How to Hide an Empire

by Daniel Immerwahr

  20 “Dymaxion map”: “R. Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion World,” Life, March 1, 1943, 41–55.

  21 Richard Edes Harrison: Alan K. Henrikson, “The Map as an ‘Idea’: The Role of Cartographic Imagery During the Second World War,” The American Cartographer 2 (1975): 19–53; Susan Schulten, “Richard Edes Harrison and the Challenge to American Cartography,” Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography 50 (1998): 174–88; Susan Schulten, The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950 (Chicago, 2001), chap. 9; and William Rankin, After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 2016), chap. 2.

  22 Goebbels waved: Henrikson, “Map as ‘Idea,’” 37–38.

  23 United Nations logo: Donal McLaughlin, Origin of the Emblem and Other Recollections of the 1945 U.N. Conference (Garrett Park, MD, 1995).

  24 “Never before have persons”: Wayne Whittaker, “Maps for the Air Age,” Popular Mechanics, January 1943, 162.

  25 “round earth,” etc.: Archibald MacLeish, “The Image of Victory,” Atlantic Monthly, July 1942, 5.

  26 global … globalist, globalism, and the pejorative globaloney: On initial usages, see Oxford English Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press. On frequency, see Google Books Ngrams Viewer, books.google.com/ngrams.

  27 “a global war”: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Fireside Chat, September 7, 1942, APP. Past presidential speech searched at APP.

  28 “Just as truly”: John Hersey, A Bell for Adano (New York, 1944), vii.

  29 “There is not a single”: C. D. Jackson, quoted in Lynne Olson, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour (New York, 2010), 272.

  30 1.65 million U.S. servicemen swarming: A very good overview is Coates and Morrison, “American Rampant.”

  31 “absolute control”: Rem., 180.

  32 “Never before”: William J. Sebald, quoted in William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964 (Boston, 1978), 470.

  33 looked for inspiration: Rem., 282.

  34 “Parts of Tokyo”: John Gunther, The Riddle of MacArthur: Japan, Korea and the Far East (New York, 1951), 84.

  35 “the world’s greatest”: Rem., 282.

  36 Public health authorities: Gunther, Riddle of MacArthur, 138–39.

  37 “We the Japanese people,” etc.: Constitution of Japan, 1946, preamble and article 13.

  38 Sirota: John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York, 1999), chap. 12.

  39 “summit of the world”: “Final Review of the War,” August 16, 1945, in Winston S. Churchill, His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963, ed. Robert Rhodes James (New York, 1974), 7:7211.

  40 “the most powerful”: Radio Report to the American People on the Potsdam Conference, August 9, 1945, APP.

  41 135 million: Hajo Holborn put the number “under the control of American military government” at 150 million, but I have been unable to reproduce his calculations (American Military Government: Its Organizations and Policies [Washington, DC, 1947], xi). My own accounting, which covers all the colonies plus Japan, Micronesia, and the U.S. sectors of Germany, Austria, and Korea, is in “The Greater United States: Territory and Empire in U.S. History,” DH 40 (2016): 388. It doesn’t include the transitory stationing of U.S. troops under the banner of “liberation,” as in France, or the very short occupations, such as that of parts of Czechoslovakia for months in 1945, listed in Susan L. Carruthers, The Good Occupation: American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace (Cambridge, MA, 2016), 6–7.

  14. DECOLONIZING THE UNITED STATES

  1 “plenty of space”: Press release, Interior Department, March 23, 1946; “Mts.—Seals & Flags” folder; box 70; 9-0-2, Office of Territories Classified Files, 1907–1951; ROT. See rest of folder for other flag proposals.

  2 Gruening and his wife: Ernest Gruening, Many Battles: The Autobiography of Ernest Gruening (New York, 1973), 371.

  3 There were excited murmurs: Michio Kitahara, Children of the Sun: The Japanese and the Outside World (New York, 1989), 95; William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964 (Boston, 1978), 474.

  4 Philippine statehood: Hernando J. Abaya, Betrayal in the Philippines (New York, 1946), 171–79; “Philippine Statehood” folder, box 17, HC–DC; “Statehood for P.I.,” Manila Evening News, January 26, 1946; Gladstone Williams, “What to Do Now with the Philippines?” Atlanta Constitution, February 28, 1945; and “World Fronts,” Amsterdam News, March 3, 1945.

  5 proposed adding Iceland: Proposal by Rep. Bud Gearhardt, discussed in “The Ramparts of the North,” New York Journal-American, July 21, 1945.

  6 “State of the American Pacific”: CDA 315, “A Study of Pacific Bases: A Report by the Subcommittee, House of Representatives,” August 22, 1945, 21, Notter Records, box 126.

  7 “an imperial power”: Quoted in Julian Go, Patterns of Empire: The British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present (New York, 2011), 103. See also 117–23 for a survey of U.S. territorial ambitions at the end of the Second World War.

  8 “From the point of view” … “The question”: Albert Viton, American Empire in Asia? (New York, 1943), 286–87. On public expressions of annexationism during the war, see William G. Carleton, “The Dawn of a New Day,” Vital Speeches of the Day, December 1, 1943, 117–25.

  9 fourth-largest empire: Dismantling Japan’s empire bumped the United States up in the ranks to the world’s fourth-largest empire by population.

  10 manufacturing production: Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (1987; New York, 1989), 358.

  11 area smaller than Connecticut: Daniel Immerwahr, “The Greater United States: Territory and Empire in U.S. History,” DH 40 (2016): 389–90.

  12 one out of every three … one in fifty: 1940: 31.10 percent; 1965: 2.18 percent. Calculated from MPD. This count is of annexed colonies, not satellites (e.g., East Germany under the Soviet Union) or occupied countries (e.g., Japan under MacArthur).

  13 “Today, freedom,” etc.: Rem., 276.

  14 “But when they do”: Langston Hughes, “Colored Lived There Once,” Chicago Defender, January 27, 1945.

  15 “The bearing” … “Now”: Luis Taruc, Born of the People (New York, 1953), 64–65.

  16 “From one end”: Harold R. Isaacs, No Peace for Asia (New York, 1947), 1.

  17 “an enormous pot”: Albert C. Wedemeyer, quoted in Ronald H. Spector, In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (New York, 2007), 21. See also Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, MA, 2007). The notion of a “Malayan Spring,” from which I have extrapolated a more general “Asian Spring,” is discussed in Harper’s The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (New York, 1999), chap. 2.

  18 twenty thousand peasants: Described in Abaya, Betrayal, 125–30. A figure of thirty-five thousand is given in “GIs Fear Plan to Use Them Against Filipinos,” Daily Worker, January 9, 1946.

  19 “We are now,” etc.: General Marshall’s Report: The Winning of the War in Europe and the Pacific (New York, 1945), 118.

  20 War Department announced: John C. Sparrow, History of Personnel Demobilization in the United States Army (Washington, DC, 1952), 141.

  21 On a single day: Steven Kalgaard Ashby, “Shattered Dreams: The American Working Class and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945–1949” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1993), 130.

  22 “At the rate” … “in a very”: Truman to John Folger, November 16, 1945, quoted in David R. B. Ross, Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans During World War II (New York, 1969), 187.

  23 “disintegration” … “dangerous speed”: Harry S. Truman, Memoirs (Garden City, NY, 1955), 1:509.

  24 “Let us leave” … “The Filipinos”: Abaya, Betrayal, 135, 148.

  25 letter of support: Ashby, “Shattered Dreams,” 143.

&
nbsp; 26 passed a resolution: Erwin Marquit, “The Demobilization Movement of January 1946,” Nature, Society, and Thought 15 (2002): 24–25.

  27 “vast new tasks”: “Styler Gives Talk on Redeployment,” Daily Pacifican, January 8, 1946.

  28 booed and catcalled: “20,000 Attend Orderly Meeting,” Daily Pacifican, January 8, 1946.

  29 Honolulu … Korea … Calcutta: Ashby, “Shattered Dreams,” 138.

  30 Guam: Sparrow, Personnel Demobilization, 163; Ashby, “Shattered Dreams,” 138.

  31 “What kind,” etc.: William D. Simpkins, letter, Daily Pacifican, November 15, 1945.

  32 “in the Oriental surge”: Robert B. Pearsall, letter, Daily Pacifican, November 30, 1945.

  33 “disgusted with,” etc.: Daniel Eugene Garcia, “Class and Brass: Demobilization, Working Class Politics, and American Foreign Policy Between World War and Cold War,” DH 34 (2010): 694–95.

  34 “plain mutiny”: Ashby, “Shattered Dreams,” 170–71.

  35 under the Articles of War: The Articles of War, Approved June 4, 1920, articles 66 and 67.

  36 “You men forget”: R. Alton Lee, “The Army ‘Mutiny’ of 1946,” Journal of American History 53 (1966): 562.

  37 “acute homesickness” … “not inherently”: MacArthur, quoted in Sparrow, Personnel Demobilization, 322.

  38 “a clock”: Rexford Guy Tugwell, The Stricken Land: The Story of Puerto Rico (Garden City, NY, 1946), v.

  39 “our influence”: Truman, Memoirs, 2:91.

  40 sixth largest: Terry H. Anderson, The United States, Great Britain, and the Cold War, 1944–1947 (Columbia, MO, 1981), 152.

  41 take over the bonds: The history of the Philippine bonded debt to the United States is detailed in Manuel Roxas, address, January 26, 1948, in “Territories Committee, Philippine Islands” folder, box 5, ser. 4, Tydings Papers.

  42 “food crisis”: Press release, April 22, 1946, “Pub. Relations Press Releases, 1946, Pt. B” folder, box 11, HC–Manila.

  43 “provide adequately”: “Doc. B.,” 1940, enclosed in E. D. Hester to Frank P. Lockhart, November 13, 1944, “Emergency Proclamation” folder, box 1, HC–Pol/Econ.

  44 “the death or capture”: “Doc. A,” November 13, 1944, enclosed in ibid.

  45 “acceptable or legitimate”: E. D. Hester to Frank P. Lockhart, January 12, 1945, “Emergency Proclamation” folder, box 1, HC–Pol/Econ.

  46 “There is little doubt”: E. D. Hester to Richard R. Ely, July 3, 1945, “Hester, E. D.” folder, box 2, HC–Pol/Econ.

  47 “This situation,” etc.: “McNutt Raises Question of P.I. Readiness for Freedom July 4th,” Manila Evening News, January 23, 1946.

  48 “All Asia”: Paul V. McNutt, Report on the Philippines,” 1945, 14, “McNutt, P. V., Correspondence and Speeches, 1945–46” folder, box 7, HC–DC.

  49 “attracted the wonder” … “to betray”: Paul V. McNutt, “The Filipinos Are Our Friends,” Manila Evening News, January 26, 1946.

  50 “This is the first instance,” etc.: Harry S. Truman to Kenneth McKellar, April 3, 1946, “Independence, Ceremonies, 1946” folder, box 4, HC–DC.

  51 “undoubtedly seriously involved”: Paul Steintorf to James F. Byrnes, September 19, 1945; “Collaboration” folder, box 1, HC–Pol/Econ.

  52 “Roxas is no,” etc.: Douglas MacArthur, quoted in press release from the Office of the Commanding General, Army Forces of the Pacific, May 9, 1946; “Pub. Relations Press Releases, 1946, Pt. A” folder, box 11, HC–Manila.

  53 “Not a single senator”: Abaya, Betrayal, 92.

  54 109 guerrillas: Benedict J. Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines (Berkeley, CA, 1977).

  55 “We are a troubled”: Manila Evening News, July 4, 1946.

  56 specially sewn: Press release, May 31, 1946; “Pub. Relations Press Releases, 1946, Pt. A” folder, box 11, HC–Manila.

  57 “America has buried”: Quoted in Go, Patterns of Empire, 105.

  58 Hawai‘i and Alaska: The most thorough account of Hawai‘i/Alaska statehood is John S. Whitehead, Completing the Union: Alaska, Hawai‘i, and the Battle for Statehood (Albuquerque, NM, 2004). In what follows, I have relied on research connecting statehood to decolonization, namely Robert David Johnson, Ernest Gruening and the American Dissenting Tradition (Cambridge, MA, 1998); Gretchen Heefner, “‘A Symbol of the New Frontier’: Hawaiian Statehood, Anti-Colonialism, and Winning the Cold War,” Pacific Historical Review 74 (2005): 545–74; Sarah Miller-Davenport, “State of the New: Hawai‘i Statehood and Global Decolonization in American Culture, 1945–1978” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2014); Robert David Johnson, “Alaska, Hawai‘i, and the United States as a Pacific Nation,” in his Asia Pacific in the Age of Globalization (New York, 2015), 162–71; and A. G. Hopkins, American Empire: A Global History (Princeton, NJ, 2018), chap. 14.

  59 “mark the beginning”: Butler to Julius A. Krug, March 7, 1947, “Citizens’ Statehood Committee, 1947–51” folder, Governor’s Files, GOV9-3, HSA.

  60 “We do not want,” etc.: “Hawaii Can Wait,” Worcester Telegram, March 1947, in “Editors—Opposition to Statehood” folder, box 4, Hawaiian Statehood Commission Records, COM18, HSA.

  61 “Can America lead”: Ernest Gruening, “Alaska Statehood Delay Invites Red Attack,” San Francisco Examiner, March 9, 1950.

  62 “How can we fervently”: Gruening to Sam Wilder King, c. 1952–1954, folder 226, box 59, Gruening Papers.

  63 “shout about ‘colonialism’”: Quoted in Johnson, Gruening, 191.

  64 “Boston tea party”: Gruening to King, c. 1952–1954, folder 226, box 59, Gruening Papers.

  65 Alaska Is a Colony: Held in folder 316, box 754, Gruening Papers.

  66 “These are troubled,” etc.: Truman to Joseph C. O’Mahoney, May 5, 1950, APP.

  67 “tremendous psychological,” etc.: Truman, Letter to the President of the Senate on Statehood for Hawaii and Alaska, November 27, 1950, APP.

  68 “impassible difference,” etc.: Quoted in Heefner, “Symbol,” 546.

  15. NOBODY KNOWS IN AMERICA, PUERTO RICO’S IN AMERICA

  1 didn’t speak a word … Costa Rica: Wenzell Brown, Dynamite on Our Doorstep: Puerto Rican Paradox (New York, 1945), 32, 6.

  2 “complete madness” … “berserk” … “One cannot”: Ibid., 71, 90, 193.

  3 feared that mainland doctors: Ibid., 79.

  4 “intense, fanatical nationalism”: Ibid., 201.

  5 “paralyzing jolt”: John Gunther, Inside Latin America (New York, 1941), 423.

  6 “cesspool” … “unsolvable”: “Puerto Rico: Senate Investigating Committee Finds It an Unsolvable Problem,” Life, March 8, 1943.

  7 “would have revolted”: Rexford Guy Tugwell, The Stricken Land: The Story of Puerto Rico (Garden City, NY, 1946), 126.

  8 only ten employees: James P. Davis, “Statement of the Director of Territories and Island Possessions, Department of the Interior, Before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,” January 10, 1949; “Comm. on Interior & Insular Affairs” folder; box 28; Office of Territories Classified Files, 1907–1950; 9-0-1 Administrative, Committees, Interior; ROT.

  9 “the most important”: Gunther, Inside Latin America, 427.

  10 “full, flexible” … Muñoz Marín joked: Tugwell, Stricken Land, 10.

  11 Muñoz Marín invited: Luis Muñoz Marín, Memorias: Autobiografía pública, 1898–1940 (San Juan, 1982), 1:63.

  12 vote for Albizu: Ibid., 76–77.

  13 “weapon of imperial vengeance”: Ibid., 150.

  14 “all hope of life”: Luis Muñoz Marín, “Alerta a la conciencia puertorriqueña,” El Mundo, February 10, 1946.

  15 “emotional confusion” … “wanting”: Luis Muñoz Marín, Speech at Baranquitas, July 17, 1951, in Kal Wagenheim and Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim, The Puerto Ricans: A Documentary History (Princeton, NJ, 2013), 219.

  16 Muñoz Marín’s party received: César J. Ayala and Rafael Bernabe, Puerto Rico in the Ameri
can Century: A History Since 1898 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007), 153.

  17 “the biggest and”: Luis Muñoz Marín, “Nuevos caminos hacia viejos objectivos,” El Mundo, June 28, 1946.

  18 “Two million people”: “Tugwell Assails Lack of Policy for Puerto Rico,” New York Herald Tribune, September 17, 1943.

  19 “kept shooting children”: Earl Parker Hanson, Transformation: The Story of Modern Puerto Rico (New York, 1955), 61.

  20 “If the United States were”: C. Wright Mills, Clarence Senior, and Rose Kohn Goldsen, The Puerto Rican Journey: New York’s Newest Migrants (New York, 1950), 3.

  21 “I believe that” … “Malthusian”: “El partido socialista—dice Muñoz Marín—es sencillamente un partido de gente pobre,” El Mundo, June 27, 1923. Two illuminating accounts of the politics of birth control in Puerto Rico are Annette B. Ramírez de Arellano and Conrad Seipp, Colonialism, Catholicism, and Contraception (Chapel Hill, NC, 1983), and Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (Berkeley, CA, 2002). I draw on both heavily in this chapter.

  22 Herbert Hoover: Herbert Hoover, Memoirs (New York, 1952), 2:359.

  23 Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Tugwell, Stricken Land, 35–36.

  24 “only hope”: Quoted in Ramírez de Arellano and Seipp, Colonialism, Catholicism, and Contraception, 46.

  25 underpopulated: Muñoz Marín, Memorias, 1898–1940, 1:152.

  26 “invade the very insides”: Irene Vilar, The Ladies’ Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets, trans. Gregory Rabassa (1996; New York, 2009), 45.

  27 Whereas most states: Ramírez de Arellano and Seipp, Colonialism, Catholicism, and Contraception, 108–109.

  28 Pincus: Detailed accounts of Pincus and the pill are James Reed, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830 (New York, 1978), part 7, and Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner, The Fertility Doctor: John Rock and the Reproductive Revolution (Baltimore, 2008), chaps. 6–7.

  29 rabbit without: “Rabbit Without Parents Amazes Men of Science,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 2, 1939.