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How to Hide an Empire

Page 55

by Daniel Immerwahr


  30 “population explosion”: Gregory Pincus, The Control of Fertility (New York, 1965), 6.

  31 “eighty frustrated”: Rock, quoted in Marsh and Ronner, Fertility Doctor, 154. Pincus’s team would also try hormonal contraceptives on a small group of psychotic women at the Worcester State Hospital before launching the Río Piedras study.

  32 “How can we get”: Reed, From Private Vice, 358.

  33 team considered tests: Lara V. Marks, Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive Pill (New Haven, CT, 2001), 98; Marsh and Ronner, Fertility Doctor, 170.

  34 “certain experiments”: Pincus to McCormick, March 4, 1954, quoted in Bernard Asbell, The Pill: A Biography of the Drug That Changed the World (New York, 1995), 116.

  35 The first experiment: Ramírez de Arellano and Seipp, Colonialism, Catholicism, and Contraception, 110.

  36 “too many side”: Edris Rice-Wray, quoted in Marsh and Ronner, Fertility Doctor, 195.

  37 “emotional super-activity”: Ramírez de Arellano and Seipp, Colonialism, Catholicism, and Contraception, 116.

  38 “whatever you call”: Adaline Satterthwaite, quoted in ibid., 118.

  39 all sorts of experimental contraceptives: Briggs, Reproducing Empire, 124.

  40 “one of the most,” etc.: Reuben Hill, J. Mayone Stycos, and Kurt W. Back, The Family and Population Control: A Puerto Rican Experiment in Social Change (Chapel Hill, NC, 1959), 116, 169, 174.

  41 18 percent of all hospital deliveries: J. Mayone Stycos, “Female Sterilization in Puerto Rico,” Eugenics Quarterly 1 (1954): 4.

  42 No governmental program: Hill et al., Family and Population Control, 180.

  43 fourth delivery: Briggs, Reproducing Empire, 157.

  44 informed consent: A case for the sterilizations as nonconsensual is Bonnie Mass, “Puerto Rico: A Case Study of Population Control,” Latin American Perspectives 4 (1977): 66–81. A thoughtful and strongly cautionary view, finding “no evidence” of a campaign to coerce women, is Laura Briggs, “Discourses of ‘Forced Sterilization’ in Puerto Rico: The Problem with the Speaking Subaltern,” Differences 10 (1998): 30–66.

  45 “The only way”: Iris Lopez, Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women’s Struggle for Reproductive Freedom (New Brunswick, NJ, 2008), 7–8.

  46 nearly half: 46.7 percent. Harriet B. Presser, Sterilization and Fertility Decline in Puerto Rico (Berkeley, CA, 1973), 61–66. For a review of other studies that corroborate Presser’s figures, see Mass, “Case Study,” 72.

  47 anywhere else in the world: Presser, Sterilization and Fertility, chap. 10. The India figure counts sterilizations per 100 married women, but many of India’s sterilizations were vasectomies, making Puerto Rico’s high rate of sterilized women still more striking.

  48 “a brilliantly successful”: Robert Coughlan, “World Birth Control Challenge,” Life, November 23, 1959, 170.

  49 leave the island: Especially helpful accounts are Jorge Duany, The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States (Chapel Hill, NC, 2002), and Eileen J. Suárez Findlay, We Are Left Without a Father Here: Masculinity, Domesticity, and Migration in Postwar Puerto Rico (Durham, NC, 2014).

  50 training program for women: Findlay, Left Without a Father, 76–77.

  51 59 percent: Mills et al., Puerto Rican Journey, 88.

  52 one in seven: Findlay, Left Without a Father, 93.

  53 one in four: Clarence Senior’s figures, reported in Elena Padilla, Up from Puerto Rico (New York, 1958), 21.

  54 several thousand people … Forty cadets: A. C. Schlenker to J. Edgar Hoover, December 23, 1947, in Albizu FBI File, section 5, box 2.

  55 “puppet” … “high priest” … “revolution”: Quoted in A. W. Maldonado, Luis Muñoz Marín: Puerto Rico’s Democratic Revolution (San Juan, 2006), 299.

  56 “We have to revert”: Albizu’s speech reported in Schlenker to Hoover, December 23, 1947, and in Jack West, report on Pedro Albizu Campos, May 4, 1948, 22, both in Albizu FBI File, section 5, box 2.

  57 “The United States tells” … “The surgeon”: Speech at Arecibo, March 15, 1948, in West, report on Albizu, May 4, 1948, 45.

  58 “ten years behind”: Quoted in Schlenker to Hoover, December 23, 1947.

  59 “far beyond”: ACLU statement, quoted in Ruth M. Reynolds, Campus in Bondage: A 1948 Microcosm of Puerto Rico in Bondage (New York, 1989), 198.

  60 The police: Ivonne Acosta, La mordaza: Puerto Rico, 1948–1957 (Río Piedras, 1989), 107.

  61 growing migratory stream: The tension between migration and independence is explored with great acuity in Duany, Nation on the Move.

  62 moment for action: Calculations behind the timing are discussed in Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim, Nationalist Heroines: Puerto Rican Women History Forgot, 1930s–1950s (Princeton, NJ, 2017), 26–27.

  63 “hour of immortality”: June 11, 1950, speech at Manati, reported in Robert E. Thornton, report on Pedro Albizu Campos, May 22, 1951, Albizu FBI File, section 9, box 2.

  64 That hour struck: On the 1950 Uprising, I’ve relied on Miñi Seijo Bruno, La insurrección nacionalista en Puerto Rico, 1950 (Río Piedras, 1997), and Jiménez de Wagenheim, Nationalist Heroines.

  65 bullet through the window … hit the floor … daughters cowered: Luis Muñoz Marín, Memorias: Autobiografía pública, 1940–1952 (San German, PR, 1992), 2:238.

  66 “What is known”: Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge Jr., American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman—and the Shoot-Out That Stopped It (New York, 2005), 242.

  67 drastically increased its security: Ibid., 317.

  68 “shooting scrape”: Drew Pearson, “‘Shooting Scrape’ Upset Truman,” Washington Post, April 13, 1952.

  69 “one of those mad”: “Uprising in Puerto Rico,” NYT, November 1, 1950.

  70 “news of a day”: Paul Harbrecht, “Puerto Rico: Operation Bootstrap,” America, December 9, 1950, 301.

  71 lost its farm: Robert J. Donovan, The Assassins (New York, 1955), 174.

  72 “tried to bring about”: Quoted in Benjamin Bradlee, “Planned Riot Demonstration, Collazo Says,” Washington Post, March 6, 1951.

  73 stuck in his mind: Donovan, Assassins, 177.

  74 “How little” … “They don’t know”: Ibid., 173.

  75 “lawless lunatics”: Quoted in Jiménez de Wagenheim, Nationalist Heroines, 263.

  76 police rounded up: Acosta, La mordaza, 119.

  77 One officer testified: Officer Melendez, testimony in William B. Holloman, report on Pedro Albizu Campos, January 31, 1955, Albizu FBI File, section 14, box 2. Carmen María Pérez González, one of Albizu’s comrades, also claimed that Albizu fired guns (Jiménez de Wagenheim, Nationalist Heroines, 109).

  78 “looked like a cheese grater”: Seijo Bruno, La insurrección nacionalista, 170.

  79 cleared the island: Documented in Acosta, La mordaza, 120.

  80 two-day registration: Maldonado, Muñoz Marín, 305.

  81 United Nations: The UN decision to remove Puerto Rico from the list of colonies was contested at the time, and later, the Decolonization Committee proposed reconsidering the case of Puerto Rico and the General Assembly agreed. Excellent guides to the complex politics of the constitution and of the UN are José Trías Monge, Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World (New Haven, CT, 1997), chaps. 10–12, and Ayala and Bernabe, Puerto Rico, chap. 8.

  82 “butterfly”: Muñoz Marín, Memorias, 1940–1952, 2:383.

  83 “no-nation” … “somewhat shapeless”: Vilar, Ladies’ Gallery, 72.

  84 “defies duplication”: Chester Bowles, foreword to Hanson, Transformation, x.

  85 Operation Bootstrap: Overview in James L. Dietz, Economic History of Puerto Rico: Institutional Change and Capitalist Development (Princeton, NJ, 1986), chaps. 4–5.

  86 “one of the few”: “Thank Heaven for Puerto Rico,” Life, March 15, 1954, 24.

  87 “all traces”: Muñoz Marín to Truman, April 9, 1952, quoted in Maldonado, Muñoz Marín, 317
.

  88 “almost unrestricted”: Trías Monge, Puerto Rico, 3.

  89 “the wildest scene”: Joe Martin, My First Fifty Years in Politics (New York, 1960), 217. For a detailed chronicle based on interviews with two shooters, see Manuel Roig-Franzia, “A Terrorist in the House,” Washington Post, February 22, 2004.

  90 fifty-fifty: “Fanatics Shoot Five in Congress,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1954.

  91 never really the same: Paul Kanjorski, views reported in Roig-Franzia, “Terrorist.”

  92 jagged bullet hole: Thanks to Jennifer Blancato at the Architect of the Capitol for confirming this.

  93 “sublime heroism”: Quoted in Peter Kihss, “San Juan Studies Rebel Chief’s Act,” NYT, March 4, 1954. On who gave the orders, see Jiménez de Wagenheim, Nationalist Heroines, 252.

  94 fired on the police: Discussion of Albizu’s role in the violence in Jiménez de Wagenheim, Nationalist Heroines, 174.

  95 “I am choked”: Peter Kihss, “Terrorists’ Chief Held in San Juan After Gun Battle,” NYT, March 7, 1954.

  96 “poisonous wave,” etc.: Albizu to Nieves Tarrido, June 3, 1951, in Albizu FBI File, section 10, box 2.

  97 “We live”: Ibid. Albizu’s followers reported similar experiences when imprisoned or under government surveillance. They saw colored rays, heard electronic voices, and felt electric shocks and radiation waves. A helpful discussion is Andrea Friedman, Citizenship in Cold War America: National Security State and the Possibilities of Dissent (Amherst, MA, 2014), chap. 4.

  98 “about as lunatic”: “Aftermath in Puerto Rico,” NYT, March 7, 1954.

  99 they misbehaved less: Clarence Senior, The Puerto Ricans: Strangers—Then Neighbors (Chicago, 1965), 51–52.

  100 West Side Story: Useful accounts are Frances Negrón-Muntaner, “Feeling Pretty: West Side Story and Puerto Rican Identity Discourses,” Social Text 18 (2000): 83–106, and Elizabeth A. Wells, West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical (Lanham, MD, 2011). I’ve relied here especially on Julia L. Foulkes, There’s a Place for Us: West Side Story and New York (Chicago, 2016).

  101 “I can’t do”: Quoted in Craig Zadan, Sondheim and Co. (New York, 1974), 13.

  102 “When we’re a state”: Foulkes, Place for Us, 51.

  103 La Prensa … “I wasn’t about”: Stephen Sondheim, Finishing the Hat (New York, 2010), 42.

  104 forty thousand productions: Foulkes, Place for Us, 1.

  105 “less complex”: Stephen Sondheim, Look, I Made a Hat (New York, 2011), 112.

  16. SYNTHETICA

  1 “new frontier”: State of the Union, January 11, 1962, APP.

  2 “I would annex,” etc.: W. T. Stead, ed., The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes (London, 1902), 190.

  3 “technically feasible” … “desirable”: 1975 study, results published in Richard D. Johnson and Charles Holbrow, eds., Space Settlements: A Design Study (Washington, DC, 1977), 1, 181.

  4 NASA appointed: Anne M. Platoff, “Where No Flag Has Gone Before: Political and Technical Aspects of Placing a Flag on the Moon,” NASA Contractor Report 188251, www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/flag/flag.htm.

  5 “a symbolic” … “not to be construed”: Ibid., 6.

  6 internationalist spirit: On the non-imperial character of the event, see Daniel Immerwahr, “The Moon Landing: Twilight of Empire,” Modern American History 1 (2018): 129–33.

  7 new balance of forces: The insufficiency of the “power” explanation for global decolonization is intelligently discussed in Frank Ninkovich, “Culture and Anti-Imperialism,” in Asia Pacific in the Age of Globalization, ed. Robert David Johnson (New York, 2015), 259–70.

  8 new technologies: An important overview touching on these issues is Daniel R. Headrick, Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present (Princeton, NJ, 2008).

  9 down by some ten million: Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (New York, 1998), 223.

  10 world rubber consumption: Harry Barron, Modern Synthetic Rubbers, 3d ed. (London, 1949), 8.

  11 70 percent of the world’s supply: Brooks Emeny, The Strategy of Raw Materials: A Study of America in Peace and War (New York, 1938), 132.

  12 Sherman tank … heavy bomber … battleship: Mark R. Finlay, Growing American Rubber: Strategic Plants and the Politics of National Security (New Brunswick, NJ, 2009), 171.

  13 “could offer only”: Quoted in Charles Morrow Wilson, Trees and Test Tubes: The Story of Rubber (New York, 1943), 232.

  14 97 percent of the U.S. rubber: Reconstruction Finance Corporation, The Government’s Rubber Projects: A History of the U.S. Government’s National and Synthetic Rubber Programs, 1941–1955 (Washington, DC, 1955), 2:361.

  15 “If a survey,” etc.: “Rubber to Stretch,” July 1942, in Papers of Harold L. Ickes, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, box 113.

  16 “so dangerous”: Bernard Baruch, Report of the Rubber Survey Committee, September 10, 1942, 5.

  17 “the situation”: Letter to Rubber Director, November 26, 1942, APP.

  18 “every bit of rubber”: Radio Address on the Scrap Rubber Campaign, June 12, 1942, APP.

  19 seven pounds of scrap rubber: Seth Garfield, In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region (Durham, NC, 2013), 83.

  20 wooden wheels? Steel wheels?: RFC, Government’s Rubber Projects, 2:500.

  21 Thousands of scientists: See Finlay, Growing American Rubber.

  22 baby bottles: Wilson, Trees and Test Tubes, 132, 206.

  23 condoms: Stephen Fenichell, Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century (New York, 1996), 186.

  24 “not in sight”: Eugene Staley, Raw Materials in Peace and War (New York, 1937), 7.

  25 “require a miracle”: Leon Henderson, quoted in Wilson, Trees and Test Tubes, 209.

  26 “The definitive solution”: Quoted in Alfred E. Eckes Jr., The United States and the Global Struggle for Minerals (Austin, TX, 1979), 67.

  27 Dietrich: Yvette Florio Lane, “‘No Fertile Soil for Pathogens’: Rayon, Advertising, and Biopolitics in Late Weimar Germany,” Journal of Social History 44 (2010): 546.

  28 “definitely solved”: Fenichell, Plastic, 183.

  29 Hitler had not solved: My account depends on Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology, IG Farben in the Nazi Era, new ed. (New York, 2001), and Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (New York, 2006).

  30 two months of fighting: Hayes, Industry and Ideology, 191.

  31 largely using horses: David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 (New York, 2007), 35.

  32 “brightly illuminated” … “still strikes”: Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity, trans. Stuart Woolf (1958; New York, 1976), 19.

  33 “be a son-of-a-bitch”: Bernard Baruch’s instructions to Bradley Dewey, quoted in Henry J. Inman, Rubber Mirror: Reflections of the Rubber Division’s First 100 Years (Akron, OH, 2009), 111.

  34 “I don’t think”: C. S. Marvel, interview by J. E. Mulvaney, n.d., 11, folder 1-5, box 1, Carl S. Marvel Papers, CHF.

  35 Just one such plant: Norman V. Carlisle and Frank B. Latham, Miracles Ahead!: Better Living in the Postwar World (New York, 1944), 151.

  36 In mid-1944: Wartime production figures from Fenichell, Plastic, 194, and Robert A. Solo, Synthetic Rubber: A Case Study (Washington, DC, 1959), 87.

  37 “The Germans apparently”: William O. Baker, interview by Marcy Goldstein and Jeffrey L. Sturchio, May 23 and June 18, 1985, 49, CHF.

  38 nine in ten pounds: Rubber Reserve Company, Report on the Rubber Program, 1940–45, Supplement No. 1, Year 1945 (Washington, DC, 1946), 15.

  39 “one of the most remarkable”: Melvin A. Brenner, The Outlook for Synthetic Rubber (Washington, DC, 1944), 1.

  40 Korean War: Vernon Herbert and Attilio Bisio, Synthetic Rubber: A Project That Had to Succeed (Westport,
CT, 1985), 142–44.

  41 blue-ribbon commission: The President’s Materials Policy Commission, Resources for Freedom (Washington, DC, 1952), 2:101.

  42 30 percent of the market: Finlay, Growing American Rubber, 12.

  43 5 percent of the world demand: Tooze, Wages of Destruction, 446.

  44 Freinkel: Susan Freinkel, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story (New York, 2011), 2–3. On plastic, I’ve also relied on Jeffrey L. Meikle, American Plastic: A Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ, 1995), and Fenichell, Plastic.

  45 “Synthetica”: “Plastics in 1940,” Fortune, October 1940, 92–93.

  46 sought to use plastic: Fenichell, Plastic, 206; Freinkel, Plastic, 6.

  47 large battleship: Barrett L. Crandall, The Plastics Industry (Boston, 1946), 11.

  48 a GI could expect: B. H. Weil and Victor J. Anhorn, Plastic Horizons (Lancaster, PA, 1944), 77–82; Erna Risch, United States Army in World War II: The Technical Services; The Quartermaster Corps: Organization, Supply, and Services (Washington, DC, 1953), 1:58–74.

  49 “virtually nothing” … “anything”: Meikle, American Plastic, 146.

  50 plastic handles: Weil and Anhorn, Plastic Horizons, 130.

  51 “The whole world”: Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (1957; New York, 1972), 99.

  52 all flags: Jacob Rosin and Max Eastman, The Road to Abundance (New York, 1953), 29, 32.

  53 volume of plastics: Vaclav Smil, Transforming the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations and Their Consequences (New York, 2006), 122.

  54 “a regiment,” etc.: Williams Haynes, The Chemical Front (New York, 1943), 12–13.

  55 Camphor: Carlisle and Latham, Miracles Ahead!, 168.

  56 “as simply as”: Haynes, Chemical Front, 16.

  57 “synthetic age” … “freedom”: Rosin and Eastman, Road to Abundance. See Edward D. Melillo, “Global Entomologies: Insects, Empires, and the ‘Synthetic Age’ in World History,” Past and Present 223 (2014): 233–70.

  58 “how to synthesize”: Richard P. Feynman, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” Caltech Engineering and Science 23 (1960): 36.

  59 rubber … plastic … margarine: J. C. Fisher and R. H. Pry, “A Simple Substitution Model of Technological Change,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 3 (1971): 87.

 

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