric security during World War II?

During the war, the U.S. was chiefly concerned in safeguarding two points essential to hemispheric defense: 1) the jutting bulge of Brazil (ten hours by air from the German threat at Dakar); 2) the Panama Canal. With the consent of the interested Governments, bases were constructed in Brazil (Natal, Recife and six other big fields), in Panama (130 temporary bases, spotted around the isthmus), in Ecuador (Salinas, near Guayaquil, and the Galapagos Islands); in northern Peru at Talara, near Standard Oil [N.J.] fields).*

Security reasons still make much information about the Latin American bases secret. But, 18 months after the war's end, the base situation looks substantially like this:

Brazil. The 50,000 U.S. troops and civilians who helped garrison Brazil during the war are gone. So are the air personnel who once made Natal the world's biggest air transport base. But overalled technicians and some military personnel still keep the Brazilian air bases in good running order.

Peru. The U.S. has formally turned over the Talara air base to the Peruvians. But a U.S. air mission in Lima sees that it is kept up.

Ecuador. The Salinas air base has been turned over to Ecuador, with a few technicians on hand to keep sand out and the field in shape. At the Galapagos air base (four hours by air from the Panama Canal), a crew of U.S. technicians helps the Ecuadorians shoo the giant turtles off the two fine runways.

Cuba. Last May the Cuban air force moved into the huge new San Antonio air base (20 miles south of Havana) when the U.S. Army moved out. They have maintained the expensive, strategic property (cost to U.S. taxpayers: an estimated $20 million) in fairly good shape.

Panama. About 130 temporary bases were constructed outside the ten-mile-wide Canal Zone. Most of these bases (radar, searchlight, antiaircraft posts) have been returned to Panama. But the U.S. is faced with a terrific problem in defending the Big Ditch from the overcrowded air fields within the Canal Zone. Therefore, the U.S. has retained some of the outlying air bases, pointing out that though the fighting is over, the peace treaties have not been signed. Panama's President Enrique A. Jimenez has indicated that he understands the problem. But some Panamanians are piqued by the fact that at Rio Hato (the biggest field, which lies astride the lonely transisthmian highway), they have to stop their cars whenever a U.S. plane buzzes in or out, and wait for U.S. MPs to give them permission to drive on.

* Besides its big naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the U.S., by terms of the overage destroyer deal, has a 99-year right to use six island bases in the British West Indies and Atkinson Field in British Guiana.

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