Unofficial Ambassadors
Unofficial Ambassadors American Military Families Overseas and the Cold War, 1946–1965
Donna Alvah
a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London
new york university press New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2007 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alvah, Donna. Unofficial ambassadors : American military families overseas and the Cold War, 1946–1965 / Donna Alvah. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-0501-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8147-0501-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Families of military personnel—United States. 2. Military spouses—United States. 3. Americans—Foreign countries—History— 20th century. 4. United States—Armed Forces—Foreign countries— History—20th century. 5. Cold War. I. Title. UB403.A469 2007 355.1'29—dc22 2006032854 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my mother and father, and for Elun
Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
Introduction
1
1
Going Overseas
14
2
Unofficial Ambassadors
38
3
A U.S. Lady’s World
81
4
“Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
131
5
“Dear Little Okinawa”
167
6
Young Ambassadors
198
Conclusion
226
Notes Bibliography Index About the Author
235 261 273 291 vii
Acknowledgments
I first discussed the idea for this study with Professor Roland Marchand many years ago. From the start, Roland liked the prospect of a project that analyzed the contributions of women and families to foreign relations. He served as my dissertation supervisor until he passed away in November 1997. I remain grateful for his encouragement and advice. I must thank many other people who, in reading all or parts of the manuscript at different stages of its creation, have offered scholarly scrutiny, practical advice, reassurance, generosity of time and energy, and a good sense of humor. I have benefited from Andy Rotter’s thinking on gender and Cold War foreign relations, and also on writing and chapter organization, and last but not least from his and Padma Kaimal’s kindness and friendship. From my first meeting with Karen Halttunen in 1993, I admired her insight and sharp thinking, and knew that working with her would be a privilege. Her contributions as a dissertation supervisor— straightforward critiques of the strengths and weaknesses of all the chapters at various stages, from the first to the last drafts; readings of conference papers; discussions of my concerns; keeping me on track to meet deadlines; suggestions for consulting with other professors outside her own field of expertise; and steady encouragement—were exactly what I needed to get through. I also appreciate Jay Mechling’s suggestions on children and American culture; Cynthia Enloe’s feedback on women, gender, race, class, the military, and international relations; Judith DeGroat’s thoughtful suggestions on a later version of the manuscript; and Steve Rabson’s close reading of and advice for parts of the manuscript. The comments of two anonymous readers were quite helpful. At conferences, several scholars assisted my thinking on this project, including Robert Dean, Catherine Forslund, Petra Goedde, Walter Hixson, Maria Höhn, Christina Klein, Andy Rotter, Alex Epstein, and Molly Wood. The Cross-Cultural Women’s History group in the University of California Davis Department of History, the Committee on Lesbian and Gay History, and the Cold War History Group at the University of California at Santa Barbara sponsored presentations of my research. I thank ix
them for giving me the incentive to write papers that became parts of chapters, and for the opportunity to share my work and make contacts with other scholars. Numerous people who aided my research deserve thanks and recognition. I am especially grateful to Dr. John Slonaker, formerly at the US Army Military History Institute, for introducing me to the institute’s collection of U.S. Lady magazine and for pointing me toward other useful documents. Angie Stockwell of the Margaret Chase Smith Library was one of the most energetic, generous, and helpful people I encountered in my research travels. I appreciate Ellen Swan Mazzer’s and Clifton Hyatt’s help with obtaining images. Dennis Bilger at the Truman Library located numerous documents. The gracious and able assistance from the staffs at the Eisenhower Library in summer 2000 and the LBJ Library in summer 2004 made my visits to those sweltering sites worthwhile as well as more pleasant. Morten Ender shared information on military families abroad and sent informative articles. I also would like to thank the staff at the Owen D. Young Library at St. Lawrence University for obtaining documents and information. Indispensable assistance from St. Lawrence University students Katherine Gay and Alicia Dewey also helped to create this book. Thanks also to editor Deborah Gershenowitz, editorial assistant Salwa Jabado, and managing editor Despina Papazoglou Gimbel at New York University Press for answering my many questions and guiding me through this process. And many thanks to the copy editor, Marie Milton, for catching errors in typing and notes. I am indebted to Thomas Drysdale and the American Overseas Schools Historical Society for support of this project, and for crucial assistance with the questionnaire project. The historical society publicized my study in its newsletters and solicited questionnaire respondents. Tom personally recruited respondents and distributed questionnaires. The AOSHS members and others who participated in the study or gave me their memoirs— former service personnel, educators, and service children—generously invested their time and energy in providing detailed, thoughtful responses for my study. They, and the many others who told me that they had lived overseas in a military family or served in the military abroad, frequently reminded me of the significance of this population and motivated me to carry on with my work. I am thankful for funding from the following sources: The St. Lawrence University Academic Dean’s Office, for small and large grants; SLU’s Department of History, for Vilas research funds; the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Foundation, for a research grant; and the Ada E. Leeke Research Fellowship, for research at the Margaret Chase Smith Lix Acknowledgments
brary. In addition, I received funding at earlier stages of this manuscript from the Pro Femina Research Consortium (now the Consortium for Women in Research), the Office of Graduate Studies, the Cross-Cultural Women’s History group, and the Department of History, all at the University of California, Davis; and the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. All these awards made possible the research for and writing of this book and reinforced my sense of its importance. As much as I love research and writing, they can also be isolating and taxing. Friends and family proved essential to maintaining a positive frame of mind and pushing forward. Samantha Yates Francois has been an encouraging and steadfast dear friend. Samantha, and also Phillip Fiamengo, Michelle Loulis, Kathleen Teager, Mary Yaeger, and Tammy Bonneville gave vital emotional backing over the last several years. My colleagues at St. Lawrence University, especially in the Department of History, have been professionally and personally supportive. My mother, L. Dianne Nickerson, and my late father, Don Alvah Johnson, maintained an unfaltering faith in me. Pat Sherry’s kindness and concern have been very important to me. My siblings and siblings-in-law and their children, in person and through irreverent e-mails, made me laugh and helped keep me connected to the world outside the book: they are Lowell Niles; D.J., Jennifer, and Darwin Johnson; Ro and Mike Hurley; Ashley Johnson; Marlene and René Amry; and Ditas Amry-Wei. Marianne Gabriel Mejia, Freddie Mejia, Mark Gabriel, and Barbara Anders have been wonderful and caring in-laws. Basquiat, Darwin, and Willow have been sweet and fun companions. I thank them and the rest of my and my husband’s family for their love and enthusiasm. Josephine Alvah Gabriel came into my life during the last summer of this book’s production. I can’t say that she helped the book come out any faster, though I did enjoy the time spent holding her and watching her learn to smile and “talk.” She doesn’t have to become a historian, but I hope she will eventually appreciate the study of history for understanding the world she is growing up in. Finally, I am grateful to my husband, Elun Gabriel, for his many contributions to this project and my well-being during the research and writing of it. Elun closely read drafts at various stages, offering astute analytical observations, writing advice, and interpretations of German and Italian words. He cheerfully endured countless discussions about various aspects of the project, patiently listened to my concerns, mulled over trouble spots and interpretations with me, and made phone calls on my behalf. Every day I marvel at the good fortune to have as my partner such a loving friend and fellow historian. Acknowledgments xi
Introduction
In the mid-1970s, life on the island of Okinawa was exciting for an American middle-schooler in an Army family. I made close friends among the other kids in the family housing area. For many of us, living in Okinawa was an adventure, although some kids lamented that their families had not been sent to more enchanting places like Germany or England instead. But we tried to make the most of our three years on the island. Within the housing area, beyond the baseball field for American families, we sometimes played in what we called “the boonies,” trekking through heavy foliage and underneath the webs of huge spiders to visit an Okinawan tomb, mysteriously empty. Other times we ventured beyond the chain link fence surrounding the base housing to walk along a stretch of highway lined with Okinawan shops, where we bought Japanese candy, Hello Kitty paraphernalia long before it came into vogue in the United States, bootlegged cassette tapes, food for my mynah bird (also acquired from an Okinawan pet shop), and souvenirs. We thought we detected subtle disapproval in the faces of some Okinawan shopkeepers toward us Americans, and speculated that this must have had something to do with Japan losing the war to the United States, and maybe the atomic bomb; or perhaps they were just concerned about children bumping into fragile wares or shoplifting. At the Department of Defense middle school for military dependents there were several kids from Japanese-American families (and many others from marriages between American servicemen and women they’d met in host countries), but most did not have relatives in Okinawa. Most of the Okinawans we encountered on- and off-base—the school bus drivers, the maids and seamstresses who came to American homes, the waitresses and shopkeepers—were quietly polite to us. The only hostility that I recall was Okinawan schoolboys on the side of the road throwing rocks at our green military school bus as it passed them. I didn’t know why and didn’t think too much about it, and figured that it must have something to do with the memory of World War II. I knew that the war had destroyed much of the island, but I knew nothing of the history and politics of U.S. bases on the island. 1
This book is an effort to understand why the United States sent military families to overseas bases after World War II, and the significance of their presence in the Cold War. Although World War II ended in 1945, the United States continued to maintain bases around the world. In 1946, the government arranged for family members to join military personnel (the vast majority of them men) stationed abroad. Although military families had lived in U.S. overseas territories since the early twentieth century, their numbers were few in contrast to the hundreds of thousands of spouses and children who traveled to foreign stations after the end of World War II. In 1960, over 600,000 armed forces personnel and 462,000 members of military families resided abroad. This is a history of how military family members living overseas during the first two decades of the Cold War considered themselves representatives of “the American way of life” and participants in Cold War objectives. In the years following World War II, military families came to be considered significant players in relationships between the United States and the countries that housed its overseas bases, first in the occupations of Germany and Japan, then during the Cold War. During the 1930s, most Americans and their government leaders had wanted to avoid military involvement in international conflicts. But during World War II, a majority of Americans became convinced that stabilizing the world and preventing foreign aggression in the future necessitated a strong U.S. military presence abroad and far more prominent U.S. leadership in international affairs than before the war. Yet although the United States emerged from the war a military superpower, American policymakers knew that it would take more than the potential for force to succeed in foreign relations. Displays of American benevolence and willingness to cooperate with other nations could help to persuade allies as well as former enemies to go along with U.S. foreign policy goals. Military officials and members of military families articulated an ideal of families as “unofficial ambassadors,” who in projecting American good will would help reform occupied Germany and Japan and aid Cold War military and foreign relations goals. To those who viewed service wives and children as representatives of the United States, opposition to communist expansion required not only “masculine” displays of military might—overseas bases, uniformed personnel, and weapons—but also “feminine” demonstrations of American sensitivity toward and cooperation with the residents of countries that housed U.S. bases. While servicemen in their official capacity represented U.S. military power, service wives and children, and to a lesser extent men as husbands and fathers, could be more convincing representatives of American good will and cooperation abroad. In endeavoring to cultivate friendly relations with local peoples, however, family members 2 Introduction
also aided U.S. military and diplomatic goals by reinforcing American dominance abroad. This book examines the significance of women, children, and men in their family roles in U.S. Cold War military objectives and foreign relations. It is during the postwar occupations and the Cold War that the military establishment began to forthrightly acknowledge the necessity of families for supporting military personnel and, by extension, overseas bases and operations. The military also viewed families as potentially influential in strengthening ties between military communities and local residents, and even advancing foreign relations goals by helping to generate support for the U.S. military presence and Cold War objectives. Military officials and guidebooks expected families to exert friendly, cultural influence in foreign countries, alongside soldiers and weapons that embodied a resolute stance against the encroachment of communism. Before the early 1990s, most (though certainly not all) scholarly works understood foreign relations to encompass mainly activities conducted by state officials, and regarded military history as largely about great male leaders, soldiers, battles, and weapons. These studies are valuable for my analysis, and some are cited here. Scholarship produced in the last two decades, however, has expanded diplomatic and military history (to the chagrin of some traditionalists) to give far greater consideration to cultural and social dimensions, including race, sexuality, and gender.1 Many of the scholarly innovators pursue ideas articulated by historian Joan Wallach Scott in the late 1980s, who drew from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology and literary theory, to advocate “rethink[ing] the history of politics and the politics of history.” Gender roles and ideas about gender differences are not essential, universal, or timeless; rather, they are social constructions, historically and culturally specific, based on assumptions about biological sexual differences. Concepts of gender have been, and are, expressed, defined, and redefined not only in relationships between men and women but also in “war, diplomacy, and high politics,” which, Scott noted, many historians did not envision as gendered.2 In her 1990 essay on gender and foreign relations, historian Emily Rosenberg furthered this enterprise of rethinking history by asking “how are histories of women’s roles and gender patterns becoming relevant to studies of United States foreign relations?” As Rosenberg pointed out, if we take the approach of looking in the historical record for women who engaged in foreign relations in official capacities—for example, as heads of state or ambassadors—we will find relatively few. A second approach, then, is “the study of women doing ‘women’s work,’ at home and abroad,” which requires us to extend our understanding of foreign relations “beyond governmental diplomacy and war.” But limiting analysis to the rare women Introduction 3
who made it into the elite “men’s world” of international politics, or to women who participated in foreign relations by doing what was defined as “women’s work”—for example, as missionaries’ or diplomats’ wives— risks reinforcing notions of inherent rather than socially constructed differences between men and women, the work that they do, and the spheres they inhabit. Rosenberg argues that it is necessary to complement the first two approaches to studying women in foreign relations—the “exceptional women” approach and the “women doing women’s work” approach—with an analysis of gender ideology in the historical context under scrutiny.3 In Unofficial Ambassadors, American family members’ interactions with local peoples within the context of postwar gender ideology helps to achieve a better understanding of how masculinity and femininity were constructed in this era, as well as of the exercise of power in relationships between Americans and residents of occupied and host nations. The prevalent conception of the post–World War II era is of a time when ideally (even though this certainly was not the case for everyone) women were first and foremost wives and mothers who dwelled primarily in the domestic sphere, leaving the world of national and international politics to men. But as Joanne Meyerowitz has shown in her study of women’s magazines from the period, the postwar feminine role also accommodated public activities, including work outside the home and political participation.4 Military wives, usually in unofficial capacities, engaged in occupation efforts and Cold War international politics in interacting with local peoples and in encouraging fellow service wives to do so as well, to help advance U.S. foreign policy and military objectives. Analysis of these gendered interactions and how they were portrayed benefits from consideration of Joseph Nye’s theory of “hard power” and “soft power.” Soldiers (most of whom were men) and the potential for military force represented a form of hard power in the United States’ efforts to prevent the spread of communism to occupied and allied nations, while military wives and children could exercise soft-power influence by attracting, rather than coercing, residents of occupied and host nations to support U.S. Cold War goals.5 This study of the Cold War roles of American military personnel and military families, however, shows that the American gender ideology of this period did not limit men to masculine hard-power tasks; nor were women’s and children’s soft-power activities abroad of significance only in domestic and unofficial venues. Servicemen engaged in soft-power activities such as charitable efforts to aid inhabitants of occupied and host nations, while military wives and children ultimately supported the hard-power U.S. military presence overseas, which
4 Introduction
often entailed the reinforcement of hierarchies between Americans and local peoples. Besides considering how gender conditioned and influenced relations between peoples of different nations, historians also have analyzed how race relations and ideas about race shaped and were shaped by foreign relations. Authors such as Mary Dudziak illustrate how as the post–World War II civil rights movement in the United States gained increasing visibility internationally, U.S. government leaders became more concerned that Jim Crow laws and violence toward peaceful African-American activism at home caused people abroad to question Americans’ claims that their nation represented democracy and justice for all as opposed to the tyranny of communist societies. Other works examine how the racial attitudes of the occupiers and the occupied in Germany and Japan shaped relations between the United States and its former enemies.6 These and other studies of race and foreign relations inform this book’s consideration of how racial attitudes influenced relations between Americans and occupied and host nation peoples, and could reinforce alliances between white peoples (as in West Germany) and also U.S. dominance (as in Okinawa). Primary accounts, including military documents, offer information about American military families overseas during the Cold War, and the armed forces have produced white papers and other analyses concerning military families, but historical scholarship by Americans focusing on this subject is scarce. One of the earliest scholarly studies to examine military family life abroad in this period is sociologist Charlotte Wolf’s Garrison Community: A Study of an Overseas American Military Colony (1969), which includes firsthand observations on the activities and attitudes of members of military families stationed in Ankara, Turkey during the late 1960s.7 Nearly two decades later, Martha Gravois, an Army wife who had lived in Germany, completed a master’s thesis in history and published an article analyzing the foreign policy roles of American families in Germany after World War II. Gravois found that families participated in occupation efforts and represented the United States’ commitment to defend Western Europe during the Cold War.8 Of the other scholarly studies that give some attention to the presence of American military families overseas during the post–World War II occupations and the Cold War, most focus on Germany, probably because this is where the largest population of Americans affiliated with the military were stationed.9 Unofficial Ambassadors builds upon these and other works that have broadened the scope of the history of foreign relations and the military after World War II. Petra Goedde’s study of relations between U.S.
Introduction 5
soldiers and West Germans, especially women and children, shows how Americans in occupied Germany came to see their former adversaries as a feminized, victimized people instead of despicable proponents of the Nazi regime. Interpersonal interactions, which in many cases led to marriages between American men and German women, contributed to the softening of U.S. occupation policy in the months and years immediately following the war and helped to transform the United States and West Germany from enemies to allies. Maria Höhn’s analysis of postwar German-American relations focuses on the influence of the U.S. military in Rhineland-Palatinate in the 1950s, and German responses to this ranging from welcoming to hostile. Like Goedde, Höhn discusses informal social relations between Americans and Germans. She shows that while Germans generally tolerated relationships between German women and white U.S. soldiers, they objected to German women’s relationships with black soldiers. German critics of the American presence in this period employed racist arguments to oppose housing the foreign military.10 Whereas Goedde and Höhn focus more than I do on military personnel, and solely on Germany, American military families in several countries are at the center of Unofficial Ambassadors. Also, both Goedde and Höhn give extensive attention to German responses to the U.S. military presence and use many German source materials, while this book emphasizes American experiences and perspectives in various locales. A landmark in the historiography of early Cold War American families is Elaine Tyler May’s study of how the post–World War II nuclear family ideal and expectations that Americans assume “traditional” gender roles and produce numerous children represented stability and security to Americans in a world where people feared communist encroachment and nuclear warfare.11 Whereas Homeward Bound focuses on families in the United States and how the nuclear family ideal reinforced anti-communism domestically, Unofficial Ambassadors scrutinizes the idea that military families in foreign locations considered strategically crucial in the Cold War represented the American commitment to anti-communism internationally, as well as the alleged superiority of the American way of life —believed to be characterized by freedom, democracy, and prosperity— to life under adversarial regimes. In other words, this book analyzes the significance, in Americans’ minds, of Cold War American families in the wider world rather than only within the United States. Primary sources used here include military reports, memoranda, official announcements, and guidebooks; statistical data from the Bureau of the Census and the Department of Defense; writings by service wives, children, servicemen, and educators; newspaper, magazine, and journal articles; images; memoirs; and fiction. Articles and other items from U.S. 6 Introduction
Lady, a magazine chiefly for military wives published between 1955 and 1968, provide valuable insights into these women’s roles abroad. The magazine is cited throughout the book; I discuss it at length in chapter 3. Other important accounts of life overseas come from a questionnaire project conducted between 1999 and 2000. In this project I gathered accounts from forty-eight former service children, educators, and servicemen (out of approximately ninety questionnaires distributed) that described their experiences in occupied and host nations between 1946 and 1965. Many of the questionnaire respondents permitted the inclusion of their names in citations, though several requested confidentiality. Although some attention is given to high-level foreign policymakers and military leaders, Unofficial Ambassadors focuses on ordinary women, children, and men as significant actors in foreign relations. American power in the Cold War was derived not only from the capacity for military might and displays of toughness but also from friendly and “feminine” influence. The Cold War was a fierce ideological battle as well as a military contest. Military family members—wives, children, and servicemen as husbands and fathers—were expected to contribute to the ideological rivalry with communism by representing what Americans considered the best aspects of their way of life. Their deportment, homes, and family relations were to embody the freedom and prosperity believed to flow from American political and economic institutions. Military documents and accounts from family members reveal that many service wives and children, and some servicemen in their family roles, indeed considered themselves advocates of their nation’s military and foreign relations goals. I do not claim that all or even most military family members took on the unofficial ambassador role in the period under investigation or mixed extensively with residents of occupied and host nations. I am, however, attempting to refine the widespread notion of Americans in military families abroad living rigidly separated from local peoples, and the unquestioned assumption that most contacts that did occur were trifling and therefore undeserving of closer scrutiny. A statement from a recent book on the history of the global U.S. military presence might perpetuate these notions: “The ‘Little Americas’ [compounds where Americans affiliated with the military lived] made life easier for personnel and their families. On the other hand, they isolated Americans from their host communities, and as a result most members of the military community were exposed to foreign cultures only in small and superficial ways, such as tourism, eating in restaurants, and occasional shopping in local stores.” The author’s discussion of American military families abroad is brief yet is more extensive than what one will find in the vast majority of histories of the U.S. military. Furthermore, her observation that most Americans lived in Introduction 7
self-sustained communities is not untrue, and she does go on to briefly discuss some ways in which Americans and local peoples interacted in the 1950s and 1960s (mainly in events sponsored by the U.S. military).12 Nonetheless, I worry that most readers would come away from this portrayal with their presuppositions intact: that Americans in military families had little or nothing to do with local peoples, and therefore their overseas presence made little impact and held little import. I want to demonstrate that in order to understand the cultural, social, and political influences and significance of the U.S. military overseas (a subject that has received too little scholarly attention, considering that millions of Americans affiliated with the military resided abroad in the last century), a closer look at military family members’ interactions with local residents is warranted. Yes, many military families lived in “Little Americas,” but these were more permeable than many civilian Americans assume. Also, as a person who fervently values cultural history and is fascinated by the meaning of seemingly small and insignificant human statements and actions, I wish to challenge the notion that “superficial” contacts between Americans and local peoples meant little. “The gestures which we sometimes call empty are perhaps in fact the fullest things of all,” wrote sociologist Erving Goffman.13 What did it mean when, in the context of occupation and Cold War, an American military wife tried to say a few polite words in Japanese to a shop owner? Or when American youngsters played pranks on Germans? These may have been small acts, but they were not insignificant. The first chapter of this book investigates why and how families joined military personnel stationed abroad starting in 1946. After World War II, the military maintained overseas bases to police, rehabilitate, and rebuild occupied countries, and protect U.S. and allied interests. But in the months after the Allied victory, American servicemen and servicewomen around the world clamored to return to the United States. Military leaders worried that servicemen’s crime, fraternization with German and Japanese women, venereal disease, and general low morale would undermine military operations and occupation goals. In the meantime, women in the United States complained that servicemen’s absence from families caused emotional and financial hardship, and demanded the return of their husbands. But U.S. government and military leaders believed that their nation’s international responsibilities required maintaining forces abroad indefinitely. Military planners decided that sending families to foreign bases would help to solve military and family problems, thus responding to social demands and the beginning of the postwar cultural idealization of the nuclear family. In the fall of 1945, they began formulating plans to transport, house, and sustain spouses and children who would arrive in Ger8 Introduction
many in April 1946 and Japan in June 1946. Families also joined military personnel in allied nations, usually staying overseas for two- or three-year tours of duty. Chapter 2 analyzes the emergence of the idea that Cold War foreign relations required not only a formidable military posture toward adversaries but also friendly guidance and understanding of peoples of occupied and allied nations, which military family members were to project. Even before the arrival of families, military personnel abroad engaged in self-initiated as well as officially organized efforts to demonstrate generosity and good will to allies and former enemies, especially children, in wardevastated countries. American popular culture explored such relations in literary and visual depictions. As family members joined military personnel in Germany and Japan in 1946, the armed forces sought to make use of them in occupation aims, and later in the Cold War. The military came to conceive of family members, especially wives, as “unofficial ambassadors” in their relations with residents of occupied and host nations. Through advertisements, prescriptive literature, and statements from military officials, the armed forces encouraged wives and their families to aid military goals by extending good will to non-Americans. Informal friendly contacts, military officials believed, would strengthen relations between the United States and host and occupied nations and help win support for maintaining U.S. bases. The third chapter explores military wives’ perceptions of themselves as unofficial ambassadors worldwide, and their efforts to define and enact this role. In a time when according to stereotypes, reinforced in popular culture, women were relegated primarily to domestic roles, American military wives abroad were engaging in foreign relations, albeit usually informally rather than officially. Many wives not only accepted but also expanded the ambassadorial responsibilities that the armed forces asked them to shoulder. The most prominent women were officers’ wives who took it upon themselves to guide military families in their relations with local residents in a multitude of settings, including homes, charitable activities, schools for children of host and occupied nations, excursions to historical and cultural sites, and international women’s clubs. Their accounts of informal relations with local inhabitants reveal that they encountered an ideological contradiction: they were asked to demonstrate appreciation of non-American cultures and customs, yet they also were to advance U.S. Cold War goals by conveying to residents of occupied and host nations the presumed superiority of the American way of life. The subsequent two chapters focus on American accounts of relations with West Germans and Okinawans, respectively, and examine how family members, especially wives, attempted to advance military and foreign Introduction 9
relations aims in each context. The United States occupied Germany between 1944 and 1955, and Japan between 1945 and 1952, and continued to maintain a large military presence in each nation long after the end of occupation. Occupation goals in both countries included the establishment of democracy and the rebuilding of the economies. Both also were considered strategically crucial sites in the war against the expansion of communism. Although West Germany (chapter 4) depended on the United States for military and economic assistance after the end of occupation, military wives and their husbands downplayed inequalities of power between the two nations and promulgated the idea of an egalitarian American–West German anti-communist, anti-Soviet alliance that served both American and West German interests. U.S. strategists wanted to maintain bases in West Germany and West Berlin, depicted as bastions of freedom and prosperity on the Cold War battlefront between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. Not wishing to appear as an imperialistic, militaristic aggressor that dominated weaker nations (which was how Americans perceived the Soviet Union), Americans helped to generate an image of American–West German reciprocity and cultural commonality, and promoted the U.S.–West German alliance in the war to defend liberty and capitalism in Western Europe. West Germans accepted U.S. bases because they wanted American military and economic aid and believed that they would gain greater autonomy through alliance with the United States rather than the Soviet Union. Though ambivalent about their status as a bulwark in the Cold War, West Germans perceived the U.S. military presence as largely conducive to their own goals. The affinities between white Americans and West Germans, however, were largely based on a shared sense of whiteness, which perpetuated racism in U.S. military communities and in German society. While West Germany presents a scenario in which many residents of that nation viewed the U.S. military presence as advantageous, Okinawa (a prefecture of Japan and the largest and most populated of the Ryukyu Islands) offers a contrasting scenario in which a majority of the people did not regard the foreign armed forces as beneficial. Chapter 5 shows how military wives attempted to demonstrate friendliness, generosity, and understanding to Okinawans, and to mitigate the negative effects of the military presence on Okinawan communities. Yet in positioning themselves as maternal figures to Okinawans, American women ultimately reinforced cultural and racial stereotypes of Okinawans as a backward and childlike people who needed guidance and protection from the United States. They thus bolstered U.S. military control of the island despite Okinawans’ strong preference for Japanese governance. 10 Introduction
Family Members of Armed Forces Abroad in 1960 and 1970 Europe & USSR Asia Africa Canada & Mexico Americas (except Canada and Mexico) Other Total
1960
1970
327,446 81,540 15,581 12,718 5,284 19,935 462,504
204,049 98,129 4,359 2,903 6,022 2,537 317,999
Sources: US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, US Census of Population: 1960, Selected Area Reports, Americans Overseas, pp. 52–57, Table 9; and US Department of Commerce, 1970 Census of Population: Subject Reports: Americans Living Abroad, pp. 1–2, Table 1.
Chapter 6 examines the idea of military children as natural facilitators of international friendship. The armed forces, mothers, and teachers envisioned American youngsters and teenagers as “junior ambassadors” who learned languages quickly, made friends easily, and rapidly adapted to foreign cultures. American children learned about the customs and cultures of the countries in which they were stationed, and encountered residents of occupied and host nations in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, youth clubs, and other venues. Service children were caught in the same bind as their mothers: they were expected not only to demonstrate understanding and appreciation of local residents’ ways of life and promote international cooperation but also to represent the superiority of American ideals and ways. Moreover, despite depictions of warm relations between service children and local peoples, American children (like adults) did not, of course, invariably behave as ideal ambassadors. This study focuses primarily on Army and Air Force families in Western Europe and Asia. Army and Air Force personnel and family members were more numerous than those in the Navy and Marines.14 A majority of personnel and their families resided in Western Europe, mainly West Germany, or in Asia, mainly Japan. Navy and Marine families, and families stationed in areas other than Western Europe and Asia, do appear here, though to a lesser extent. Though details in advice literature and accounts of relations between military families and local residents varied depending on location, the idea of Americans as representatives of their country— who were to show friendship toward non-American peoples and respect for their cultures, while representing American superiority—was essentially the same for all of the services and in all countries. Although families of civilians employed by the U.S. government also lived abroad, this study is most interested in military families. Military personnel and their families abroad far outnumbered U.S. civilian government personnel and their families, and it is the experience and culture of Introduction 11
military life overseas that I wish to focus on, though some observations on the U.S. military presence abroad from American civilian employees and their family members do appear here—for example, from teachers at U.S. Department of Defense Dependents Schools. In addition, although I examine responses of residents of occupied and host nations to the U.S. military presence and, when possible, Americans in military families, these perspectives are relatively fewer in this book. To hear the Americans tell it, they were effective in establishing friendships and making positive impressions of how Americans lived. What did local people really think of American military families? Most of the evidence of local views of American families is anecdotal. There were polls that attempted to assess local views of the U.S. military generally, or of Americans generally (in occupied or host nations or in the United States), but I have not located polls that asked for opinions on the presence of U.S. military families specifically. Individual interviews conducted by researchers reveal a variety of local experiences with and views of American military families. This study uses personal accounts collected by other scholars, and literature, to try to answer the question of what residents of occupied and host nations thought of Americans in military families. Before continuing, a few words on terminology. Although military documents often refer to the spouses, children, and other relatives of personnel as “dependents” (and I occasionally will use this term), I prefer the terms most used by military family members themselves, for example, “service wives,” “Army wives,” or “service children.” I also employ a variety of designations for the residents of countries that housed U.S. bases. I avoid the term “foreigners,” sometimes found in the American primary sources, because of course Americans would have been the ones considered foreigners to the local peoples. Other terms used here include “residents of occupied and host nations,” “local residents,” “local inhabitants,” “host nationals,” “local nationals,” “host citizens,” “local citizens,” and “non-Americans.” In scrutinizing American attitudes and accounts of experiences abroad, I do not claim that actual relations lived up to the ideals expressed in the official and unofficial prescriptive literature. Nor do I dispute that friendship, good will, and respect between Americans and residents of occupied and host nations existed. Many Americans and local residents enjoyed their acquaintanceships; some maintained friendships that endured for decades after Americans left for new stations. Sometimes, however, actual relations fell short of the ideals articulated in the military prescriptive literature and by Americans who took the ambassadorial role seriously. Some Americans offended local peoples with their rudeness and arrogance. Racism among Americans poisoned relations between Americans 12 Introduction
and some residents of occupied and host countries. American racism, along with rank and class hierarchies in military communities, contradicted American claims to represent freedom and equality to all the world’s peoples. Exploring encounters between Americans and residents of occupied and host countries in their complexity is essential for understanding how they contributed to, or in some cases undermined, U.S. overseas military goals and Cold War foreign relations. After World War II, to be an American was to be a citizen of the world’s most affluent and powerful nation. This fact colored any encounter, however seemingly superficial or innocuous, between Americans and residents of occupied and host nations. Yet within the context of greater U.S. military, political, and economic power, social and cultural relations took a wide variety of forms, some of which reinforced and some of which partially effaced American dominance. This is a story of how American military families engaged in the contested field of Cold War military and foreign relations.
Introduction 13
1 Going Overseas
As World War II drew to a close first in Europe in May 1945, then in the Pacific in August, American women looked forward to the homecomings of husbands and fiancés. On the eve of the Allies’ official announcement of victory in Japan, Rosie McClain of Washington wrote to her husband Charles, a Navy man in the Pacific, that “The whole world is full of joy and expressing it in some way or another this evening. I know it’s the ending of great suffering and pain of war. Darling, I can’t celebrate remembering the one I know can’t come back [yet]. . . . God willing, we will be together again. For all our lives, we can be together again.”1 The next day, Betty Maue of Pennsylvania wrote to her fiancé, Ario Pacelli, who was in Italy with the Army: “I pray you’re fine and that you have good news about coming home soon, too.”2 At the war’s end, Charles McClain, Ario Pacelli, and hundreds of thousands of other service personnel faced the possibility of many more months of overseas duty, far from family and home. In the United States, women complained of family separation and demanded the quick return of husbands and fiancés. “I sympathized with parents still waiting to see their sons, and with the wives and children longing to see their husbands and fathers again,” President Harry Truman recalled in his memoir, “[but] we had an obligation as a leading nation to build a firm foundation for the future peace of the world. The future of the country was as much at stake as it had been in the days of the war.”3 Although the armed forces demobilized millions of service personnel in the months following the war, the United States continued to maintain a substantial military strength abroad, especially in occupied Germany and Japan. But many servicemen stationed overseas after the war’s end were dispirited and preoccupied with going home. Some engaged in troublesome behavior that undermined military discipline and disrupted local communities. Days after Germany’s surrender, General Dwight Eisenhower privately expressed the certitude that the military would have to enable families to join personnel overseas. By late 1945, military officials who hoped to solve the problems of low morale and quell complaints 14
from the home front about the hardships of family separation were making plans to send families to join servicemen at overseas bases wherever possible. Although the U.S. military allowed families to go overseas in 1946 chiefly to bolster servicemen’s morale, the military need to maintain a large overseas presence coincided with Americans’ social demands and cultural attitudes about the family. Thus, the establishment of American family life abroad in the early postwar era served military goals, as well as the needs of families and cultural ideals.
Postwar International Responsibilities World War II, which had pulled in so many of the world’s nations, ended three months after the Allied victory in Europe. In August 1945, American bombers dropped atomic bombs in Japan, first in Hiroshima, then in Nagasaki. When the Allies declared victory in Japan on August 15, millions of Americans danced in the streets and anticipated the homecoming of military personnel.4 More than sixteen million Americans had served in the armed forces at some point between December 1941, when the United States officially entered the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and late summer 1945, when Japan surrendered to the Allies.5 Seventy-three percent of service members had served overseas. Over 400,000 Americans died in the war; approximately 670,000 suffered nonmortal wounds.6 Other nations and peoples fared far worse. Combat, sieges, starvation, disease, aerial bombardments of civilian populations, and atrocities killed tens of millions of people. Thirty-five million soldiers and civilians died in Europe: approximately twenty million from the Soviet Union (one-sixth of its total population), 5.6 million Germans, three million Poles (not including Polish Jews), 1.6 million Yugoslavs, and 1.6 million other Europeans. The Nazis murdered nine million Jews, Russians, Poles, and others who were victims of their social and racial purity ideology. By May 1945, an estimated 40.5 million people, many of them Germans and Eastern Europeans, had been displaced by the war. Asian nations also suffered greatly. Chinese civilian and battle deaths numbered as many as fifteen million. The Japanese lost 2.7 million soldiers and noncombatants.7 When Emperor Hirohito asked the Japanese people to accept their nation’s surrender, nearly nine million were homeless and 6.5 million military personnel and civilians were stranded abroad in various locales.8 While the United States emerged from the world conflict a prosperous and powerful nation, unmarred by warfare within its borders, other nations faced years of repairing destroyed landscapes and economies. Going Overseas 15
Yet the end of the war did not release the United States from international conflict. Although the Soviet Union had proved a crucial ally whose enormous sacrifices helped secure victory, tensions between the U.S. and Soviet governments had undermined the wartime cooperation between the two nations. In February 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met in Yalta with Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, to discuss plans for the postwar world, including the structure of the United Nations, the occupation of Germany, and the matter of free elections in the Eastern European countries taken by the Soviets from the Germans. The question of democratic elections in Poland and other Eastern European nations, which Roosevelt and Churchill urged Stalin to allow, remained unresolved through the end of the war and became a raw nerve in international relations that contributed to the onset of the Cold War.9 Nor did the cessation of hostilities free the United States from international responsibilities. Since 1942, the United States had planned for the occupation of enemy nations.10 Upon achieving victory in Europe, the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union divided Germany into occupation zones. At the Potsdam conference in July 1945, leaders of the four Allied powers discussed initial occupation goals: demilitarization, which included the removal of Germany’s industrial capacity to wage war; denazification, which entailed the eradication of Nazi ideology and the purging of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers from positions of authority; the establishment of democratic government; the trial of war criminals; and reparations to the occupying powers. Whereas the United States shared the occupation of Germany and Austria with its allies, it dominated the occupation of Japan, with nominal input from two international advisory boards. The demilitarization and democratization of Japan composed the core of occupation policy there.11 Early in the occupations American policymakers did not focus as much as they would later on the economic reconstruction of Germany and Japan. In the meantime, because these countries were not economically or materially self-sufficient, the United States imported food and other necessities to alleviate hunger and prevent disease.12 The United States took on other international responsibilities besides the occupations of the leading Axis powers. The U.S. and Soviet militaries also occupied Korea, which Japan had controlled for four decades. Soviet forces occupied northern Korea, while American armies occupied the south. The Allies intended the occupation to restore Korean government and rebuild the nation’s economy.13 U.S. military personnel also participated in the monumental task of sheltering and transporting mil-
16 Going Overseas
lions of prisoners of war, displaced persons, refugees, and expellees in Europe and Asia.14 Americans who remained in the armed forces or were drafted after the war’s end worried about the prospect of several more months, perhaps even years, of staying overseas. In fact, no one could be sure exactly how long the occupations in Europe and Asia would last. At the Yalta meeting in February 1945, President Roosevelt said he believed that the American people would tolerate only a brief occupation of Germany, and estimated that public support for maintaining U.S. troops in Europe would last about two years after the defeat of Germany. Other occupation planners forecasted a longer stay in Germany, ranging from ten, fifteen, twentyfive, to even fifty years.15 In November 1945, a captain stationed in Germany wrote to Stars and Stripes to bemoan the lack of information about the length of the occupation: “We have nothing to look forward to except a continuance for an indefinite period of this daily, drudging and uninteresting existence. We are all becoming mentally troubled by the uncertainty.”16 This captain and other Americans serving abroad could not have known in late 1945 that the occupation of Germany would last several more years.17 As in the case of Germany, U.S. government and military leaders found it difficult to predict how long the occupation of Japan would last, or how many service personnel would be needed there. News reports on General Douglas MacArthur’s statements about reducing personnel in Japan in September 1945, and President Truman’s public and private reactions to MacArthur’s announcements, reveal the uncertainty of occupation planning so soon after the war. MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Asia, announced to the press on September 17 that the occupation of Japan might require only 200,000 troops, rather than the 500,000 initially believed crucial.18 Truman later wrote in his memoir that MacArthur’s pronouncement, of which he first learned when questioned about it by reporters, caught him off guard. In his public response to MacArthur’s declaration, Truman assured Americans that there would be “no padding in our armed forces” and that personnel deemed unnecessary would be released “as fast as the services can get them out.” But the President also stated that “no one now can accurately forecast what our occupation needs are going to be,” and suggested that the size and composition of overseas forces would remain unsettled until the spring of 1946. Privately, MacArthur’s maverick declaration had upset Truman. The President considered it “embarrassing” as well as destabilizing of his administration’s attempt to balance demands for demobilization with military necessity. On September 18, Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson tried to
Going Overseas 17
neutralize MacArthur’s announcement by stating that “[nobody] can see at this time the number of forces that will be necessary in Japan.”19
Families During and After the War While government officials attempted to plan for occupation needs, estimate troop numbers, and carry out other international objectives, American families who had tired of the unpredictability of the war years were eager to establish a stable home life. Despite the domestic upheaval caused by the entry of millions (mostly men, but also women) into the armed forces between the fall of 1940, when President Roosevelt approved the Selective Service Act, and the end of the war, marriage and birth rates soared in this period. During the Great Depression of the previous decade, the marriage rate had fallen below that of the 1920s, the birth rate had declined, and the divorce rate had risen.20 In 1940, the year after the outbreak of World War II in Europe—which increased demand for American industrial production, and thus provided employment opportunities that had not existed during the depression—marriage rates began to rise dramatically. “Instead of deterring Americans from embarking on family life,” writes historian Elaine Tyler May, “the war may have sped up the process.”21 In 1941 and 1942, the number of marriages in the United States reached historic heights. The war also sparked the baby boom that continued into the early 1960s. The reinvigoration of American industry by war production, exemptions of married men and fathers from the draft, and the impending departure of servicemen to foreign stations fueled the historically unprecedented surge in marriage and birth rates.22 Although the war revitalized the creation of families, it also upset routine family life. In January 1942, the director of the Selective Service asked draft boards not to exempt married men without children from military duty. The next year, the Selective Service moved to induct fathers into the armed forces in order to meet predicted needs for personnel. Between October and December 1943, the percentage of fathers inducted into the services jumped from 6.8 to 26.5 percent; in April 1944, nearly fifty-three percent of draftees were fathers. As of June 1945, an estimated four million men in the armed forces were married.23 Wives employed a variety of strategies to cope with their husbands’ military duty. Some women accompanied their husbands to posts in the United States, making homes and finding jobs on or near military bases. Thelma Thurston Gorham reported that African-American couples in Fort Huachuca, Arizona lived in cramped quarters she described as “slum dwellings,” with no kitchens, where eleven soldiers and their spouses 18 Going Overseas
shared one shower and two sinks.24 Joining husbands on posts often proved impractical in the United States, and was impossible when the men departed for service in most foreign countries. Before 1941, the United States had established military sites (mostly naval bases) in Alaska, Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Philippines, and Panama. During the war, the United States vastly bolstered its military presence around the globe, especially fortifying armed forces installations in Europe and the Pacific.25 Approximately three out of four military personnel served overseas during the war for an average period of sixteen months, many leaving spouses to manage households without them.26 The formation of so many new families during the war, employment opportunities in cities, and the War Production Board’s ban on nondefense construction precipitated a scarcity of affordable housing that prevented families from enjoying the domestic ideal of single-family dwellings. Some women and their children lived with relatives while husbands were away or shared houses with other families.27 The need to support themselves and their children placed many women in the role of primary breadwinner and financial manager for their families.28 Wives, children, and others classified as “dependents” of enlisted men were eligible to receive monetary allowances from the federal government, but these allowances did not cover all household expenses, especially in industrial cities where costs of living were high.29 Economic necessity, the desire to aid the war effort, and opportunities for personally satisfying work prompted women’s entry into the labor force, which increased sixty percent during the war years. Of the new women workers, three out of four were married, and one out of three were mothers of children under fourteen years of age.30 In 1944, nearly 2.7 million mothers held jobs in defense industries.31 Women not only supported families financially but also shouldered all the other responsibilities of single parenthood in the absence of fathers. Catherine Redmond, author of Handbook for Army Wives and Mothers, told her readers that “From the moment your husband goes into the Army until his return you alone are responsible for the family, for the home and the pattern of life your marriage has created. What has been a shared burden, or joy, now becomes a single one.” Redmond advised women to assess their financial situation and budget living expenses, be honest with their children about the need for careful spending, encourage children to assist the war effort through collecting scrap metal and conserving resources, and not to try to compensate for the absence of fathers by being either too strict or too lenient with children.32 Many military wives had given birth to children who had yet to meet their fathers; other children were too young to remember “Daddy.” Women who worked and raised Going Overseas 19
children while their husbands were gone were subjected to a plethora of warnings and criticisms. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, charged that the allegedly neglected children of working mothers were in danger of “stumbling into the dreaded maze of delinquency and disease, of reformatory and prison, or, if they are not apprehended, of maiming and plundering.” Others worried that mothers would imperil the well-being of their offspring if the absence of husbands caused them to dote too heavily on sons and daughters.33 Not all, but most Americans were willing to endure privations and disruptions in family life for the duration of the war, believing this a patriotic duty. Once the Allies achieved victory, however, Americans became less tolerant of family separation and domestic hardships. They wanted to reconstitute their families and establish stable homes. Couples who had become engaged or married after brief courtships and then separated during wartime looked forward to rejoining partners, having babies, and setting up permanent households. After a decade of economic depression and several years of war, hard work, and domestic upheaval, people were eager to purchase houses and modern appliances. The home represented an ideal for which Americans had fought, abroad and on the home front, during the war. In 1944, advertisers promised that the impending shift from war production to the production of consumer goods would bring comfort and domesticity in the form of refrigerators, washing machines, hot-water heaters, and vacuum cleaners.34 At the war’s end, Americans were impatient to realize an idealized vision of domesticity in which fathers were back home, financially supporting their families while their stay-at-home wives kept comfortable, modern households and raised children.35 The prospect of women’s long-term employment worried Americans. Although millions of women had entered the work force during the war, and many had taken jobs traditionally reserved for men, many Americans considered women’s wartime work a temporary arrangement necessitated by national crisis rather than a permanent endorsement of women’s right to paid employment. Most women who had held “men’s” jobs in defense industries lost these to men after the war.36 For many Americans, the establishment of postwar normality required the reassertion of gender roles that positioned men as breadwinners and women as primarily wives, mothers, and homemakers. Wives and children separated from husbands and fathers demanded the speedy return of men after the end of the war. “The fighting in Europe had hardly ended when pressure began to build up for the release of men in the armed forces,” President Truman recalled. “With the end of hostilities in the Pacific, the public demand for the discharge of the millions of men in the service became insistent.”37 In September 1945, an Army wife in20 Going Overseas
formed the Office of Dependency Benefits that she would prefer the homecoming of her husband to her monthly dependent’s allotment check. “Think of the money you could save,” she urged the administrators.38 Other women united to make their demands known. Three hundred service wives in Toledo, Ohio founded a “Bring Back My Daddy” club, declaring that “all cases where fathers have been taken from their homes are extreme hardship cases no matter how little service they have had. They should all be sent home to their families.” A club representative complained that the government allowances for service families were inadequate because of the high cost of living, voicing the widely held conviction that families could not thrive without income-earning men in the home. Group members entreated Congress to return husbands and fathers to their families and “Send the idle single men abroad.”39 Women in a “Bring Back Daddy” club in Wisconsin sent baby shoes and booties to senators, including the chairman of the Senate Military Committee, accompanied by requests to “Please send my daddy home.”40 In response to a news report about women’s demands to return fathers to their families, Captain R. Hope (probably a fictitious name), stationed in Germany, wrote a letter to Stars and Stripes claiming that he and his Army colleagues who did not want to be left overseas had created an “I Wanta Be a Daddy Club” that welcomed “childless husbands, fiancés or the thousands of men who have yet to meet the right girl back home.”41
Making the Case for Sending Families Abroad Military and civilian leaders tried to appease Americans who wanted to reunite their families. In November 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower— until recently the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, now the new Army Chief of Staff—declared that although the military needed personnel to meet weighty overseas responsibilities and ensure peace, he advocated demobilization “to restore men to their family circles.”42 The Selective Service announced the following month that it would no longer draft fathers.43 This decision did not, however, bring the instantaneous discharge of all fathers. Only men with three or more children could apply for immediate release from the service. Family members still complained that men were not coming home quickly enough.44 In January 1946, a group of approximately twenty women who identified themselves as delegates from the Servicemen’s Wives and Children’s Association intercepted General Eisenhower as he made his way to a Congressional hearing, to ask him for the release of husbands and fathers from the armed forces. The general invited them Going Overseas 21
This Life magazine “Picture of the Week” from February 1946 captured General Eisenhower’s impromptu meeting with military wives. The meeting reportedly “left him ‘emotionally upset.’” Photo Credit: AP/Wide World Photos.
into the office of the chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee and spent half an hour listening to their demands for the immediate release of GI fathers, then of “childless married men” who, the women argued, should be allowed to “start the families they have been prevented from founding.” Eisenhower informed the women that the immediate discharge of married men would deplete the manpower of the armed forces and harm international objectives.45 Shortly after this meeting, Stars and Stripes reported that the Senate subcommittee investigating demobilization recommended the release of all fathers by July 1, 1946, despite Eisenhower’s assertion that the Army realistically could not release more than 500,000 of 700,000 fathers by that date.46 General Eisenhower had been thinking about the problem of family separation well before the confrontation with service wives in Washington, D.C. On May 12, 1945, a few days after Germany’s surrender, he had told his wife, Mamie, his thoughts on sending American families abroad. “[O]ne thing I hope for is to work out some ‘policy’ by which families can come over here,” he wrote in a letter to Mamie from his headquarters in 22 Going Overseas
Reims, France. “[T]he difficulty will be so to formulate it that the lowest private has the same right as the highest general. This, I must insist upon!”47 In early June, Eisenhower proposed the following policy to General George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff who had served as President Roosevelt’s principal adviser on the war: Any officer or enlisted man of the first three grades who volunteers for service of indefinite period in the occupation forces, regardless of his point total, may apply to the Theater Commander for authority to bring his wife into the European Theater. Contingent upon a showing that satisfactory accommodations can be provided, and upon compliance with any rules that may be established by the medical authorities involving health standards of persons coming to this Theater, free transportation will be provided for such wives from the port of embarkation in United States to destination in this Theater. Except in cases of emergency or specific orders of the War Department, no commitments can be made as to the time that any wife brought into the Theater under this authority can be returned to the United States.
Eisenhower stated that General Omar Bradley, the commander of the Twelfth Army Group in Europe, “has been the only senior officer I know who has been an ardent supporter of some such policy, but I am sure something of this order will eventually have to be done.”48 From the turn of the century to the onset of World War II, the armed forces had provided transportation and other limited assistance to spouses and children who lived with personnel stationed in foreign countries. Eisenhower’s proposal represented a potentially major commitment on the part of the military to support more families abroad than ever before in the history of the United States.49 General Eisenhower’s personal difficulty in coping with family separation helped him to see that it would also pose a hardship for other service personnel after the war ended. He confessed to Marshall that his own state of mind and longing for family influenced his position on reuniting military wives with husbands in Europe. “I will admit that the last six weeks have been my hardest of the war,” he wrote, “[but] part of my trouble is that I just plain miss my family.” Eisenhower acknowledged that he and his son John, who served in the First Division in Europe, visited monthly, “but it is not the same thing as being able to re-establish, after three years, something of a home.” He also told Marshall that the separation placed a strain on his wife Mamie, and that “I would feel far more comfortable about her if she could be with me.” He closed his message by wondering whether the European Command and the American Going Overseas 23
public would disapprove if Mamie were allowed to join him, even if the War Department would not yet approve his proposal to send military wives abroad. “I should like very much to have your frank reaction,” Eisenhower wrote, “because while I am perfectly willing to carry on in this assignment as long as the War Department may decide I should do so, I really would like to make it a bit easier on myself from the personal viewpoint.”50 A few days later, General Marshall replied that for the time being, it would not be possible for Eisenhower or anyone else to bring his spouse to the European Theater. “The time has not yet come for such procedure,” wrote Marshall, “and I am rather dubious about ever restricting it to a select group if authorized.” Marshall was correct in anticipating that basing the travel of spouses abroad on rank would pose a concern in later months to policymakers.51 To create some semblance of being with family, Eisenhower asked his son to join him in Frankfurt rather than move on to the Pacific theater.52 Though military leaders wished to postpone dealing with the matter of sending wives abroad until the end of the Pacific war, the issue arose in other venues. In May 1945, Representative Margaret Chase Smith of Maine asked Secretary of War Henry Stimson to allow wives and fiancées to join servicemen in Europe on tours of duty lasting a minimum of one year. In her letter to Stimson, Smith argued that the presence of wives and fiancées in occupied countries would boost servicemen’s morale and efficiency. Smith asserted that besides aiding military goals, sending spouses and future wives abroad would arrest the “disintegration” of American homes and families and preserve “domestic ideals.” In radio broadcasts, Smith offered additional reasons for sending wives and fiancées overseas. Since military transports were bringing foreign-born war brides to the United States, she reasoned, then these same ships should be used to bring American women to their partners abroad. She suggested that these women could work for government agencies in occupied areas, serving as “stable and efficient employees.” Smith also expressed the fear, shared by many American women, that servicemen’s fraternization with German women would spread “Nazi ideas” and harm American families. In response to Representative Smith’s letter, a War Department official stated that transportation problems, food and housing shortages, unrest in occupied zones, and the continuation of the Pacific war necessitated a ban on travel to Europe by civilians—service wives and fiancées included.53 Army Air Force chaplain Clarence Comfort, Jr., like Congresswoman Smith and many other American women, shared the fear that servicemen abroad were succumbing to immorality, but believed that a return to family life could rescue them. On August 1, Comfort wrote to Truman’s military aide Colonel Harry Vaughan that occupation forces in Europe, “from 24 Going Overseas
the rank of Major General to Private,” who were “suffering from the extreme ravages of loneliness” were going “absolutely to rot and ruin,” implying that they were engaging in sexual liaisons with local women to lessen their misery. Even “Chaplains have not escaped this same downhill dive,” claimed Comfort. The solution, he declared, was to “let some of the enemy starve and die in order to bring to these men the only ones who can save them, namely, their families.”54 A few weeks before the war ended in the Pacific, Navy officers in the United Kingdom asked whether their families could join them. Vice Admiral R. L. Ghormley, commander of United States Naval Forces in Europe, inquired about the policy of the armed forces in the European theater regarding the travel of families to the United Kingdom, and proposed that the wives of Navy officers expecting to serve there for at least another six months be allowed to join their husbands. European Theater of Operations officials refused Ghormley’s request, citing numerous factors to support their policy: that it would be unfair for officers but not enlisted personnel, and for Navy personnel but not Army personnel, to enjoy the privilege of having family members with them; that military planners anticipated abandoning the United Kingdom base within six months, thus making it impractical to send family members there for such a short time; that the area lacked accommodations for American family members; and finally, that bringing American families to the region would exacerbate the shortage of food and fuel in the area and harm the British economy.55 Though the families of most eligible personnel would not arrive abroad until the late spring and early summer of 1946, exceptions were made for families of military attachés in Latin America, and later in numerous nonoccupied countries. The Navy justified its policy of allowing spouses to join attachés on the grounds that “wives of naval personnel in diplomatic status could afford valuable assistance in performance of official duties,” continuing the military’s long-standing reliance on the unpaid work of officers’ wives, as well as foreshadowing postwar expectations that family members would aid occupation goals.56 In August, shortly after V-J day, President Truman told military planners that he preferred to focus on bringing soldiers home rather than sending families overseas. He did, however, indicate a willingness to consider the possibility of eventually allowing the families of military government personnel—who would be expected to stay abroad for longer periods of time—to join husbands and fathers.57 Also that summer, service wives wrote letters to the War Department asking that their families be allowed to join servicemen abroad. In their letters, they expressed concerns about raising children without the guidance of fathers, and also about “promiscuous” German women whom they feared would seduce servicemen.58 Going Overseas 25
Problems of Maintaining Servicemen Abroad The matter of sending families overseas became intertwined with other military issues: morale, retention, discipline, and fraternization with local women. Assertions that the presence of families could help to deal with difficulties caused by rapid demobilization, low morale, poor discipline, and liaisons with local women bolstered arguments for sending families abroad. Such arguments also would have resonated for Americans who believed that stable family life would help cure the ills — dislocation, low spirits, crime, and the disruption of overseas communities—caused by war. In the fall and winter of 1945–1946, military personnel stationed in foreign countries complained of low morale and clamored to go home. In October, GIs in Tokyo demanded improvements in their “unsanitary” quarters and “unpalatable” food. The mother of a private stationed in Japan blamed her son’s criminal acts—the murder of two Japanese—on “the emotional strain of delayed homecoming.”59 Cornelius DeForest, a former Army colonel who joined the U.S. military government in Germany in March 1945, told his wife in December of that year that “Our big trouble here is that everyone wants to go home. The morale is not good.” In a subsequent letter he complained that “[the] trouble is ‘Redeployment.’ All the good personnel [are] going home. Second raters left and they just think of going home. Don’t care a heck.”60 In early 1946, servicemen and servicewomen around the world — in the Philippines, China, England, France, Germany, Hawaii, and California—protested the decision to slow down the discharge of personnel deemed necessary for overseas duties.61 Pressure from families, Congress, and the troops themselves contributed to the rapid demobilization of millions of military personnel in the year following the war. President Truman agonized over the “dangerous speed” at which personnel were released.62 Between June 1945 and June 1946, the number of servicemen and servicewomen shrank from approximately twelve million to just over three million. Enlisted personnel were released more quickly than officers.63 By June 30, 1947, the number of active duty personnel totaled about 1.583 million.64 Postwar planners attempted to reconcile the need for personnel with demands to discharge servicemen and servicewomen.65 Military leaders identified the improvement of morale as a means to recruit and retain personnel for overseas duty, believing that this would help military operations run smoothly and encourage the reenlistment of well-trained and competent personnel. Good morale reflected the general well-being of armed forces members and helped to ensure that they performed their du26 Going Overseas
ties effectively and remained well-disciplined. The armed forces attempted to bolster morale by offering recreation, entertainment, education, and welfare services—including access to snack bars, post exchanges, barber shops, automobiles, medical care, and religious services—to all ranks.66 Military accounts linked low morale to poor discipline and criminal behavior. According to an Army report, crimes committed by servicemen in Europe increased immediately after the war because of the flux created by shifting forces from liberated to occupied zones, restrictions on leave for servicemen stationed in occupied regions, and the rapid rate of demobilization. As the occupation progressed, Germans also became more willing to report Americans’ misconduct. Servicemen’s criminal behavior included rampant involvement in the black market, reckless driving, drunkenness, looting, pilferage, illegal hunting, robbery, rape, and homicide. Enlisted personnel and officers alike participated in black marketeering, which centered on the trade in coffee, cigarettes, chocolate, and even artwork and military vehicles.67 During the first six months of occupation in Germany, 7,800 motor vehicle accidents occurred, almost all involving American service personnel. The incident rate of serious crimes in Germany nearly tripled between August 1945 and January 1946. Major General Franklin Davis later attributed crimes committed by servicemen to “cultural shock” and “the abnormalities of the occupation atmosphere, coupled with the decline in discipline arising out of the wholesale deployment of the combat army and the multidimensional temptations facing the average American soldier on occupation duty.”68 Some servicemen committed violent crimes against local people. The Army noted a rise in “crimes against persons” in Europe between January 1946 and June 1947. Between May 1945 and June 1947, the Army recorded nearly 1,000 rapes by American servicemen in Europe.69 Beginning with the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945 and continuing into the occupation, American soldiers attacked Okinawan civilians and sexually assaulted girls and women. In response, the U.S. commanding general announced in May 1945 that rapists would be subjected to the death penalty.70 After the war, servicemen’s violent and criminal behavior exacerbated tensions between Okinawans and occupation forces. Okinawa gained a reputation as a base where the bad behavior of servicemen blighted the image of the American military. In 1949, Life depicted the military presence in Okinawa as “a shameful mess” that, despite its “top value in the strategy of Pacific defense,” represented “no credit to America.” The article reported “the ugly fact that in the six months ending last September [1949] U.S. soldiers had murdered 29 Okinawans, raped 18, [and] robbed or assaulted 49.”71 In his account of the early years of the armed forces in Okinawa, Army officer Morton Morris described the Going Overseas 27
attack of “an Itoman girl snatched into the back of a moving truck, criminally assaulted by twenty soldiers, and cast out without the truck’s ever stopping.” Undoubtedly, more sexual assaults occurred than were reported.72 Fraternization between American servicemen and local women created another source of friction in occupied communities.73 Military intelligence reports from 1945 described Germans’ angry responses to liaisons between German women and American servicemen. One report told of “open letters directed at the fraternizing frauleins and their misconduct.”74 In some cases, Germans cut off the hair of girls who associated with American men.75 Another military report reprinted a condemnatory poem (translated from German to English for the report) inscribed on four posters that appeared in the town of Muehldorf one Sunday morning in November 1945. The anonymous author(s) of the poem included a list of the names of German “girls” allegedly in relationships with American soldiers. The poem denounced the girls as “whores” in love with “the murderers of the German youth.”76 The concentration of American servicemen in occupied lands attracted girls and women who worked as prostitutes. In Germany, “Some women resorted to prostitution to save themselves and their families from starvation,” writes historian Petra Goedde. “For others it became an additional source of income.”77 An Army report attributed part of the blame for American servicemen’s relations with European prostitutes to the men’s drinking, promiscuity, immaturity, and “boundless faith . . . in the curative powers of penicillin.” The account also listed hunger, economic hardship, and Nazism (to which German women’s alleged “moral laxity” was attributed) as causes of prostitution and high rates of venereal disease.78 In Japan, a young prostitute interviewed on a radio broadcast said that “Of course it’s bad to be a hooker. But without relatives or jobs due to the war disaster, how are we supposed to live?” Soon after their nation’s surrender, Japanese government officials and police worked with entrepreneurs to arrange for Japanese women to sexually service occupation forces in “comfort facilities,” beseeching them to “give their bodies ‘for the country.’” Several months later, occupation officials outlawed prostitution, but not before many prostitutes and their clients contracted venereal infections.79 In Okinawa, brothels, bars, and nightclubs transformed one town into what Morton Morris termed “a neon-lit nirvana for Neanderthals.” Morris described how Okinawans visiting a shrine in the midst of this district were forced to “pick their way through all kinds of American night clubs and whorehouses.”80 Venereal disease rates soared among troops in Okinawa, Japan and Germany.81 Sexual relations between servicemen and local women resulted in tens 28 Going Overseas
of thousands (possibly more) of children. According to one estimate, American servicemen left twenty to thirty thousand children in Germany as of 1953; others speculated that servicemen fathered 94,000 babies during the occupation.82 In European and Asian countries, many mixed-race children fathered by American servicemen were ostracized or abandoned. Miki Sawada, a Japanese woman born to an affluent family, was deeply affected by stories of findings of dead mixed-race babies fathered by servicemen, born to Japanese girls and women. After discovering a dead baby on a train, Sawada decided to use one of her father’s estates as a home for abandoned or relinquished mixed-race children who would otherwise have been shunned.83 In a 1951 Ebony article, Sawada estimated that 2,000 “GI babies” born to unwed mothers lived in Japan, and thought that a comparable number of infants had been murdered at birth. The article reported that many grandparents of mixed-race children moved to a different city to avoid “disgrace.”84
Going Abroad The need to improve low morale and solve the many other problems associated with stationing hundreds of thousands of service personnel abroad coincided with demands for the reunion of families. An Army account cited the “reestablishment of normal family life,” said to constitute “an essential long-term morale measure,” as the primary motivation for sending families overseas. General Lucius Clay, the deputy military governor and then military governor of the American zone in Germany, believed that whether or not families could come to Germany would influence the recruitment and work performance of occupation personnel, stating that “Military Government would not obtain qualified personnel willing to spend several years in Germany if it meant separation from their families.”85 Officials also hoped that “normal family ties” would reduce fraternization in Germany, and alter contacts so that German-American interactions were not primarily between servicemen and German women.86 In addition, it was expected that men whose families were present would be more likely to stay out of trouble. Assessments of the occupation in Germany correlated the decline in servicemen’s criminal behavior with the arrival of families.87 Moreover, military planners assumed that the project of reuniting families in foreign lands would reduce complaints from the home front about family separation.88 Beginning in the fall of 1945, military planners discussed preliminary preparations for transporting, receiving, and accommodating families overseas. The European theater’s Special Occupational Planning Board, Going Overseas 29
formed in September to devise general plans for housing and various services, anticipated that the theater could begin to receive American families in April 1946.89 Shortages of “food, fuel, and housing” made it impossible for families to go to Europe earlier.90 Families were authorized transportation to Pacific commands as of May 1.91 On February 1, 1946, Stars and Stripes reported the War Department’s January 31 announcement that, depending on the availability of housing, subsistence, and medical services, families “may soon join soldiers in all overseas theaters.”92 Shortly thereafter, service members received instructions for making arrangements for their families to join them abroad. Personnel were to initiate the process by submitting applications to station commanders. The War Department based priority for the shipment of families on service members’ willingness to remain at an overseas station for at least one year, and on cumulative overseas duty since December 1941. Except in emergencies, family members were to remain overseas with their service husbands or fathers (termed “sponsors”) until the sponsor received orders to leave the command. Initially, rank was not supposed to determine transportation priority. In later years, however, the government did not provide transportation and housing for families of enlisted men in the lowest grades (those who ranked below noncommissioned officers), reportedly out of concern that these personnel were unable to financially support their spouses and children abroad.93 The impending arrival of American families triggered extensive preparations at foreign bases. Occupation authorities requisitioned houses and apartments from citizens of Germany and Japan. Where funding and materials were available, the military constructed quarters for families. In nonoccupied areas, such as France, severe shortages of housing and construction resources prevented the entry of many families for several months.94 A February 1946 article from U.S. News and World Report warned families en route to overseas bases that “housing will be poor and largely improvised.”95 Many of the residences requisitioned in occupied countries, however, were more spacious and elaborate than anything some families had ever known. Designers of overseas communities made plans for commissaries, post exchanges, recreational facilities, post offices, barber shops, beauty salons, soda fountains, auto repair shops, and venues for religious ceremonies. They ordered refrigerators, toasters, and baby food to help American families recreate home life in a foreign country.96 Overseas commands also helped to arrange for the schooling of children, although the War Department refused to fund this during the 1946– 1947 academic year, and so parents paid for tuition and supplies.97 Upon receiving authorization to join service personnel abroad, wives and children made their own preparations. Family members applied for 30 Going Overseas
passports and received inoculations, depending on the destination, against diseases such as smallpox, typhoid, typhus, cholera, and tetanus. They made arrangements for packing, crating, and shipping the household goods they wanted to take overseas, and for storing the rest at Army installations. Some families received authorization to ship their automobiles on military transports. With the approval of overseas commanders, families could send their pets to their destinations (excluding Japan), though they could not bring the animals on board ship with them.98 The journey began when families received notification to report to a port of embarkation—New York or New Orleans for those en route to destinations across the Atlantic, San Francisco or Seattle for those traveling across the Pacific. In the 1940s, nearly all families traveled by ship; air travel would not become common until the 1950s. Spouses and children made their way to ports via automobile, bus, train, or airplane. The War Department absorbed most transportation expenses for families authorized to join service personnel abroad. After arriving at port, families might wait for days or even weeks before their ship departed.99 The U.S. military in the Pacific was concerned to ease the fears of family members traveling to Japan. In an account prepared for the Public Information Section of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Bernadine Lee described the process of getting herself and her three children from Texas to Japan in September 1946, to join her husband, Captain Cecil Lee, stationed in Japan since December 1945. After the children had received the necessary inoculations from Army doctors, the Lees traveled via bus from Galveston to Seattle, the port of embarkation for military families en route to Japan. After three days in Seattle, the Lees and more than 800 other Army wives and children boarded a ship—described by Bernadine Lee as a “luxury liner”—for the nine-day voyage to Yokohama. The service families endured cold weather, rough seas, and crowding, but according to Bernadine Lee, “the accommodations were good, the food excellent.”100 Another service wife recalled a journey to Japan far less pleasant than that described by Bernadine Lee. In 1949, Mary Jane Vann, the wife of Army infantry officer John Paul Vann, and her two children spent three weeks in a barracks with the wives and children of enlisted men at the Seattle port of embarkation. During the wait to board ship, a measles epidemic afflicted many of the children. At sea, the Vanns—the only officer’s family on board — shared a compartment with several other families. Mary Jane Vann’s son John Allen suffered from fever and diarrhea on the trip; someone else’s child lost a finger smashed by the steel door of the communal toilet. Cornelius DeForest also related an account he had heard about the unpleasant ocean voyage endured by a colleague’s family that Going Overseas 31
came to Germany in 1946: “43 women and children crowded on one deck with no port holes. Rather small boat. The boat lost an impeller, and floated around 3 days while repairs were being made . . . quite a bit of sea sickness.”101 Fanfare greeted the families as their ships came into port. The first families to arrive in Europe docked at Bremerhaven, Germany on April 16. Because of inadequate and crowded facilities at Bremerhaven, service personnel were not allowed to meet their families there. Instead, they waited as spouses and children made the next leg of the journey via train to Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt, and other destinations in Europe.102 Twenty-two Navy and Marine Corps families, the first service families to arrive in occupied Japan, cruised into harbor on the USS Carroll on June 21. A few days later, the Ainsworth brought another 180 families to Japan, airplanes soaring above the ship as it neared the Yokohama harbor. Leis, music, and servicemen welcomed the women and children. Unlike in Europe, service personnel in Japan were allowed to meet their families at the dock. Some families had been separated for more than a year. On the jeep ride from the harbor to their new home in Tokyo, Bernadine Lee and her children gazed upon Japanese women in kimonos who carried babies on their backs, while the Japanese gazed back at the American family.103
Housing Early in the occupation, there was no question that American families would receive accommodations superior to those of their vanquished foes. Most American families in Germany were assigned to private houses or apartments requisitioned from Germans. Still, the Americans coped with a dearth of furniture and refrigerators as well as heating and power deficiencies during that first year. Before the large-scale construction of the 1950s, an American “military community” often consisted of small groups of buildings—living quarters, schools, churches, and various service facilities—scattered throughout a city, off-limits to unauthorized Germans. Yet restricted access to American communities did not mean that service families never encountered non-Americans. Most families hired at least one domestic worker from the local population; many Americans employed Germans and displaced persons (many of them Eastern Europeans who had been prisoners of and forced laborers for the Nazis) as maids, cooks, nannies, and gardeners. 104 Military wives described housing in mainland Japan during the early postwar years as attractive and comfortable, though not without some drawbacks. In the article published to allay the fears of military families, 32 Going Overseas
Bernadine Lee portrayed the living situation and the Japanese people as welcoming. According to Lee, four servants cheerfully greeted her family upon arrival. Lee credited them, and the friendly neighbors, for melting her fears that the Japanese would be hostile to the American occupiers. The Lees lived in a western-style, two-story house equipped with modern appliances, surrounded by “gracious old trees [and] a yard friendly in shrubs and flowers.” Lee stated that her family enjoyed such a house because of her husband’s twenty-five years in the service, and because of the needs of a three-child family. “Ours is not the finest home in Tokyo,” she wrote, “nor is it the most modest.” Other Americans resided in villas, Quonset huts, or apartments. The Vann family, like the Lees, lived in a spacious and attractive house. Mary Jane Vann appreciated the welltended landscape and the flower arrangements created by their congenial domestic employees. But to her dismay, infestations of cockroaches, centipedes, and rats offset the house’s good points. Despite the efforts of Army exterminators, the rats endured. In 1950, the Vanns moved out of the house after an accidental fire set by a maid, into a pretentious residence designed by Frank Lloyd Wright before the war for an affluent Japanese family.105 World-famous architectural design, spacious rooms, and pleasant landscapes certainly did not characterize most military housing. Many families in Okinawa resided in poorly constructed and unattractive housing into the late 1940s. Homes consisted of Quonset huts and flimsy structures that did not withstand typhoon weather well. A December 1949 U.S. News & World Report article described military family quarters impaired by leaky roofs, broken windows, defective plumbing, and poor ventilation, and reported that one sergeant’s family continued living in a Quonset hut that had been condemned as unfit for occupancy four months earlier. That same month, Life declared that “The U.S. military men and their dependents live in this depressing place with few amusements and a lot of homesickness.” A photograph that accompanied the article featured a major, his wife, two daughters, and a pet dog standing before their “typhoonized Quonset hut.” The strange structure that resembled a halfcylinder enclosed in aluminum siding, with boarded windows, situated on a lot with no lawn or garden, probably would have struck most Americans as an unsuitable dwelling for a family.106 Over the next decade, families altered the military landscape by adding a domestic dimension to U.S. overseas bases. They brought with them characteristics of American life otherwise absent in military environments, where large numbers of service personnel, mostly men, lived and worked. Servicemen without their families roomed in barracks, if they were enlisted men, or quarters for bachelor officers. They ate in mess Going Overseas 33
The Shelley family in front of their “typhoonized quonset hut.” Notice the Okinawans in the background on the right. Photo credit: Carl Mydans/Stinger/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
halls, cafeterias, snack bars, or clubs. In contrast, families lived in houses or apartments either in complexes on military bases, or “on the economy,” that is, in residences outside military bases. The facilities built for personnel and families—houses, schools, playgrounds, commissaries, gas stations, churches, clubs, skating rinks, beauty parlors — gave military communities a suburban American air. On-base developments that housed hundreds of American families came to be known as “Little Americas,” whose occupants drew criticism from civilian as well as military Americans for allegedly not venturing out of their self-contained communities to interact with residents of occupied and host nations.107 Into the 1950s and after, the type and quality of family housing varied by location. During the occupations, the armed forces constructed extensive housing projects in Germany and Japan, where the biggest populations of military families were located. In the town of Kastel, for example, the Air Force converted former German military barracks into apartments for American families. In Japan, rehabilitated office buildings and hotels served as family quarters. The eventual return of requisitioned residences to owners entailed new construction of houses and apartments in Germany and Japan. To cope with housing shortages in some areas (such as Germany), military commands imposed a policy that limited “concurrent sponsor-dependent travel” which meant that personnel arrived in assigned 34 Going Overseas
Drawing of a military base in Welcome to Itazuke: First Far East Home of the F100’s pamphlet, pp. 16 & 17. Source: Itazuke Air Base. Office of Information Services. Fukuoka, Japan: Kaneko Printing Co., n.d. (circa 1957). Going Overseas 35
stations well ahead of their families.108 In the Philippines in the 1950s, families made homes in Quonset huts, prefabricated wooden houses, and concrete structures. In France, military housing consisted of ranch-style houses, apartments, and trailers, but their limited availability required most families to seek housing in French communities. In England, like France, most families lived off base. The American military population in Spain was small and no base housing existed, so all families lived in Spanish neighborhoods, although a commissary and school for military children were available in Madrid.109 As increasing numbers of families joined service personnel overseas during the 1950s, the supply of housing did not match the demand. By 1950, an estimated 90,000 military family members lived overseas, mainly in West Germany and Japan; by 1960, this number would climb to over 462,000.110 Even after substantial funding increases for construction at overseas bases, so many families joined service personnel abroad that many of those not assigned government housing lived in residences off base or were forced to wait twelve to eighteen months for military accommodations, especially in Japan and Germany.111 A 1964 informational book for naval officers’ wives warned readers that “No matter what you may hear as to the joys of the tropics or the charm of the Old World, the standard of living in some places outside the United States is not always the same as that within the continental limits, and many things that we consider prime necessities may be scarce or not available at all,” either in military housing or off base.112 Thus, for many military families, the post– World War II ideal of family life would prove challenging to realize abroad many years after the war’s end.
Conclusion The cessation of war did not free the United States from international responsibilities. Although the armed forces released millions of service personnel in the year following the war’s end, U.S. policymakers considered it crucial not only for the overseas occupations but also for global stability and rebuilding to maintain a large international military presence. Even President Truman and the highest-ranking military officials did not know how long the occupations would last or how many U.S. forces would need to remain abroad. Yet after nearly four years of war, most American military personnel who found themselves in foreign lands wanted to go home to find jobs, further their educations, and return to or take up family life. On the home front, demands for reuniting families became insistent, and the desire to achieve the cultural ideal of the family loomed larger than the 36 Going Overseas
problems abroad that seemed so far away to many Americans. The low morale and discipline problems of personnel who remained overseas or were sent after the war’s end were undermining the foreign relations goals of aiding allied nations and reconstructing enemy nations at a time when the United States was taking on greater international responsibility in peacetime than ever before. Unwilling to send all the officers and troops home, the U.S. government instead sought to bring some part of “home” to servicemen stationed abroad. Sending military families overseas to bolster men’s morale and retain and recruit capable personnel helped make it possible for the United States to meet its expanded postwar international responsibilities.
Going Overseas 37
2 Unofficial Ambassadors
American families arriving in Germany and Japan in 1946 learned that the armed forces considered them part of the occupation mission. An Army representative informed women and teenagers in the American zone of Germany that “You are also serving your country while here.”1 Like official personnel serving abroad, wives and children received orientation and guidance about living overseas and coming face to face with Germans and Japanese. A pamphlet for families in Kyoto, Japan, informed readers that “As a part of an army in the field dependents of U.S. personnel are subject to the regulations which [pertain to] all Armed Forces personnel in this theater. Because of your unique position as members of an occupation force in Japan, it is necessary that you set for yourselves the highest standards of personal behavior.”2 In Germany, spouses and children fourteen and older were to attend a four-hour orientation program in which the Army facilitator told them that every American man, woman, and child in the European Theater has the power to do either good or harm to our foreign relations, depending on his contacts with the Europeans. A thoughtless, careless, selfish, or insolent attitude can make an enemy of a former friend or a future friend. A sympathetic and helpful manner may bring the opposite result. Let each one take the responsibility for doing what he can to improve the foreign relations of his country.3
Both the guide for families in Japan and the orientation for spouses and children in Germany assumed that American families should help to advance the missions of the armed forces in those countries. In referring to spouses and children as “part of an army in the field” and “members of an occupation force,” the Kyoto pamphlet reveals that authorities of the armed forces considered the families of personnel not as external to the military, but integral to it. The orientation program attests to the assumption of occupation authorities that the attitudes and actions of American family members, in their encounters with Europeans, could help or hinder 38
relations with residents of European countries, and by extension, foreign relations. This chapter analyzes the emergence of the view that military families abroad should play a part in foreign relations during the post–World War II and early Cold War eras. After World War II, many Americans believed more strongly than ever that the protection of their interests required greater involvement and leadership of the United States in world affairs. Many American leaders, and much of the general public, supported cooperation with other nations in dealing with the devastation, hunger, and turbulence wrought by the war, and increasingly, in opposing communism, which they feared would take over nations and harm U.S. security and economic interests. The military encouraged personnel stationed abroad to promote international cooperation by showing generosity and establishing friendly relations with the peoples of occupied and host nations. These overtures occurred in the broader context of the American public’s growing awareness of the United States’ expanded postwar global involvement. American popular culture examined U.S. servicemen’s connections with peoples of other countries, and explored the significance of these relationships as well as the most effective ways for the United States to influence non-Americans. In the meantime, an important transformation in the military was underway: families were becoming a greater presence in the armed forces. More personnel were married than had been the case before World War II. Whereas before the war the armed forces had tended to view families as more burdensome than useful, after the war the Army, Navy, and Air Force increasingly regarded families as important components of the military. Military planners hoped that the presence of American families overseas would do more than improve morale and discipline among personnel and alleviate family separation. The arrival of thousands of families abroad was part of the U.S. commitment to greater international involvement that had begun before the nation entered World War II. International cooperation with allies and victory over communism were believed to require not only a tough military approach, but also understanding and friendship which families—especially wives—were to represent abroad. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, families reshaped fundamental conceptions of the military’s disposition and purpose. Alongside the dominant perception of the armed forces as a body of personnel, mostly male, trained in warfare, arose another conceptualization of the military as an organization composed of families who anchored these personnel and represented their nation to the rest of the world. The armed forces initially expected family members to assist in promoting occupation goals in Germany and Japan. As burgeoning numbers of family members joined Unofficial Ambassadors 39
servicemen overseas in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, and as the Cold War developed, official prescriptive literature encouraged wives and children to act as “unofficial ambassadors” in their everyday activities among local people in foreign countries. American families abroad embodied a nonmilitaristic dimension of American life and could help foster good relations with residents of foreign countries.
Postwar International Involvement During the 1940s, Americans became more supportive than they had been during the Great Depression of greater U.S. involvement in affairs outside of the Americas, especially in Europe and Asia. Although the United States had been connected economically and culturally to the wider world since its creation, most Americans usually had opposed involvement in other nations’ political and military conflicts unless they perceived specific U.S. interests to be directly at stake, and U.S. foreign policy tended to reflect this. In late September 1939, just weeks after the German invasion of Poland, a Gallup poll found that ninety-five percent of Americans answered “No” to the question “Should we [Americans] declare war and send our army and navy abroad to fight Germany?” Another Gallup poll conducted in October 1939 reported that sixty-eight percent of respondents believed that it had been a mistake for the United States to enter the world war in 1917. In the early summer of 1941, less than six months before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor finally pushed the United States to officially enter the war, only twenty-one percent of Americans declared that they would support joining the Allies to oppose Germany and Italy.4 Between 1939 and 1941, however, German invasions of European nations and attacks on Great Britain and ships in the Atlantic generated growing American support for U.S. aid to the Allies. By the war’s end, most Americans were no longer as inclined as they were during the previous decade to turn their backs on international problems. In October 1945, seventy-one percent of people polled by Gallup stated that the United States should take an active part in world affairs, whereas only nineteen percent preferred staying out of them. A majority of Americans also expressed willingness to aid European nations still struggling in the war’s aftermath. In February 1946, sixty-seven percent of Gallup poll respondents answered in the affirmative to the question “Would you eat less meat and use less flour in order to send more food to the people of Europe?” A poll released in April 1946 reported that fifty-nine percent of those questioned “would be willing to go back to food rationing in order to send food to people in other nations.”5 While 40 Unofficial Ambassadors
some Americans and politicians held fast to isolationism, this was not the prevailing spirit. In the postwar world, the increased willingness of Americans to work with other nations to resolve conflicts and deal with humanitarian problems reflected a renewed commitment to internationalism. Daniela Rossini defines American internationalism as “a doctrine and a policy which stresses the global character of the United States’ welfare and security and therefore tends to accept the involvement of the country in the solution of international disputes and problems. In other words, in the internationalist approach foreign duties and responsibilities are unavoidable.”6 After World War I, the United States did not join the League of Nations proposed by President Woodrow Wilson. In 1945, the entry of the United States into the United Nations along with forty-nine other countries signified a newfound willingness to form alliances with other nations to solve various problems. The preamble to the charter of the United Nations declared that member nations would “practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors,” “unite our strength to maintain international peace and security,” and “employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples.”7 In addition to joining the United Nations, U.S. aid to nations devastated by war—including former enemies—demonstrated acceptance of “foreign duties and responsibilities” in the postwar world. Despite the recent enmity between the Allies and Germany, the United States provided food for starving people there. American occupation military governor General Lucius DuBignon Clay wrote that dealing with the problem of hunger had taken top priority between 1945 and 1948, because it was necessary to meet people’s basic needs in order to successfully reeducate the Germans and rebuild their country. “For three years the problem of food was to color every administrative action, and to keep the German people alive and able to work was our main concern,” wrote General Clay. “From the first I begged and argued for food because I did not believe that the American people wanted starvation and misery to accompany occupation, and I was certain that we could not arouse political interest for a democratic government in a hungry, apathetic population.”8 The United States also shipped food to alleviate hunger in Japan throughout the occupation and supplied approximately $2 billion in economic assistance.9 The Marshall Plan provided even more aid to Western Europe. In his address at the Harvard commencement in June 1947, Secretary of State and former Army general George Marshall articulated his vision of how the United States, via the European Recovery Program (the official name of the Marshall Plan), “should do whatever it is able to do to assist Unofficial Ambassadors 41
in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability, and no assured peace.”10 Supporters of the plan expected that it would stimulate economic recovery in Europe as well as prosperity in the United States. Marshall traveled the country to muster support for the program, telling reporters that he considered it an offer of “peace and comfort” to peoples in need.11
The Development of the Cold War As the Cold War developed in the latter half of the 1940s, American international involvement increasingly encompassed the containment of communism abroad. Americans’ wariness of communism stretched back to the nineteenth century. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 inspirited American radicals, but also provoked fear in anti-radicals of domestic communist subversion as well as global communist revolution.12 Post– World War II anxiety about the spread of communism reinforced the conviction of Americans and their government leaders that the United States should be involved politically, militarily, and economically in world affairs in order to protect U.S. foreign interests as well as the American way of life at home. During World War II, the Soviet Union had proved a crucial ally in the fight against the Axis powers. The expansion of Soviet control of Eastern Europe, however—what former Prime Minister Winston Churchill would in 1946 describe as the descent of the “iron curtain”— stirred fears that the enlargement of Soviet power endangered Western Europe. As the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union grew more adversarial, the Truman administration developed a policy of containment that would dominate U.S. foreign relations for over four decades. The portrayal of Soviet ambitions by State Department foreign service officer George Kennan, an expert on the USSR, strongly influenced containment policy. In February 1946, Kennan warned Washington policymakers of what he perceived as the dangerous determination of Soviet leaders to shore up the USSR’s government and security by exploiting those in “a desperate and war torn outside world” to expand its power to other nations. To counter Soviet expansionism, telegraphed Kennan, we [the U.S. government] must formulate and put forward for other nations a much more positive and constructive picture of sort of world we would like to see than we have put forward in past. It is not enough to urge people to develop political processes similar to our own. Many for42 Unofficial Ambassadors
eign peoples, in Europe at least, are tired and frightened by experiences of past, and are less interested in abstract freedom than in security. They are seeking guidance rather than responsibilities. We should be better able than Russians to give them this. And unless we do, Russians certainly will.13
By March 1946, the Truman administration regarded the Soviet Union as a potentially hostile power whose totalitarianism and perceived “program of unlimited expansion” clashed with the American desire for the global spread of liberal democracy and liberal capitalism and demanded a firm U.S. response.14 This response would take the form of containing Soviet power, or perceived Soviet influence, through economic and military assistance to other nations, international political alliances, and the build-up and mobilization of the armed forces. In March 1947, President Truman asked Congress for aid to Greece, where communist governments in the region (though not the Soviet Union to any significant extent) aided communist rebels, and Turkey, where the Soviets wanted shared control of the Dardanelles, the strait connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.15 The president’s appeal became known as the Truman Doctrine, which declared U.S. intent to provide economic and military assistance to nations fighting internal or external communism. Truman’s speech also excited the American public’s concern about the threat allegedly posed by the Soviet Union. Congressional representatives granted Truman’s request, approving $400 million in aid. The Marshall Plan proposed a few months later also won support in Congress from those who considered it a means to alleviate economic hardship, restore capitalism, and prevent people from turning to communist parties to solve their problems in economically and politically fragile Western Europe.16 In addition to providing economic aid to Western Europe as protection against the rise of communism there, the United States made a historic departure in its foreign policy by joining eleven other nations in a pledge of joint defense against potential communist attacks by signing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pact in April 1949. In declaring the intent to “safeguard the freedom, common heritage, and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law,” the original members of the treaty grounded their alliance in their nations’ shared political values—specifically, democracy and individual freedom—in implicit contrast to the USSR’s totalitarianism. The signers also advocated economic ties in agreeing to “seek to eliminate conflict in their economic policies and . . . encourage economic collaboration between any or all.” NATO thus represented a political, Unofficial Ambassadors 43
military, and economic alliance among the United States and its North Atlantic allies against the Soviet Union.17 While tensions rose between noncommunist Western nations and the Soviet Union, events in Asia fueled American fears of communist expansion there. After several years of fighting, Mao Zedong’s troops defeated Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek’s forces in 1949 and established a communist government in China. Congressional Republicans blamed the Truman administration for failing to prevent the so-called fall of China.18 In early 1950, the world learned of an alliance between Mao and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, a pact that reinforced American anxiety about the possibility of a global “red” conquest.19 The Korean War, which broke out a few months later, confirmed in many American minds that the Soviets and their allies were determined to further communist domination. In 1948, Korea had split into a Sovietbacked communist government in the north and a U.S.-supported anticommunist government in the south. When North Korean armies invaded South Korea in June 1950, Americans assumed that Stalin had ordered the invasion, although it is now known that Stalin’s support of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung’s reunification attempt was more cautious. U.S.led United Nations forces intervened initially to repel the offensive and then continued fighting northward to liberate North Korea from communism until an influx of Chinese forces joined the North Koreans to drive back the invaders. Despite the war’s heavy casualties, the 1953 armistice maintained essentially the same geographical division between North Korea and South Korea that had existed at the start of the hostilities in 1950. Although communist North Korea survived, the United States with the United Nations had succeeded in containing the attempted expansion of communism into South Korea. But fear that communism would not only overrun other countries but also take root at home fed into an “antiCommunist frenzy” in the United States.20
Remilitarization Although the Korean War helped to justify the immense military build-up of the early 1950s, the remilitarization of the United States had already commenced. In April 1948, Congress reinstated the draft (which had expired in 1947) and President Truman, at the urging of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, requested a $3 billion supplement to the defense bill for the augmentation of ground forces and aircraft. The 1949 budget for the Air Force, at double the amount of the 1948 budget, initiated an aircraft industry “war boom” that would continue for several decades.21 44 Unofficial Ambassadors
The Soviet Union’s explosion of its first atomic bomb in the summer of 1949 heightened military competition between the superpowers. Shortly after learning of the Soviets’ atomic test, President Truman approved development of the even more powerful hydrogen bomb. In early 1950, at the request of the president, National Security Council officials assessed U.S. defense and foreign policies in a report known as NSC-68. The authors of NSC-68 warned that the Soviet Union “is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world.” The NSC advisers asserted that “a substantial and rapid building up of strength in the free world is necessary to support a firm policy intended to check and roll back the Kremlin’s drive for world domination.” The council recommended that no cost be spared in the defense of the United States: “Budgetary considerations will need to be subordinated to the stark fact that our very independence as a nation may be at stake.”22 In the words of historian Daniel Yergin, NSC68 “expressed the fully formed Cold War World [mindset] of American leaders, and provided the rationalization not only for the hydrogen bomb but also for a much expanded military establishment.” The Korean War also prompted huge funding increases for national security. Over the course of the war, expenditures for the conflict and for the broader development of military strength more than doubled from $22.3 billion in fiscal year 1951 to $50.4 billion in fiscal year 1953.23 The military build-up vastly increased the number of active duty service personnel between 1950 and 1960. In 1939, there were a total of 334,473 active duty personnel in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. At the end of World War II, military personnel numbered a historic high of over twelve million. The demobilization that followed the war brought this number down to just over three million in 1946, and then down to approximately 1.5 million personnel in 1947. In 1950, the first year of the Korean War, about 1.46 million men and women served in the military. By 1953, the last year of the Korean War, this number had grown to over three and a half million. In 1960, the number of armed forces personnel stood at almost 2.5 million, an increase of nearly sixty percent since 1950.24 It was in this context of internationalism, anti-communism, remilitarization, and war that U.S. overseas bases attained a new significance after World War II. The United States had established bases in the Pacific and Caribbean in the late nineteenth century, largely as a consequence of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Until the 1940s, however, U.S. overseas bases were few in comparison to the foreign bases held by Great Britain, France, Japan, and even several smaller nations such as Denmark, the Netherlands, and Italy. The number of American bases overseas expanded Unofficial Ambassadors 45
rapidly during World War II. Between 1941 — even before the United States officially entered the war—and 1945, American military bases proliferated around the globe. By the end of the war, the more than 2,000 U.S. overseas bases exceeded the number of foreign bases established by any other power in history. Although military demobilization resulted in the closure of hundreds of bases between 1945 and 1949, the advent of containment policy reversed this decline. The vast majority of bases were in Europe and the Pacific because the United States deemed these areas the most crucial for containment, whereas Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia were considered less significant in terms of anti-communist military strategy. There were 258 U.S. bases in Europe in 1949, 446 bases in 1953, 566 bases in 1957, and 673 bases in 1967. West Germany housed the most bases: ninety-nine in 1947, increasing to 278 by 1967. In the Pacific, there were 235 bases in 1949, 291 bases in 1953, 256 bases in 1957, and 271 bases in 1967. The number of bases abroad decreased after the Korean War, but increased in the 1960s because of the Vietnam War.25 Armed forces personnel stationed at overseas bases more than doubled between 1950 and 1960, from 301,595 to 610,174.26
U.S. Military Personnel in Occupied Nations Because the growing U.S. military presence abroad increased the likelihood of encounters between American armed forces personnel and the residents of occupied and host nations, military leaders expected servicemen and servicewomen to earn the respect of local peoples and help further their nation’s foreign relations aims. A 1949 Army Information Digest article described the post – World War II “global mission” of the American military as “a world-wide mission of staggering extent [. . . that] reminds every military and civilian citizen that our Armed Forces today represent this country abroad more extensively than any other group or organization.”27 Military officials believed that the behavior of personnel abroad reflected on the United States as a whole. Colonel R. G. Stanton, the chief of the Army’s Procurement and Separation Branch, attempted to justify the rejection of forty percent of applicants for enlistment despite a shortage of personnel (which he termed “a military manpower crisis”) as necessary for maintaining high standards to sustain the Army’s prestige in the world. He argued that the success of the “ideological mission—that of demonstrating the superiority of the American system and the American way of life” in occupied nations—required the Army to maintain an excellent reputation and reject inferior applicants. According to Colonel Stanton, even the low-ranking private was “our 46 Unofficial Ambassadors
Government’s official spokesman in thousands of daily, seemingly unimportant contacts with foreign nationals.”28 Transformations in official responses to relations between American personnel and Germans illustrate views of how interpersonal interactions could further military and foreign relations goals in the early years of occupation. When American troops entered Germany in September 1944, U.S. military policy took a hard stance in outlawing fraternization with Germans.29 The nonfraternization laws remained in place after the Germans surrendered to the Allies in May 1945. The prescriptive literature produced for American military personnel in the early months of occupation depicted Germans as malicious and underhanded. One Army pamphlet cautioned readers “to remember always that Germany, although conquered, is still a dangerous enemy nation” whose people—“individually or collectively”—were never to be trusted. Soldiers were told that “We must bring home to the Germans that their support of Nazi leaders, their tolerance of racial hatreds and persecutions, and their unquestioning acceptance of the wanton aggressions on other nations have earned for them the contempt and distrust of the civilized world.” To convey American condemnation of the German people, military personnel were forbidden from engaging in any unofficial interactions with them: “Specifically, it is not permissible to shake hands with them, to visit their homes, to exchange gifts with them, to engage in games or sports with them, to attend their dances or social events, or to accompany them on the street or elsewhere. Particularly, avoid all discussion or argument with them.”30 Military leaders also worried that intimate relations with German women could lure American soldiers into dangerous situations. A pamphlet titled Don’t Be a Sucker in Germany! warned service personnel that “You’ll see a lot of good-looking babes on the make there. German women have been trained to seduce you. Is it worth a knife in the back?”31 Military officials advocated this cautious and stern approach to ensure that the Germans understood their status as a defeated people and deferred to the Allied conquerors. Despite these early expressions of distrust and disapproval of the German people, U.S. military policy toward them softened within months of the Allied victory in Europe. Military leaders allowed a friendlier stance because of the difficulty in enforcing the fraternization ban, especially between American soldiers and German women and children, and because they came to believe that informal relations between servicemen and Germans could aid occupation goals. In June 1945, General Eisenhower stated that the ban on fraternization did not include “very small children.” The following month, Eisenhower allowed American personnel to converse with adult Germans in public. On October 1, 1945, the Allied Unofficial Ambassadors 47
Control Council officially removed limits on fraternization except for restrictions on the billeting of U.S. soldiers with Germans and marriage with Germans.32 Eisenhower announced that the relaxation of bans on fraternization would “assist the forces in carrying out their occupation duties.” He also informed personnel that they were to represent the American way of life.33 In December 1946, the military government permitted marriages between Germans and Americans.34 The permission of casual contacts between American service personnel and Germans reflected a growing sense among military leaders of the usefulness of interpersonal contacts in tackling the monumental projects of reeducating citizens of occupied nations and reconstructing their societies. Because so many servicemen were in intimate relationships with German women, occupation leaders saw such contacts as a means to teach American democracy to the Germans. A 1946 Army Information Digest article by Major T. P. Headen urged servicemen who dated German women to educate the girlfriends and their families about democratic political participation. According to Headen, “[The life of the German girlfriend] has been as different from that of her American boy friend as night is from day. She is not only ignorant of his background, but extremely curious. He is like a man from another world—a better world—and he is in a position to tell her about it.” Major Headen illustrated his points using a fictive couple, “Joe” and “Hilda.” He urged Joe, and the “thousands” like him who could serve as “a powerful means . . . for re-educating the German people,” to prepare for discussions with Hilda and her relatives—in particular, her father—to explain most effectively the superiority of the American political system.35 Friendly relations between servicemen and local children also were considered important for teaching democracy as well as demonstrating American good will in occupied Germany. General Lucius Clay advocated “the spontaneous expression of American good will and the American way of life” in soldiers’ interactions with children through the military’s German Youth Activities organization. In General Clay’s view, Christmas parties given for German children in 1947, “Full of spontaneity and good will . . . did more than anything else can do to demonstrate democracy in action. They were better than all the dull lectures and training on democracy.”36 In Frankfurt, servicemen spent off-duty hours working with children in the German Youth Program sponsored by US Forces, European Theater. Activities included playing American games, teaching “democratic methods,” and throwing parties.37 At Christmastime in 1948, nearly 1,700,000 German boys and girls engaged in recreational activities in the German Youth Activities program organized by American service
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personnel and German adults.38 American soldiers founded the Bremen Boys Club to instruct German youth in the principles of self-government. The boys prepared for a democratic future by learning about the secret ballot system, forming a constitutional committee, campaigning, and holding an election.39 U.S. military representatives believed that individual expressions of respect would show residents of occupied countries that the Americans intended a benevolent rather than oppressive rule, and that this respect would help win their cooperation in achieving occupation goals. Captain William B. Koons, a public information officer in Kyushu, Japan, advised service personnel to behave courteously and considerately toward the Japanese. He described a “Soldier in Kyushu” as “first of all a fightingman,” albeit one who was there to bring “peace and democratization” to Japan. According to Koons, soldiers received weekly education about international affairs and appropriate conduct toward the Japanese. Captain Koons considered language differences “always a formidable barrier,” but explained that soldiers could convey politeness and good will to the Japanese through bowing, simple greetings, and playing games with children.40 Even before the proliferation of official requests for service personnel to aid U.S. military and foreign relations goals through interpersonal contacts, American servicemen and servicewomen’s voluntary aid to allies and former enemies alike demonstrated generosity and good will to local peoples. Two days before Christmas 1945, Stars and Stripes published several articles describing military personnel’s welfare work and donations for European children. GIs and WACs (members of the Women’s Army Corps) in Frankfurt prepared to distribute chocolate bars, gum, doughnuts, fruit juice, magazines, writing materials, clothing, and toys to 3,500 Allied displaced children. In Bremen, servicemen donated rations to provide toys and candy for 7,000 homeless children in hospitals, orphanages, and camps for displaced persons. WACs in Wiesbaden invited Polish, Estonian, and Czech displaced children to a Yuletide party featuring candy, cookies, ice cream, a Mickey Mouse movie, and Christmas carols. And in Paris, GIs filled bins with candy, gum, and soap for French children.41 Army units also gave Christmas and New Year parties for German children.42 Military personnel’s charity continued into the later years of occupation. In 1952, servicemen “adopted” orphanages or poor families in the town of Bad Kreuznach. Soldiers’ choirs performed for orphanages and hospitals and in town-square gatherings, and gave gifts of food and clothing.43 Armed forces personnel assisted Okinawans in recovering from war
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and typhoon damage by donating time and money to hospitals, schools, and asylums. In 1952, they donated over $100,000 to causes that aided Okinawans.44 The promotion of good relations between the U.S. military and local residents through interpersonal contacts continued throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. An official history of the Army in Europe during this period stated that “Official national and military programs helped to create good will between Americans and their hosts, but real understanding and cooperation could be achieved only through person-to-person contacts and a genuine desire to make friends. Thus, all USAEUR [United States Army Europe] personnel were urged to accept personal responsibility for developing good community relations.” In the view of Army officials, then, personnel, whether on- or off-duty, were expected to promote military goals through their personal behavior. In other words, their job— around the clock—included getting along well with the local people. According to the Army history, military supervisors gave specific advice for establishing good community relations: [C]ommanders insisted that their personnel pay debts promptly, conduct themselves with dignity in private and in public, and practice safe and courteous driving. All personnel were encouraged to develop an interest in the local people and their customs, to learn to speak their language, to join local social and sport groups, and to participate in local community activities and celebrations as often as possible.
Considerate and responsible behavior as well as sociable activities were promoted in Germany, as well as in allied nations such as France and Italy.45
The Advocacy of “Soft” Power in Military Guidebooks Political scientist Joseph S. Nye, Jr., who served in the Clinton administration as Assistant Secretary of Defense, has written extensively about the United States’ use of what he terms “hard power” and “soft power.” Power is “the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes one wants.” Hard power is coercive, taking such forms as military force and economic inducements, while soft power influences through attraction, seduction, and cooptation—“shap[ing] what others want.” According to Nye, “In international politics, the resources that produce soft power arise in large part from the values an organization or country expresses in its culture, in the examples it sets by its internal practices and 50 Unofficial Ambassadors
policies, and in the way it handles its relations with others.”46 After World War II, the U.S. military’s attempts to sensitize personnel to how they might be perceived by residents of the countries in which they were stationed reflected the assumption that military goals and foreign relations required not only the capacity for hard power, gendered masculine, but also soft power, gendered feminine. Soldiers stationed abroad, trained to display toughness when called upon, actually spent much of their time in peaceful situations among occupied and host nation residents. Although the potential for military force was there, most situations did not call for this. Therefore, soldiers engaging in everyday activities with or in view of local peoples could advance U.S. aims by exercising soft power, influencing what non-Americans thought of them—and, by extension, the U.S. military presence, and even American values and U.S. international goals —by comporting themselves in ways that non-American observers would find appealing. By showing sensitivity toward and an understanding of local peoples, military personnel were drawing upon a feminine dimension of power in interpersonal international relations. Military guidebooks produced by the Department of Defense in the 1950s for personnel stationed in Europe and the Pacific gave detailed advice for exercising soft power in interpersonal contacts. These “pocket guides” assumed that the success of military goals abroad and the acceptance of U.S. bases in foreign countries required service personnel to convey to local residents a spirit of cooperation and understanding. The pamphlets discouraged any offensive behavior, particularly rudeness, arrogance, drunkenness, and cultural insensitivity.47 The 1951 guide for Germany warned that Europeans “judge us [Americans] by the ill-mannered, trouble-making, boastful minority,” and discouraged incivility toward any German man, woman, or child, as well as disregard for German customs.48 A Pocket Guide to France (1951) advised against boasting about one’s pay or being “better off” than the French or other Allied soldiers.49 European nations had suffered far more destruction and loss of life than had the United States during World War II, and were still recovering economically from the war into the 1950s. Americans abroad were expected to demonstrate sensitivity to the people who had withstood greater hardship than they. Servicemen’s heavy drinking, a common problem that undermined military discipline, led to fights and accidents and made local people resentful. The advice literature tried to discourage servicemen’s drunkenness by asking readers to consider non-Americans’ reactions to those who drank excessively. A Pocket Guide to the Philippines (1955) declared that “Filipinos are moderate in drinking and look with considerable contempt on a drunken foreigner.” The guide for France stated that the French Unofficial Ambassadors 51
“despise drunkenness.”50 The consideration of non-American perspectives indicates a concern that although the United States had emerged from the war as a superpower, the bad behavior of individual citizens abroad could jeopardize international cooperation by eroding host nationals’ tolerance of U.S. bases, which in turn could harm U.S. global military effectiveness. The guides also reveal concerns that racism endangered American goals of international cooperation. In 1960, approximately ninety percent of U.S. military personnel stationed overseas were white; the other ten percent were categorized as “nonwhite.”51 Some personnel sent abroad encountered people of Asian or African heritage for the first time in their lives. Whites accustomed to Jim Crow segregation found themselves in countries where whites were the minority, or where people of color mixed freely with whites. The military literature advised personnel to rein in racist behavior in countries where they were likely to encounter nonwhites. The pocket guide for France told readers to “Bear in mind . . . that the French Union, or Empire, is made up of peoples of many races, colors, and languages and that there is no discrimination in France against any of them. Africans, Indochinese, Moroccans and all other people are on equal footing in restaurants and other public places.”52 The 1950 pamphlet for Korea warned that using the term “gook[s]” was “particularly objectionable to Koreans” and “a bad habit that can do more harm than all our good intentions could ever accomplish.”53 The guide for the Philippines advised against referring to Filipinos as “natives”: “The word is not understood in the same way we [Americans] use it—as for example, when we speak of a native of New England. The word native is incorrectly used by many people to refer to an ‘uncivilized’ person.”54 Besides describing behavior to avoid, the pamphlets encouraged positive actions that the armed forces hoped would promote successful American international relations. To foster courtesy toward local peoples and also understanding of their ways of life, the pocket guides provided information about their cultures, customs, and histories. In addition, to facilitate communication and friendly relations between American military personnel and local people, each booklet contained a glossary of frequently used words and phrases—including courteous expressions such as “How do you do?” “Good morning,” and “Please excuse me,” as well as formal terms of address such as “Sir” and “Madam,” accompanied by pronunciation guides.55 The language of partnership that appears in the guides reflected the American effort to cultivate pro-United States, pro-democracy, anti-communist alliances. By the early 1950s, the prescriptive literature endeavored to inculcate in servicemen an understanding of the United States and its allies as friends, if not always equals, in the mission to establish democ52 Unofficial Ambassadors
racy and oppose the spread of communism. According to the pocket guides, allies differed from the United States in terms of customs and language, yet shared similar goals. France was described as America’s “Atlantic Partner” committed, like the United States, to democracy and the fight against the perceived communist threat.56 A Pocket Guide to Korea discussed the United States–South Korea alliance against the communist world beyond the “iron curtain” on the northern side of the thirty-eighth parallel.57 The guide for the Philippines credited the United States with teaching democracy to the Filipinos and thus preparing them for attaining independence from the United States in 1946. The pamphlet also mentioned the American-Filipino alliance against communism in the Korean war.58
The U.S. Military and Foreign Relations in American Popular Culture Even before World War II had ended, popular visual and literary representations of American servicemen’s relations with local peoples, including former enemies, promulgated the image of a mostly benevolent, though not always perfect, U.S. military that wanted not to dominate other nations but rather to cooperate with them in making the world a better place. These depictions deemphasized service personnel’s hard power roles, instead highlighting feminine qualities of compassion and sensitivity, as well as paternalistic protectiveness. Norman Rockwell’s painting The American Way (1944) reflected Americans’ desire to see their nation’s military power not as destructive but rather as a force for good. Almost the entire painting is filled with the image of a uniformed G.I., his daunting rifle set down nearby (though still readily grabbed if needed), kneeling down to feed his rations to a little barefoot girl, presumably a victim of war regardless of whether she is a citizen of an allied or enemy nation. In this image, “the American Way” of wielding power, as expressed in the painting’s title, was at heart to comfort, feed, and help, not to harm. A Bell for Adano (1944), a novel by John Hersey, conveyed a message of patience and understanding in relations with former enemy peoples. The story follows Major Victor Joppolo of the U.S. Army as he tries to figure out the best way to teach democracy to the people of a town in occupied Italy. Joppolo has to contend with G.I.s’ drunkenness and disrespect for the local people, as well as the confusion, eagerness to please, and remnants of fascism in some of the townspeople. Ultimately, ItalianAmerican relations are built upon the mutual generosity, trust, and respect established in informal social interactions. In his 1946 forward to the Unofficial Ambassadors 53
Norman Rockwell, The American Way (1944 Disabled American Veterans: World War II poster). Reproduced by permission of the Norman Rockwell Family Agency, Inc. Photo Courtesy Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
book, Hersey wrote that the immigrant heritage of Americans, as embodied by Italian-American Major Joppolo, was an asset in forging strong postwar relations between the United States’ military representatives and Europeans.59 The popular book, which won the Pulitzer Prize, reflected how the American people wanted to see the role of their nation in the world. Another Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Vern Sneider’s The Teahouse of the August Moon (1951), is a rich cultural example that explores how to best enact U.S. postwar goals through international cooperation. Teahouse tells a story of Army officials and their relations with the residents 54 Unofficial Ambassadors
of an Okinawan village during the occupation of Japan. The novel’s main character is Captain Jeff Fisby, a former pharmacy-owner from Ohio charged with rehabilitating the village. His duties include establishing a school, training the Okinawans in democracy, and repairing the damage caused to the village by the war. In the first part of the novel, Fisby seems weak-minded, ineffectual, and easily taken in by the scheming of wily Okinawans. His interpreter, Sakini, is an Okinawan who exploits his employer’s ineptitude. At first, the Okinawans are lackadaisical and unwilling to cooperate with the Army’s plans for transforming their island. Fisby continually clashes with “the natives,” a term used for Okinawans throughout the novel, until he realizes that the military’s strategy of imposing Western values and institutions in Okinawa simply will not work with the villagers. Reflecting upon the history of the Okinawan people makes Fisby aware of the flaws in the military’s approach to their charges and his own complicity in it: “What could these people do against an invader? Why, they could only accept whatever was forced upon them. They were just a little people on a little island. Now, for the first time, he realized that he, too, was an invader placed over them. And he frowned.”60 Teahouse upholds the post–World War II cultural internationalist aspiration to understand the ways of diverse peoples and to cooperate with them, even former enemies, rather than force American ideals and goals upon them. According to historian Akira Iriye, advocates of cultural internationalism after the war believed that solving social and economic problems required greater recognition of and respect for cultural diversity than had been shown during the interwar years, for example, by the League of Nations Organization of Intellectual Cooperation. And in her extensive analysis of “middlebrow” popular cultural texts such as magazine articles, novels, and movies, literary scholar Christina Klein shows that many Americans strongly desired to strengthen connections between the United States and peoples of Asian countries in particular as a means of creating an integrated, harmonious world as well as prevailing in the Cold War.61 In Teahouse of the August Moon, Fisby eventually discovers that the key to rehabilitating the Okinawan village is to allow the people to return to their prewar values and way of life, with some modifications that will strengthen their economy and put their island on track to becoming a thriving democratic capitalist society. Teahouse proposes an evolutionary model of social progress: the U.S. military would be most effective if it allowed the Okinawans to evolve toward the American ideal of democratic capitalism on their own terms, with a little help from the Americans. At one point, Fisby compares the prewar teahouse meetings of Okinawan government leaders to the tavern gatherings of Virginia’s House of Unofficial Ambassadors 55
Burgesses members, where Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe “over their cups—[made] plans for the yet unborn American nation.”62 It becomes clear in the novel that the role of the United States in this evolution toward democracy and free enterprise is to assist the Okinawans with becoming more efficient entrepreneurs, and to protect these people from the domineering Japanese, whose shadow would stunt the growth of the Okinawans toward autonomy, democracy, and economic self-sufficiency. The Teahouse of the August Moon purports to oppose taking a paternalistic approach to restructuring an occupied society, and argues for rebuilding occupied lands as a joint endeavor, whereby Americans aid the subject people while deeply respecting their customs and society. Fisby’s immersion into the Okinawan way of life proves far more effective in enabling him to influence the Okinawans than the top-down imposition of American values and strategies. As he becomes more attuned to Okinawan culture, he starts wearing kimonos and sandals, drinking tea, and adopting what he perceives to be the worldview of the Okinawan people, which includes cultivating serenity and appreciation for nature and beauty. Indeed, the previously ineffectual and sometimes foolish Fisby, in taking a sensitive, feminine approach to Okinawan culture, has become a more thoughtful and influential man. The project of restructuring Okinawan society, then, helps the Okinawans—as well as Fisby—to reach maturity. Eventually, Okinawans willingly adopt some American economic methods and styles, but only what they believe to be in their best interests. The village thrives when Fisby works with the people, in accordance with their worldview, rather than when he tries to give them orders, which only makes them want to subvert him. Although Sneider and many Americans in the early Cold War years wanted to view their nation’s foreign relations as peaceable and altruistic, the reality of the U.S. exertion of power abroad first and foremost to obtain the outcomes that American policymakers wanted for the benefit of their own nation cannot be denied. In the novel, Fisby rejects coercion and avoids the appearance of paternalism, but his soft-power approach to the Okinawans ultimately is aimed at altering their society in accordance with U.S. objectives. From the perspective of the novel, however, this exercise of U.S. power is preferable to the alternative of letting the Okinawan people languish in an unproductive, childlike society that will promote dependency and not supply their needs. During the Cold War, some internationalists insisted on promoting cultural exchanges that did not advance national superiority, but rather focused on achieving global peace through basic human contact and understanding.63 For many Americans, however, a primary goal of cultural internationalist efforts was to win the Cold War against communism. 56 Unofficial Ambassadors
The popular representations of military men in occupied and host nations as selflessly helpful reflected Americans’ ambivalence about their nation’s militarization. The postwar deployment of military power abroad and the dominance of other nations, even when those nations were former enemies, made Americans uneasy, even though many nevertheless considered it necessary for U.S. interests as well as global stability. Americans did not want to see their nation as a militaristic, imperial power.64 Popular cultural depictions of servicemen, as well as the armed forces’ portrayals of military families, reassured Americans that their nation’s military power was a force for good.
U.S. Servicemen as “Fathers” and Husbands Other popular representations of U.S. service personnel abroad during the Cold War portrayed ideal relations between the military and peoples of foreign countries by casting American servicemen in an overtly paternal role. Stories and images intended for American audiences particularly focused on servicemen’s interactions with children or women. Such representations depicted military personnel, and by extension, the entire armed forces, as benefactors to the residents of countries housing U.S. bases. Whereas portrayals of American servicemen with men of other nations would more readily have brought to mind masculine alliances based on official diplomatic goals and the potential for military violence, stories and images of servicemen with children and women more effectively connoted alliances grounded in compassion and the desire for international peace. Portrayals of servicemen with children also appealed to the idea of international family ties, though always with the American men in the role of adult benefactors. A magazine article described as a true account of some American servicemen and their fatherly care of a Korean boy promulgated this paternalistic idea of familial relations between American military personnel and the people of allied nations. Marine Corps journalist Captain Jack Lewis wrote about a twelve-year-old orphan rescued from North Korea after his parents had been killed there in 1950. The boy, named Henry by the men, had been “adopted” by the combat photographers and correspondents of the 1st Marine Air Wing. The men speculated that Henry’s parents had been killed, either deliberately by communists, or accidentally by American fire. Their care of the boy included religious guidance: “Several of the men were devout Catholics and had seen to it that Henry was properly baptized. We gathered that his parents also had been Catholic and felt that this should be his religion.” The Marines took turns Unofficial Ambassadors 57
shepherding Henry through his nightly recitations of the “Hail Mary” and “The Lord’s Prayer.” Henry also became a big fan of Western movies, which he and other Korean children would reenact in play. Captain Lewis sensed that Henry kept himself more aloof from him than from the other men; one of his colleagues supposed this might have been due to Captain Lewis’s replacing of another man, Major Monson, who had been “father and mother both to the kid.” Eventually, Captain Lewis won Henry’s affection through the gift of a dog to replace the boy’s former pet, allegedly killed and eaten by the communists. Despite the absence of women, family, and a real home, Captain Lewis and the others rescued Henry from communism and orphanhood, giving him an approximation of an American child’s upbringing that included a Christian education, American entertainment, and even a pet.65 The story justifies the role of the United States in the Korean War by depicting military personnel in the symbolic role of fathers who provided affection, guidance, and protection to people fighting against communism. Photographs of American servicemen and children in foreign countries conveyed similar messages about military personnel as paternal representatives of America’s compassionate internationalism. A 1957 article in U.S. Lady, a magazine primarily for military wives, told how the crew of the USS Capricornus became the “foster fathers” of Carmela Russo, a seven-year-old Neapolitan girl whose father had recently died. Two of the photographs featured Carmela as the center of attention amidst groups of uniformed, smiling Navy men. The more than 400 men who had “adopt[ed this] under-privileged Italian child” invited Carmela to a “company best” dinner aboard ship and gave her several dolls. The men extended their generosity to Carmela’s family by donating blankets, clothing, and monthly monetary aid to Carmela’s mother (who took “menial odd jobs” to support her family) and four siblings.66 In 1959, U.S. Lady published a photograph of several girls from the Istituto Femminile Don Nicola Mazza Orphanage in Verona receiving a gift of two washing machines from representatives of the Headquarters Company of the Southern European Theater Air Force. In the photograph, the girls (ranging in age from approximately five to twelve years), some smiling, some solemn, stand next to the appliances, while three uniformed American servicemen beam in the background. One of the girls, Lisetta Roucar, reportedly stated that “Now washing will seem more a game than work and our hands will not get cold and chapped in the winter.”67 Through the donation of the washing machines, the Americans allowed the girls to move closer to an American ideal of childhood by making clothes-washing into a “game,” instead of grown-up hard work. The photograph also connected American compassion to American progressiveness and prosperity 58 Unofficial Ambassadors
as represented by modern appliances. Additionally the servicemen’s donation of washing machines to the orphanage for girls symbolized the promise of the benefits that would accompany alliance with the United States. Stories of marriages between American servicemen and women of host and occupied countries served as yet another vehicle for representing ideal international relations that transcended national and racial differences through actual family relationships. Ebony and U.S. Lady published generally positive stories about marriages between American servicemen and European and Asian women in a period when many American states still enforced racial segregation laws and prohibited marriages between whites and people classified as nonwhite.68 Marriages between servicemen and the women they met abroad had taken place well before the 1950s and 1960s, when the Ebony and U.S. Lady stories appeared. During and soon after World War II, tens of thousands of servicemen had married European women, most of them British, German, Italian, and French. By the spring of 1947, 60,000 European “war brides” and children had come to the United States to be with their American husbands.69 Significantly fewer Japanese brides came to the United States—only 758 by 1950—but enough to attract attention.70 The March 1952 issue of Ebony featured on its cover a full-page photograph of an African-American soldier and his Japanese wife. The accompanying article discussed marriage between African-American servicemen and Japanese women and focused on the stories of several couples who resided in Japan and the United States. Overall it deemed the unions successful, despite disapproval from some AfricanAmerican women in Japan, and some Japanese.71 U.S. Lady’s accounts of marriages between military men and local women appeared sporadically during the years of the magazine’s publication (1955 to 1968), and unlike the black press spotlighted white servicemen married to European or Asian women. The stories reported that these unions were warmly received by the women’s families, and implied that they benefited United States-host nation relations. One featured several marriages between “American Romeos and Italian Juliets” in Verona, the location of the Headquarters of the Southern European Task Force. Several of the servicemen’s last names—Baiocco, Lipani, Cappadoccia— suggest an Italian heritage that helped them to establish connections in Italy and reminded American readers that most citizens of the United States, or their ancestors, had originated from other lands.72 Another article that posed the question “What are the chances for happiness in interracial marriages?” focused on three stories of marriages between Japanese women and white American men. The article ultimately judged the unions successful, despite some difficulties — not insurmountable — stemming from racial and cultural differences. One of the husbands, Staff Sergeant Unofficial Ambassadors 59
Kenneth Rigel, had met his wife, Kureha, at an American air base where she worked. Kureha’s parents initially “strongly opposed” the relationship, but accepted it several months after Kureha and Rigel married. Rigel happily reported that “I’m always welcomed whenever I visit my wife’s folks. They show me around places as if they’re proud to have an American son-in-law.” According to the article, Kenneth Rigel’s family in Kansas also accepted their son’s marriage to a Japanese woman. Kureha Rigel said that her husband’s family treated her well, and described her motherin-law as “wonderful.”73 But U.S. Lady’s attention to interracial marriages was limited to white American servicemen and Asian women. In its thirteen years of publication, it never portrayed relationships between African-American servicemen and nonblack women, reflecting military officials’ and most of white America’s disapproval of such marriages.74
Cold War American Families and Women’s Roles The frequency of familial metaphors in representing relationships between servicemen and host nationals, as well as actual family relationships, illustrate the centrality of ideas about the family to relations between the U.S. military and peoples of foreign countries. Armed forces organizations also conceived of American families as bridges between military and foreign communities. Official guidelines for armed forces personnel, as well as cultural representations of their interactions with people in foreign countries, posited particular qualities deemed necessary for successful relations between the U.S. military and countries housing its bases, and for strong diplomatic relations: friendliness, compassion, and respect for non-American ways of life. Military documents also reveal the expectation that family members, too—especially wives—could project these qualities, possibly more effectively than could military men. During the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, military family members established themselves as significant contributors to U.S. military and foreign relations goals. To understand the interconnections among families, the armed forces, and foreign relations, and to comprehend the significance of American military families abroad during the first decades of the Cold War, it is necessary first to consider post–World War II assumptions in American society at large concerning families and anti-communism. Other scholars of post–World War II culture and society have illuminated the connections between American families and the arenas of U.S. domestic politics and foreign relations. Analyses of women and families during the early Cold War period offer explanations as to why after World War II there emerged a new kind of glorification of the nuclear 60 Unofficial Ambassadors
family, comprising a breadwinner father, a stay-at-home mother, and several children. Historian Elaine Tyler May connects what she terms the postwar era’s “domestic revival” to the nation’s anti-communism. According to May, the ideal of the nuclear family, as well as actual experiences of husbands and wives between the late 1940s and the early 1960s, are best understood in the context of Cold War politics, not as existing in a separate private realm. Americans “wanted secure jobs, secure homes, and secure marriages in a secure country.” Nuclear families represented security against encroaching communism. “Domestic anticommunism was another manifestation of containment,” writes May. “If presumably subversive individuals could be contained and prevented from spreading their poisonous influence through the body politic, then the society could feel secure.” Cold War Americans believed that families strengthened the moral fiber necessary for resisting the insidious spread of communism. Moreover, nuclear families offered comfort and shelter in a world where the potential for nuclear war loomed over everyday life.75 The revival of domesticity does not mean that everyone wanted women’s influence limited to their homes and families. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, resonated for many middle- and upper-middle-class educated white women, who felt stifled by postwar expectations that women pour their energies into homemaking, childrearing, and pleasing their husbands, and be content with these domestic activities. Yet historian Joanne Meyerowitz argues that Friedan’s book, while important, does not convey a complete picture of American cultural attitudes about women’s roles in the postwar era. Meyerowitz demonstrates that although the “Cold War mentality” indeed promoted domesticity, articles published in popular magazines such as Ebony and Ladies’ Home Journal between 1945 and 1958 also lauded women for their public achievements and service and political participation. Articles in Ladies’ Home Journal in particular justified and encouraged women’s political participation as important in the Cold War ideological battle because it served as a means to “prove the strength of democracy” to the rest of the world, including those oppressed by the Soviet government.76
Militarizing Wives and Families . . . While the wider American society conceived of women as influential participants in domestic and political opposition to communism, so also the U.S. military at times expressed the view of service wives as proponents of Cold War military and foreign relations goals. American women had supported soldiers and military causes since the colonial era.77 During the Unofficial Ambassadors 61
1950s, the recruitment and retention of service personnel increasingly entailed the admission into the armed forces of married applicants or reenlistees, many of whom also had children. Until 1942, disapproval, and at best, ambivalence, characterized Army policy on families. Married men and men with minor children were in general not allowed to enlist or reenlist during peacetime, though exceptions were made. The Army provided limited transportation, housing, and medical care for wives and children, but primarily to families of officers (including senior noncommissioned officers).78 The maxim “If the Army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one” captured the pre–World War II assumption that families burdened rather than assisted service members and military operations.79 The reinstatement of the draft in 1948 and the growing numbers of married personnel during the 1950s, combined with the Cold War maintenance of hundreds of thousands of personnel worldwide, forced the military leadership to reevaluate this assumption. In July 1955, nearly fortytwo percent of active-duty military personnel were married (seventy-eight percent of officers and almost thirty-seven percent of enlisted members).80 In 1956, Secretary of the Navy (and former Assistant Secretary of Defense) Charles Thomas acknowledged the centrality of families in the lives of Navy personnel when he pronounced in a speech to service families that “today’s Navy is a married man’s Navy.”81 By September 1961, the percentage of married personnel had climbed to almost fifty percent (just over eighty-two percent of officers and forty-five percent of enlisted members were married). According to Department of Defense Statistics, the 2.54 million officers and enlisted men and women stationed around the world that year had approximately 1.24 million wives and 2.23 million children, as well as more than 161,000 other relatives designated as dependents.82 The number of family members considered dependents now exceeded the number of service members by more than one million.83 The greater presence of wives and children in military life, combined with the postwar celebration of the family in American culture and society, stimulated a reconceptualization of the stance of the armed forces visà-vis families. In this new vision, families joined soldiers, arms, and strategic bases as components of the Cold War defense arsenal. Military officials became more forthright in discussing how women, in their role as wives, were potentially beneficial influences on the military readiness of men, and also on the decisions of husbands to reenlist or make careers in the armed forces. In this view, attracting and retaining competent personnel meant recruiting not only men but also their wives. In a study of women and militaries, political scientist Cynthia Enloe states that “Military commanders and their civilian political superiors . . . try to make use 62 Unofficial Ambassadors
of those women who have married soldiers. If those women can be socialised to become ‘military wives,’ they can perhaps further some of the military’s own goals.”84 Militaries historically have relied heavily on women’s work, moral support, and self-sacrifice, but their ambivalence about feminine assistance has diminished women’s importance and visibility. Acknowledging women’s contributions would undermine the image of militaries as ultramasculine institutions—an image that military men as well as those who studied them were reluctant to relinquish. Before the feminist movement that emerged in the 1960s, scholars of militaries focused almost exclusively on men’s roles in soldiering, thus reinforcing women’s invisibility.85 Since the American Revolution, the U.S. military had used women’s services as “laundresses, cooks, nurses, foragers, water carriers, and correspondence copiers, among other capacities” (including sexual), but diminished their importance by designating civilian women as “camp followers,” which connotes a “parasitic” relationship that positions women as separate from and dependent on the armed forces rather than essential contributors.86 Later, women officially employed in the armed forces were assigned to a separate, and usually temporary, status that distinguished them from male soldiers. After World War II, armed forces officials became far more willing to acknowledge that wives and families could be useful, even crucial, for accomplishing military aims. Navy, Army, and Air Force officials’ statements to service wives and their families, and magazine advertisements intended for Air Force wives, show that military families—wives in particular—were considered fundamentally important to the defense of the United States through their support of servicemen. Military officials during the 1950s made numerous public statements informing wives that they were expected to contribute to military goals. In 1955, U.S. Lady published a letter from Admiral Arleigh Burke to the Navy Wives Club of America. Burke assumed that wives were to assist the Navy by facilitating social relations among shipmates to strengthen their sense of camaraderie, by conveying to the civilian community the importance of the Navy in national defense and assistance to allies, and by “lend[ing] inspiration and encouragement [to their husbands and the Navy] when the going gets tough.”87 In 1956, the Fleet Reserve Association sponsored a “Mrs. United States Navy” contest for which women wrote essays on “Why I Am Proud to Be a Navy Wife.” The semifinalists traveled with their families to Long Beach, California, for a week-long gathering that included Navy officials. In a speech to the families, Secretary of the Navy Charles Thomas spoke of “the typical Navy enlisted man’s wife” as having “served” in the Navy as if her marital and domestic duties were as official as her husband’s military obligations. The U.S. Unofficial Ambassadors 63
Lady editors wrote that the thirty-one families assembled in Long Beach “presented a picture of All-American friendliness, health, happiness and family togetherness that made the top Navy brass assembled there as proud as new fathers. Here was a vital element in the Navy hierarchy that had never been placed in the spotlight before. We all sensed the wonder of a major discovery.”88 The “major discovery” was that families could be an asset to the armed forces. The “top Navy brass” were not alone in their assessment of families as valuable to the military. Army leaders also conceived of wives as essential to the effective functioning of their organization. Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor expressed this view in a 1956 article for service wives. He recalled a debate among officers in Korea over the question of whether or not bachelors performed their duties better than married men. “The contest was animated and when the voting time came, the mess split exactly in half, so that when it reached me at the head of the table, it was a tie,” wrote General Taylor. “It was not hard for me to break it. I said, ‘Gentlemen, regardless of the arguments pro and con, I know it as a personal fact that if Mrs. Taylor had not taken me in hand years ago, I would still be a second lieutenant.’” General Taylor credited the “ladies of the Army” for backing men in their military careers and said that he regarded the women as “indispensable assets” crucial to the success of the Army “in future battle.” According to Taylor, military might and mobility depended upon women’s support of their husbands: “the man behind the gun must have behind him a loyal Army wife, capable of sustaining him—when together or when separated—with understanding, with affection, and with the fierce pride of the wife of a warrior.” Indeed, here Taylor contended that a married serviceman would prove a more effective soldier than an unmarried one. He also drew upon historical ideals of women’s sacrifices for the state when he likened Cold War Army wives to “the Roman matrons who told their sons to come back from battle with their shields or on them”—an image of the ultimate maternal sacrifice—and to nineteenth-century Army wives who accompanied their husbands to the West in covered wagons, braving hardship and danger.89 Like the Navy and Army top brass, Air Force Chief of Staff General Nathan F. Twining encouraged women to bolster the armed forces, and national security, through their support of servicemen. In a 1956 “message of faith and courage for Air Force Wives,” General Twining expressed appreciation for the perseverance of women and children during the Cold War “age of tension.” Twining acknowledged that service to the Air Force, which “operat[ed] largely under wartime conditions,” placed “stresses and strains” on families. He lauded the women he called “Twen64 Unofficial Ambassadors
tieth Century Pioneers” for enduring such a “hard life” and for proudly standing behind their husbands. The “pioneer” reference, also used by General Taylor, evoked the romantic nationalistic image of the frontier families of the previous century to portray the U.S. international presence in the mid-twentieth century as a continuation of Americans’ historical expansion and progress. Twining’s message commingled praise for wives with the assertion that the defense of the nation—and more precisely, the security of families—depended upon women’s support of servicemen: American security and safety require greater readiness not less—during an age of tension, not merely for a few months or years. If your children and your children’s children grow up in a nation not ravaged by conflict, it will be because we had enough skilled . . . experienced, and above all, ready men, poised through those years to defend and retaliate against any attacker. In a large measure, whether we have these men or not depends on you.90
Twining’s view of women’s role in fortifying the Air Force resembled the perspectives of other armed forces officials: that women’s domestic work and wifely duties were essential to military strength. In other words, military leaders of the 1950s conceived of military goals, including the containment of communism, as not only requiring men to be fighters, but also women to be sustainers of men and families. These military authorities’ flattering addresses to wives offered much praise, and in return shrewdly demanded women’s voluntary service to armed forces readiness. Certainly military leaders felt genuine appreciation for the contributions of family members, no doubt in large part due to their own dependence on their wives. Still, the unprecedented militarization of the Cold War era, combined with the fact that a large percentage of personnel had spouses and children, forced U.S. military officials whether they liked it or not to figure out how to contend with families. If they could not ignore them, then they had to find ways to minimize what they considered their negative impact on military activities; but they could also make use of them.91
. . . and Reenvisioning the Military A series of thirteen public announcements targeting Air Force wives between April 1956 and December 1959 in the magazine U.S. Lady illustrates the construction of a new vision of the Air Force with white nuclear families at the center. This vision did not replace the predominant Unofficial Ambassadors 65
masculine image of the Air Force, but rather served as an alternative conceptualization, intended to appeal to women and maintain their support for Air Force goals. These advertisements tried to “sell” to women a vision of families as the foundation of military success yet they also reflected the relatively recent acceptance of the family as integral to the function and purpose of the military, rather than primarily a hindrance to it. Each full-page announcement began with the salutation “Dear Lady,” followed by a succinct statement in cursive script, and a photograph of a middleclass, white family scene that took up most of the page. These “Dear Lady” messages reveal the presumed connections among the following: the service wife (who, one assumes, is the woman in each family scene); the serviceman (the male figure who appears in nearly all of the photographs but never in uniform); the family; national security; and the American ideals of freedom, prosperity, the home, religious faith (specifically, Christianity in the one advertisement on “the faith of your choice”), and economic opportunity. The first “Dear Lady” advertisement that appeared in U.S. Lady in 1956 brought together the elements considered fundamental to the wellbeing of Cold War Americans to convey the idea of the interconnectedness of the Air Force, the home and family, and security. It offered a large photograph of a woman, man, and three children enacting a cozy family scene above the message “Dear Lady: The family is the real heart of the U.S. Air Force,” handwritten in a flowing script. A small image of the Air Force seal, the imprimatur that reminds the reader that this message is official, appears discreetly in the bottom right-hand corner of the page. The group is positioned before the living room fireplace, the proverbial hearth that connotes home and family. The woman sits in an armchair reading Pinocchio to two attentive children resting on either side of her, while the man and a third child kneel together nearby on the floor, their attention on the child’s toy vehicle. The image and written text conflate the nuclear family, the home, the Air Force, and personal as well as national security. The announcement also in effect told its audience that the Air Force existed to protect the family ideal: families were the raison d’être of the military; national defense ultimately centered on defending them. The Pinocchio story—a tale of a wooden puppet boy (created by a human “father”) who loses his way and encounters misadventures when he leaves his father’s home in pursuit of pleasure—serves as a subtle but dark reminder of the heartache and dangers that threaten to befall those who underrate the security and happiness of home and family. And the story about a human father who sought to give life to his artificial creation paralleled, in a fashion, the Air Force’s endeavor to remake itself into a flesh-and-blood family organization.92 66 Unofficial Ambassadors
The first “Dear Lady” U.S. Air Force advertisement, which appeared in U.S. Lady in 1956: “Dear Lady: The family is the real heart of the U.S. Air Force.”
Another advertisement published in July 1958 conjoined the Air Force with the American ideals of family, abundance, and freedom. This one presented the message “Dear Lady: Mainstay of our freedom . . . The U.S. Air Force Family.” The photograph above the written text featured an idyllic scene of a family picnicking in a grassy area near a pond. The man, woman, and two young children representing the family surround an abundant picnic feast of watermelon, homemade cake, and other foods. The sitting man and kneeling woman, at about equal heights, convey their solidarity and their equally important positions in their family and the Air Force as they smile at one another from either side of the spread, while the children sit between them, the girl focused on eating a large watermelon Unofficial Ambassadors 67
This “Dear Lady” U.S. Air Force advertisement appeared in U.S. Lady in July 1958: “Dear Lady: Mainstay of our freedom . . . The U.S. Air Force Family.”
wedge, the boy preoccupied with a toy boat. The family appears happy and secure. The announcement conveys multiple messages: that families, rather than weapons and war and soldiers, represented the core of the Air Force; that the Air Force intended to safeguard the abundance, family togetherness, and personal freedom that were assumed to characterize the American way of life; and that women’s work of sustaining the family— raising children, taking care of men, and fulfilling other domestic duties— was considered central to the accomplishment of military goals.93 A “Dear Lady” advertisement from December 1958 united Christianity, family, and the Air Force. Filling most of the page is a large photograph of a man, woman, and two children (older than the children fea68 Unofficial Ambassadors
tured in most of the other announcements) in Sunday dress, grouped close together as they walk cheerfully down a tree-lined street, presumably en route to or from church. The group smiles into the camera. Above this scene sits a small image of a chapel and a miniature version of a family that resembles the group featured in the main photograph; below, a reproduction of the Air Force seal. The accompanying written text reads “Dear Lady—The faith of your choice . . . your sense of togetherness . . . are the strength of the U.S. Air Force.” Although this message purports to acknowledge religious diversity—“the faith of your choice”—the image of
This “Dear Lady” U.S. Air Force advertisement appeared in U.S. Lady in December 1958: “Dear Lady—The faith of your choice . . . your sense of togetherness . . . are the strength of the U.S. Air Force.” Unofficial Ambassadors 69
the chapel and the publication of this announcement in the December issue of U.S. Lady implicitly advocate Christianity above other religions. The text as a whole—which appeared in a period of heavy militarization, in the United States and abroad, against what Americans considered to be the godless enemy communism—draws upon the myth of American territorial expansion and military actions in North America and abroad as a “manifest destiny” favored by providence. This “Dear Lady” advertisement portrays the Air Force mission in terms of the ideological expansion of American values, represented by the happy white middle-class family, the Christian church, and the allusion to religious freedom.94 The adult male figure that appears in eleven of the thirteen “Dear Lady” announcements warrants further discussion. This figure is never in uniform, although the reader assumes from his age—mid-to-late twenties and older—and from his confident bearing that he is probably an officer. In two of the ads the male figure wears white-collar apparel—a dress shirt and tie, a business suit—but in the others, the man is dressed casually. In each image the man is sitting with, kneeling with, walking with, playing with, or holding a child or children. His relaxed attitude, casual dress, thoughtful or smiling expression, and proximity to children communicate that although he is employed by the Air Force, he is at heart a family man. In these advertisements, then, the Air Force in effect presented itself as a corps staffed by fathers and husbands, a military body that drew its strength from families, rather than relying on force alone.
Families as Unofficial Ambassadors The view that wives and families could serve military aims applied to families stationed overseas soon after World War II, and came to encompass the assumption that they could help advance their country’s foreign relations goals. When families began joining service personnel abroad in 1946, they were expected to aid military goals by supporting men’s morale and thereby helping to make overseas missions run more smoothly. Moreover, military planners believed that families — women especially, but children as well—could promote good relations with the residents of occupied nations by projecting American compassion and good will. The armed forces encouraged women’s and families’ activities and attributes that were believed to promote American involvement, cooperation, and friendship in countries that housed U.S. bases. Although servicemen certainly were considered capable of demonstrating compassion and friendship, they were also soldiers, trained to fight, and so represented their nation’s potential for military force and violence. Women and children came 70 Unofficial Ambassadors
to be considered more effective representatives of peaceful intention, humanitarianism, understanding, and international cooperation. Conceptions of women and children as representatives of American understanding and good will abroad surfaced in the early years of military occupation. At the orientation that spouses and older children attended upon arriving in Germany in 1946, their discussion leader advised them not only to learn European languages, but also to “try to understand and appreciate the thoughts and feelings, aims and aspirations that are expressed by those languages.”95 Wives and children, then, were to do more than simply communicate with Europeans; they were also expected to empathize with them. Military leaders encouraged wives to engage in “women’s work” that aided occupation goals. General Lucius Clay praised women for their charitable work to aid the German people: “The good work which [women’s] clubs accomplished was remarkable and contributed much toward making the Germans understand the humane characteristics of the American people.”96 The incorporation of families into armed forces and foreign relations goals appeared in the early official prescriptive literature for families in occupied countries. These pamphlets mostly contained accounts of local history, culture, people, and climate, as well as information about services and facilities available to American families. There did appear, however, a few suggestions to guide families in their interactions with residents of occupied countries. A Guide for Dependents in Kyoto (1946) informed readers that “a greater responsibility is placed upon members of [an overseas] Army than is generally found at installations within the continental United States. Wives and children of Army personnel in Japan must aid, in every way, the fulfillment of our primary missions in this occupation.” The guide advised women and children to exercise “restraint” and “detachment” in interactions with the Japanese. Yet the booklet also encouraged family members to demonstrate courtesy and a careful willingness to socialize with the Japanese: “Families of Occupation Forces will receive many invitations to visit the homes of Japanese people. There is nothing to prohibit such invitations being accepted, and the courtesies returned, provided a degree of restraint is practiced.”97 This advice captures the complicated position of the American military in the early years of occupation. The Japanese had recently been at war with the United States, and by definition, occupied nations were considered enemies.98 Historian John Dower describes the occupation as “schizophrenic,” combining idealistic democratic reforms with “severe authoritarian rule.”99 To help create an atmosphere of good intention, a cautious but courteous demeanor would not only maintain American authority but also demonstrate the occupiers’ benevolence toward their former enemy. Unofficial Ambassadors 71
Besides encouraging prudent socializing with residents of occupied countries, the early prescriptive literature specified activities that women could perform to assist the occupations. The Kyoto guide mentioned that occupation planners were seeking teachers to staff schools for American children, and suggested that “dependents of service personnel” might take these jobs. The pamphlet did not state whether the women who staffed the schools would receive payment or would be considered volunteers. In either case, the invitation for women to apply for teaching jobs in armed forces schools underscores the reliance of the armed forces upon women’s work. The expectation that wives should aid military goals appeared in another Army guide for families in Bad Nauheim, Germany. Among descriptions of the history of the region’s salt production and medicinal baths, and information on riding stables and swimming pools, appeared a section titled “Women’s Activities,” which asked women to engage in “one or more of these community activities”: the American Red Cross, German language classes, and the German Youth Movement.100 Army representatives would have considered women’s participation in any of these groups helpful to occupation goals in Germany. As Red Cross volunteers, women would provide unpaid care for American service personnel and possibly also Germans. By learning German, women would not only communicate well with Germans, military officials hoped, but also express American good will. And by joining the military-sponsored German Youth Movement, women ideally would befriend and work closely with young Germans and help teach American values such as democracy.101 The belief that families could assist military goals in the occupations of Germany and Japan overlapped with and carried over into Cold War international relations. During the tense months preceding the Soviet blockade of the Western sectors of Berlin in June 1948, General Lucius Clay hesitated to evacuate American women and children from West Germany for fear that their departure would set off panic among Germans. In Clay’s view, American families in Germany symbolized the commitment of the United States to extend friendship, aid, and protection to “free” Germans threatened by the communist enemy that lurked next door.102 In 1956, General Maxwell Taylor declared that “The effect of our forces as ambassadors of good will is largely conditioned by the quality of the wives and children who accompany our soldiers abroad.”103 Lieutenant Colonel Walter Luszki, in a 1959 article for military wives, wrote that “Dependents are usually in more extensive contact with the native population than are service men. An average woman makes frequent shopping trips, deals with repairmen, beauty operators, dressmakers and others, and in these dealings she may not be sufficiently aware that everything she says and does may influence the person’s attitude toward the United 72 Unofficial Ambassadors
States.” Luszki wanted wives to receive more orientation, learn local languages, and engage in “joint activities between United States nationals and members of the host nations,” such as “Operation Kinderlift—taking German children from Berlin and giving them vacations in American homes in West Germany.”104 Between 1950 and 1960, as the number of U.S. military forces abroad increased, so did the presence of American families. According to Bureau of the Census statistics, 107,350 Americans described as “dependents of federal employees” lived abroad in 1950. Because most federal employees abroad that year were members of the armed forces (301,595, far more than the 26,910 federal civilian employees), one may conservatively estimate that 90,000 of the “dependents of federal employees” were relatives of military personnel. The 1960 census, which unlike the 1950 census distinguished between dependents of federal civilian employees and dependents of armed forces personnel, found that 462,504 relatives of military personnel resided overseas. Thus, the number of spouses, children, and others designated as “dependents of military personnel” quintupled between 1950 and 1960. By 1960, approximately forty-nine percent of armed forces personnel abroad were married. That year, the more than one million Americans abroad associated with the armed forces constituted approximately seventy-eight percent of the entire American population residing in foreign countries.105 Thus, military personnel and their families composed the vast majority of Americans abroad. During the late 1940s and 1950s, alongside the evolution of the idea that families in the United States could contain the internal communist threat arose the concept that American families overseas could serve as bulwarks against global communism. The military establishment came to believe that the containment of international communism was a job not just for the American soldier but also for the American family. Promoting positive informal relations would generate non-Americans’ support for official U.S. aims. According to this assumption, families’ friendly contacts with residents of occupied and host countries would help persuade them to accept a long-term foreign military presence that claimed to defend the free world against encroaching communism. Women in particular were considered instrumental in demonstrating American good will and sensitivity toward non-Americans. Moreover, it was hoped that exemplary families would counter foreign perceptions of Americans as materialistic, unsophisticated individualists concerned only about their own wellbeing, and of the United States as a culturally and territorially imperialistic nation. Thus, military leaders considered American military families to be cultural and ideological weapons in the war against the spread of communism. Unofficial Ambassadors 73
Air Force and Army prescriptive literature for the spouses and children of service members indicates that these organizations regarded the friendliness and consideration of family members interested in local peoples and their ways of life as essential to good relations between the American military and residents of host countries. Pamphlets for “dependents” informed them that they were “unofficial ambassadors” responsible for establishing positive relations with residents of host nations. According to Air Force and Army guides published in the 1950s for families in the United Kingdom, France, the Philippines, and other nations, the job of unofficial ambassador entailed the following duties: the demonstration of courtesy and good will to local people, respect for the customs and obedience to the laws of host nations, the promotion of “human understanding,” and the countering of bad impressions made by other Americans. An Army guide expressed the idea that families, unlike service personnel unaccompanied by spouses and children, “add up to the real, hard-core America in the eyes of foreigners.” The pamphlets directed their messages primarily to wives, who were expected to carry out their ambassadorial duties through ladylike behavior, sensitivity, interest in other peoples and cultures, and adaptability to foreign environments.106 The guides warned against behavior that reinforced stereotypes of Americans as inconsiderate and arrogant and that would make the U.S. military presence less tolerable. The Army advice literature articulated the concept of the family as the quintessence of American society: “Foreigners will make allowances, to some extent . . . for the actions of single Americans—people alone and away from home. But what foreign people see an American family do becomes Americana and remains fixed in their minds a long time.”107 This statement asserts that American families, more than servicemen unaccompanied by wives and children, embodied their nation’s character and therefore bore the most responsibility for representing their country in a favorable light. The pamphlets for Great Britain and France discouraged “loud and boisterous conduct,” the “vulgar exhibition of superior wealth,” and “the American ‘superiority complex.’”108 Readers also were cautioned not to appear overly friendly or intrusive. Instead, the guides prescribed an attitude of consideration for local peoples and respect for their cultures and ways. The Air Force booklet for families in the United Kingdom asked readers to reject ethnocentrism and instead adopt a cultural-relativist view of their British hosts: “You may not always understand British customs and practices. But, remember, your habits and customs may be just as hard for the average Britisher to understand.”109 The Army pamphlet offered similar advice: “Americans must understand . . . that they are the foreigners while abroad, and that their hosts overseas do not always measure success by the same standards that 74 Unofficial Ambassadors
Americans use.” According to this booklet, “The chief requirement [for good relations between Americans and host nationals] is a sincere desire to understand one another and a willingness to accept one another as friendly human beings with excellent reasons for being different.” Readers were admonished not to adopt a “high-handed, ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude” toward people in foreign countries or to “treat the ways of others with contempt.”110 This advice bespeaks the concern in military organizations that ill-behaved Americans abroad might overstep their positions as affiliates of a foreign military power and in so doing undermine the acceptance of U.S. bases in foreign countries, as well as discredit claims that the United States promoted international cooperation, democracy, and freedom for all peoples. An attitude of dominance rather than partnership could imperil U.S. goals abroad. Yet polite and self-restrained families could demonstrate to non-American observers that a democratic, prosperous, free-market society did not necessarily breed insolent, extreme individualists who lacked regard for others. The pamphlets for family members contained assumptions about women’s activities and characteristics that attest to the reliance of international relations on gendered activities and qualities. As seen earlier in this chapter, servicemen stationed overseas without families received advice on establishing good relations in local communities. Men, not only women and children, certainly were considered capable of demonstrating understanding and friendliness to residents of foreign countries. The advice directed at women, and to a lesser extent children, for strengthening American-host national relations reveals the particular contributions that the armed forces believed women and families could make that were considered valuable not only to interpersonal but also international relations: demonstration of sensitivity in financial transactions off base; exhibition of ladylike behavior; adaptation to local mores, as evidenced in emulation of local standards of dress for women; and the projection of friendliness and willingness to cooperate with host nationals through clubs and community activities for women and children. Because women were the primary consumers for their families, the literature asked them to exhibit sensitivity and restraint when making purchases in off-base communities. During the 1950s, while people of other countries still struggled to recover from damage to their economies inflicted by World War II, Americans enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. The advice literature for Air Force families in the United Kingdom cautioned readers that the British, still coping with economic hardship from the war, might resent Americans who spent money too freely. The guide admonished them that “Customary gestures of generosity you would make at home might well be interpreted abroad as a vulgar exhibition of superior Unofficial Ambassadors 75
wealth. . . . Don’t flash a roll of English pounds.” The booklet also asked readers to help offset the stereotype of “the United States [as] a land of millionaires.” The Army pamphlet, which estimated that American women managed eighty percent of their family budgets, told readers that “to protect the feelings of other people allied with us in a common defense, you need to be careful that your buying always represents actual needs and is as inconspicuous as possible.”111 The expectation that service wives, in the ordinary activity of shopping, were to sympathize with the plight of less economically privileged peoples underlay the idea that women and families abroad could counter criticisms of American society as materialistic and unconcerned about the hardships endured by other nations. Sensitivity to the less fortunate was not the only reason for this advice, however; the Eisenhower administration also worried that military families’ spending abroad contributed to the outflow of the United States’ gold reserves. Besides urging women to spend money sensitively, the guides asked them and their families to smooth American-host national relations by exhibiting basic polite behavior. The pamphlets asked family members to exercise “good taste” by not indulging in complaining or gossiping—advice that probably stemmed from sexist assumptions about women, as well as the particular fear that American wives and family members would complain about the U.S. military or reveal information that military officials preferred to keep from non-Americans. Additional advice was tailored to specific countries. For example, the pamphlet for families in the United Kingdom warned against use of the expression “bloody” (“one of the worst British swear words”), and stated that “ladies” were not to make unescorted visits to pubs, initiate dart games or buy drinks in pubs (rather than waiting until asked), or request whiskey at private parties. Showing respect for local gender mores, it was hoped, would not only keep American women in line, but also counteract impressions of Americans as crude and reassure residents of host nations that the U.S. military presence did not signify cultural imperialist intentions to overrun the values and practices of smaller societies.112 Recommendations for women’s dress attest to assumptions that women were especially capable of adapting to foreign cultures and thereby projecting understanding of host societies as well as the proclaimed intention of the U.S. armed forces to coexist with, rather than dominate, the hosts of their bases. Although the literature included brief suggestions for children’s clothing and men’s uniforms and off-duty apparel, most of the advice on dress was intended for women. The booklet for the United Kingdom informed readers that “ladies” should not wear slacks in villages or the countryside, although they could do so in urban areas. The guide also 76 Unofficial Ambassadors
stated that “Ladies never appear in public in any state of dishevelment,” a reminder that women were always being watched and their nation judged by their appearance.113 In contrast to the more formal standards for women’s apparel in the United Kingdom, American women in the tropical climate of the Philippines received permission to dress more casually: they learned that “hats and gloves are seldom worn,” that “evening dress will normally be of a summer-type cotton, without hose,” and that lightweight cottons usually served as appropriate apparel. Wearing clothes that were too formal would have made American women stand out, and might have given the impression that they thought they were superior to Filipinos. Nevertheless, American women in the Philippines were not to wear clothes that were too casual or revealing: the guide advised them to wear sun dresses, slacks, or “brief shorts” only in recreational areas or at home.114 The advice literature for Spain took a stern tone on the subject of women’s dress in its italicized instructions that readers give “serious consideration” and exercise “wholehearted cooperation . . . in the interest of good Spanish-United States relations.” The guide exhorted women to cover their heads and shoulders in church and to dress conservatively in other public activities. They were to wear modest dresses, but never shorts or slacks, outside the home. Acceptable swimwear, they were told, consisted of “a one piece bathing suit with a skirt completely around the hips.”115 The guide for France illustrates the expectation that women, more than men, were to adapt to non-American cultural standards. Advice on men’s apparel consisted of a few lines on military uniforms, and a simple remark on men’s nonwork attire: “Military personnel are encouraged to wear appropriate civilian clothing while off duty.” In contrast, the advice for service wives offered pointers to help them emulate the style of French women. Readers were told that “Even the poorest paid [French] woman is ingenious in creating attractive clothing from ordinary materials.” This statement implies that the American woman who did not at least make an attempt at modishness might be looked upon as lower in status than a menial worker, which could diminish French respect for Americans. “Any state of disheveled appearance (such as hair curlers under a scarf),” warned the guide, “can discredit a lady in the minds of the onlookers.” To attain fashion respectability in France, women were urged not to wear shorts or slacks in public or sports clothes in the cities. The pamphlet suggested that women could find stylish apparel such as ladies’ hats in Paris, or arrange for custom-made suits at couturiers for prices significantly lower than would be paid at the more famous designer houses such as Dior, Heim, or Schiaparelli.116 The Air Force and Army also expected women and children to Unofficial Ambassadors 77
strengthen U.S.–host nation relations by socializing with local residents. Such interactions were intended to exemplify the internationalist ideal of Americans living among, rather than apart from, peoples of other nations. Furthermore, the self-segregation of Americans might have reinforced the notion that Americans considered themselves superior to host nationals, or that U.S. bases were established abroad for the sole purpose of furthering military aims, with no interest in cultural or social exchanges. The booklet for the United Kingdom asked the reader “[not to] isolate yourself in a clique of Air Force friends. Broaden your group of friends to include the British.”117 The pamphlets for families in the Philippines and Spain encouraged Americans to venture off military bases to join local people in religious worship, sports, theaters, movie houses, and festivals. The guide for France instructed readers to wait for French acquaintances to make hospitable overtures, but to promptly acknowledge and return such hospitality.118 The literature advocated involvement in community organizations as another way for women and children to project American friendliness and the spirit of international cooperation. The expectation of military organizations that women contribute to community projects stemmed from a history of wives’ volunteer efforts on behalf of armed forces goals. Furthermore, since the arrival of service families overseas in 1946, wives had on their own initiative formed groups to aid residents of occupied and host nations. The Army guide assumed that spouses and children of personnel enjoyed more “free time” overseas than in the United States because many families employed domestic workers, and because there were fewer diversions such as television and playgrounds to occupy children’s time. The guide urged family members to use their spare time “profitably” by volunteering for social welfare programs that benefited military personnel and host nationals or by joining clubs. Suggestions included participating in women’s clubs, teen clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Germany Youth Activities program, Christmas toy projects, hobby clubs, and various cultural groups. The guide informed the reader that “You will find your work as a volunteer also provides many avenues for friendship and information not otherwise open to an American in a foreign land.”119 The pamphlet for the United Kingdom advised service wives to work alongside the British—“a civic-minded people [who . . .] have many organizations that parallel the better known American service clubs and associations”— in groups such as the Women’s Voluntary Service, the British Red Cross, St. John’s Ambulance Association, the Women’s Institute for those who resided in villages, and the Townswomen’s Guild for women in urban areas.120 The official prescriptive literature tells us how the armed forces wanted 78 Unofficial Ambassadors
American military families to conduct themselves, not what they actually did. The guides no doubt responded to and tried to deter undesirable attitudes and behavior frequently exhibited by Americans—inconsideration for local customs, inappropriate dress, use of vulgar language. But the advice also discloses assumptions about how members of military families could help to gain local peoples’ acceptance of the U.S. military presence, as well as project an appealing image of Americans and thereby gain respect and admiration for the United States as well as support for its policies. The guidebooks reveal as much if not more concern for the image of the United States conveyed by Americans abroad as for the impact of the U.S. military on host nations. Does this mean that the armed forces were more concerned with superficial displays of American courtesy and good will toward host nationals than with deeper relations and policies that tangibly benefited local peoples? Distributing advice to exhibit respect and friendliness in everyday relations certainly was simple and inexpensive compared to official programs that required more planning and resources. Nonetheless, the influence of individual Americans abroad should not be underestimated. As historian John Kasson has shown in his study of manners in the nineteenth century, displays of courtesy are not “merely empty formalities,” but rather are “inextricably tied to larger political, social, and cultural contexts and their ramifications extend deep into human relations.”121 Furthermore, although U.S. interests and objectives would have been the top priority of American civilian and military officials, they did not necessarily see their nation’s interests as unconnected to those of the host nations. Cold War military and foreign relations assumed that maintaining the power of the United States against communist rivals benefited allies as well as Americans. Finally, even those officials who did not harbor lofty ideals of international understanding and cooperation between Americans with the armed forces and local citizens at a minimum would have wanted interactions to go smoothly and the military to conduct its activities without disruption from problems caused by inconsiderate Americans.
Conclusion In the post–World War II climate—mostly internationalist, decidedly anticommunist—U.S. leaders wanted to project American ideals of democracy and freedom and counter impressions of their country and its military as power-hungry and intent only on self-serving domination of other nations rather than international cooperation for the betterment of all Unofficial Ambassadors 79
humanity. In the fierce combat of the Cold War, Americans believed that winning the war against worldwide communism depended on a powerful military, international involvement, and nuclear families. When families joined servicemen overseas after World War II, the armed forces identified uses for them in the occupations, and also constructed a vision of families as powerful weapons in the Cold War defense arsenal. Army, Air Force, and Navy authorities expected them to bolster the morale of servicemen and thereby maximize military readiness. Abroad, they urged families to make the U.S. military presence more tolerable to residents of occupied and host nations and to promote successful international relations through informal social and cultural exchanges. Nevertheless, the armed forces did not draw on the full potential of family members to aid U.S. foreign relations goals. It would be military wives, often working on their own, outside of military supervision, who envisioned and carried out creative ways to make connections with local peoples and help further advance what they perceived as their country’s international objectives.
80 Unofficial Ambassadors
3 A U.S. Lady’s World
On November 2, 1960, Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy proposed a government-sponsored “Peace Corps” that arose from a vision of the United States as a humanitarian, democratic world leader desirous of selflessly assisting the poorest peoples of less powerful and privileged nations. The idea excited Americans. Over the next three months, thousands wrote letters asking how they could join, and a Gallup Poll reported that seventy-one percent of those questioned supported Kennedy’s proposal.1 The idea of a U.S. government-sponsored body of American volunteers striving with peoples at the grassroots level to better their societies expressed the deep wish of Americans to see their country not only as a militarily and economically dominant power that used its strength to serve national self-interest, but also as a noble, beneficent force for aiding humankind.2 In response to Kennedy’s inauguration and the impending creation of the Peace Corps, U.S. Lady editors Alvadee and John Adams wrote in their February 1961 editorial that military wives abroad possessed extensive experience in “volunteer foreign aid” and had already constituted a “Peace Corps” since 1946, when American military families first arrived in Germany.3 The editorial struck a chord with readers. A letter to the editors signed by Mrs. Bob Pennington stated that “wives and children of the military are peace corps ‘natural[s].’” In another letter, Marie Nasch declared that American military wives were “LADY ‘diplomats’” and “the finest, most gracious Peace Corps any country could ask for.” Nasch entreated Kennedy to use military wives in the Peace Corps: “Put us in the picture, Mr. President. We’ve been there all this time, but no one has noticed us except our thousands of foreign friends who have said sayonara, auf wiedersehen, au revoir, and what have you, with tears in their eyes.” Nasch, whose husband would soon retire from the military, volunteered her own services.4 Many military wives, like Peace Corps volunteers, tried to embody the post – World War II ideal of “humanitarian internationalism.”5 They sought to establish international alliances based on friendship, coopera81
tion, and assistance to peoples in need. Mrs. Pennington pointed out that military wives possessed the necessary skills as well as the international perspective required of Peace Corps volunteers: “We have so many persons qualified to help—nurses, teachers, and wives who love our noble country and are willing to fight in any way they can to keep it free, and to show and help others to keep their freedom.”6 While their husbands represented official military authority and power, many military wives took the initiative to project and promote the compassion, friendliness, and what one wife termed “feminine good will” they believed necessary to build Cold War alliances and maintain world peace.7 As historian Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman astutely notes, it is not by accident that the creation of the Peace Corps coincided with the height of U.S. Cold War military power. “The exercise of power,” she states, “calls forth a compensatory impulse.” Even before the creation of the United States, colonists saw the society they were creating in the New World as exceptional and exemplary. Americans’ vision of their nation as a model for the rest of the world carried into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and served as a fundamental reason for their reluctance to become entangled in foreign conflicts, unless they considered their self-interest to be directly at stake: the United States was morally upright and prosperous because it did not become embroiled in Old World-style rivalries and intrigues.8 Yet in the twentieth century, the more the United States became involved in international turmoil—the Great War, World War II, the Cold War—the more powerful it became, and the more Americans vigorously advanced the high-minded notion of their nation as the moral leader of the world. Military wives’ efforts to help peoples of occupied and host nations, like the Peace Corps, represented sincere efforts to do good for those who were less privileged than Americans, while helping to ease Americans’ discomfort with and even morally justify their nation’s global dominance. The most prominent of the “unofficial ambassador” wives were white officers’ wives, many of whose husbands were making a career of military service. Like many Americans of the early Cold War era, they envisioned themselves as participants in the battle against communism. These women personified the complexity of U.S. global leadership in the first two decades of the Cold War. Their efforts to assist and befriend peoples of other nations meshed with U.S. military and foreign policy objectives to help rebuild nations wrecked by war, whether friend or foe, in ways that were in line with the perceived self-interest of the United States. As wielders of soft power, service wives attempted to represent American values and ideals in ways that the hard-power U.S. military presence abroad could not, yet all the while buttressing their nation’s global supremacy and military might. American women who performed charity work, adopted chil82 A U.S. Lady’s World
dren, joined international women’s clubs, and invited local people into their homes considered themselves sincere conveyers of American warmth and generosity, and simultaneously served U.S. international interests. This chapter examines women’s articulations of the ambassadorial role for military wives, their accounts of encounters with residents of occupied and host nations (mainly in Europe and Asia), and their perspectives on their contributions to international relations. Their advice literature and accounts of interactions with local residents illuminate women’s agency in cultivating international good will and promoting their visions of American values and ways abroad. Many wives who took to heart the unofficial ambassador role urged upon them by the armed forces did not merely follow the instructions provided in the military advice manuals. Under their own initiative, they imagined ways to reach out to local peoples, and enterprisingly enacted these. Although conditions varied by locale, women engaged in similar activities at bases worldwide. Their accounts of their interactions with residents of occupied and host nations both provide evidence of the scope and nature of these encounters and illuminate the conception of international relations that guided their activities. While endeavoring to befriend local peoples and show respect for their cultures and customs, they attempted to demonstrate the alleged superiority of the American way of life, including American family relations, gender roles, and home life—a task that could pose challenges, given the shortcomings in some housing for military families, the undemocratic treatment of fellow Americans in military communities, and the domestic problems that some families faced. To understand why it was white officers’ wives who took the lead in advising and serving as role models for military wives in their encounters with local peoples, it is first necessary to examine the gender roles, racial composition of, and rank among families in military communities, and military culture’s expectations of officers’ wives.
Gender, Race, and Rank in Military Families Abroad Although racial and class biases certainly contributed to the conception of white officers’ wives as model emissaries, an examination of the demographics of military personnel and their families further explains the prominence of these women. That in virtually all military families the service member was a man was a phenomenon resulting not only from deeply rooted cultural assumptions that women’s roles as wives and mothers were incompatible with military service, and from the conscription of men, but also from policies that made it difficult or impossible for A U.S. Lady’s World 83
married women or women with children to serve in the armed forces. During World War II, 350,000 women served in the military, but were not allowed to reenlist if they married. Bans on married women entering the military stood until the mid-1960s. After the war (except early in the Korean War), single enlisted women were permitted to leave the military upon marrying, and many did. Women in the military were far less likely to have dependents than male personnel, in large part because the government made it burdensome or impossible for mothers and female heads of household to remain in service or receive the same family benefits as male personnel. In 1951, President Harry Truman signed an executive order allowing the armed forces to terminate any female member who was pregnant or a parent (biological or adoptive) to a child under the age of eighteen. The Department of Defense announced the suspension of this policy in 1974, making it effective as of May 1975, though the Army resisted it for years afterward.9 The vast majority of armed forces personnel were white, as were their spouses and children. In 1960, the census categorized almost 90.1 percent of all armed forces personnel abroad as white, and the remainder (9.9 percent) as nonwhite.10 These percentages closely correspond to the percentages by race of families members abroad. Of the 462,504 armed forces “dependents” living abroad, 90.9 percent were described as “white,” and 6.1 percent as “negro”; the remaining three percent fell into the categories “American Indian,” “Japanese,” “Chinese,” “Filipino,” and “other races” (see table). Almost all armed forces personnel abroad were male: approximately 99.2% (605,140) were men, and less than one percent (5,034) were women.11 The census reported that there were 164,290 wives of military personnel living abroad; 143,405 female children under age eighteen; 150,820 male children under age eighteen; and 1,004 parents of military personnel (711 female and 293 male).12 Thus, military “dependents” were predominantly white and female. Because the vast majority of officers at overseas bases in the 1950s were white, it is likely that a similar proportion of their wives also were white. Although at least ten percent of overseas Army personnel were African-American, a disproportionately smaller percentage were officers. As of November 1955, nearly 45,000 African-American Army personnel (eleven percent of all Army members) served in overseas commands, but only 1,294 (three percent) of this group were officers.13 Under-representation of blacks as officers in the armed forces persisted into the 1960s. In 1965, African Americans accounted for only 3.5 percent of Army officers, 1.6 percent of Air Force officers, .3 percent of Navy officers, and .4 percent of Marine Corps officers.14 Furthermore, during and after World War II, armed forces officials 84 A U.S. Lady’s World
Race of Family Members of U.S. Military Personnel Abroad in 1960 White Negro American Indian Japanese Chinese Filipino Other races Total
Number
Percent
420,590 28,116 440 6,270 2,718 2,076 2,294 462,504
90.9 6.1 0.1 1.4 0.6 0.4 0.5 100.0
Source: United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Population 1960, Selected Area Reports, Americans Overseas (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), Table 2, “Social Characteristics of the United States Civilian Population Abroad, by Type: 1960,” p. 3.
avoided sending individual African-American personnel, or black units, to certain areas abroad, thus maintaining a disproportionately white military in these places. During the war, black Army units did not serve in China although individual African Americans were allowed to form up to fifteen percent of a unit stationed there. Between the end of the war and the early 1950s, U.S. military and state officials were reluctant to send blacks to certain stations, including Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, Bermuda, the British possessions in the Caribbean, the Panama Canal Zone, the Azores, and Turkey. In some cases, host country officials requested the exclusion of African-American soldiers. In others, U.S. officials claimed that host nationals’ attitudes toward African Americans could harm the morale of black soldiers. In 1951, when the chief of the military mission in Turkey asked that the Army reevaluate its plan to send African-American personnel there, professing that Turks would not want this, Army officials canceled the assignment.15 The exclusion of African-American personnel from certain foreign stations would have limited the number of AfricanAmerican military families overseas. Rank, like race, played a role in determining which families joined servicemen abroad. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the low morale of service personnel abroad, pressure to end family separation, and fears about the recruitment and reenlistment of sufficient numbers of personnel had pushed military planners to devise policies that allowed most armed forces members to apply for government-funded overseas transportation and housing for spouses and children. During the 1950s and 1960s, however, enough men and women volunteers and selected draftees joined the armed forces that policymakers decided they could place constraints on sending families of the lowest-ranking personnel abroad without risking military necessity. Limits placed on overseas transportation A U.S. Lady’s World 85
and housing for families of the lowest four grades of enlisted personnel, regardless of race, meant that higher-ranking service members were far more likely to have their families with them at foreign bases. In 1946, military planners had allowed most personnel willing to remain at an overseas station for at least one year after the arrival of their family members to apply for overseas transportation and housing for their spouses and children. An applicant’s commitment to remain at an overseas post for at least one year, and the length of service abroad since 1941, determined priority. By the late 1940s, however, the services placed restrictions on the families of the lowest grades of enlisted personnel (e.g., privates, airmen, seamen). These restrictions did not apply to the senior grades of enlisted personnel (e.g., sergeants in the Army and Air Force). The services would not transport the family members of the lowest grades of enlisted personnel to overseas commands or make military housing available to them, citing concerns that these men could not financially support their families in foreign countries. Also, the serious shortage of quarters at many overseas bases, as well as the expense to the U.S. government of sending and maintaining families abroad, compelled military planners to find ways to control the inflow of families, and so the privilege of being allowed to bring one’s family to an overseas station at government expense accrued to those in the middle and higher ranks. In most cases, enlisted personnel willing and able to finance overseas transportation for family members and find nonmilitary housing for them were permitted to do so. Such families resided off-base but were allowed to use military facilities such as commissaries and post exchanges.16 In January 1961, an estimated 20,000 “unauthorized military dependents, wives following their husbands” resided abroad.17
Officers’ Wives as Leaders and Role Models Military culture expected all wives to aid the armed forces by taking care of husbands and homes, and, if possible, by engaging in military community activities. Nancy Shea, the author of several etiquette books published between the 1940s and 1960s for service wives, declared that the fundamental responsibility of each wife was to tend to home, family, and most importantly, her husband’s morale. In addition to these basic duties, Shea encouraged all women to perform unpaid work that aided the military community. She informed wives of enlisted men that they, like wives of higher-ranking personnel, should participate in wives’ clubs and other military community activities, for instance, by volunteering at military
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hospitals, assisting newly arrived families, and performing charity work off base.18 Assumptions that wives did not need paid employment because husbands supported them and the children, combined with the difficulty of finding jobs abroad, would have reinforced the expectation that unemployed wives should volunteer their services for the benefit of military communities. Of overseas female military “dependents” ages eighteen and over (most of whom would have been the wives of military personnel) whose employment status was recorded in the 1960 census, a staggering ninety-three percent were not employed. Of these women, seventy-one percent had been employed at some point since 1950, a large majority (70.6 percent) in clerical, sales, service, or operative work, although twelve percent (8,415) were classified as “Professional, technical, and kindred workers.”19 Presumably, then, many of the women who were unemployed would have been interested in paid work had it been available to them. Military wives living abroad who might have taken jobs if residing in the United States found that in many overseas locales, the U.S. military had made agreements with host countries to provide jobs to local nationals, thus limiting American women’s opportunities. In 1961, when the Kennedy administration was seeking solutions to the United States’ balance of payments problem, a lieutenant stationed in Germany wrote to the president that “Many Officers and Enlisted Men have wives who are seeking work very badly,” including his own wife, who had experience as a bookkeeper. “Every bank, PX, Commissary, QM Sales Store, EES, and all of the Service Branches hire German tellers, bookkeepers, sales girls, clerks, typists, and many many other types of individuals,” he complained, thus in his view depriving American women of jobs and draining U.S. gold reserves.20 Language differences, as well as host nation and U.S. employment policies, would have made it difficult or impossible for American women to attain paid employment in host countries. Although all wives were expected to do unpaid work for the benefit of military communities, a wife’s responsibilities pyramided as her husband advanced in rank. Wives of noncommissioned officers, according to Nancy Shea, were to act as models for wives of lower-ranking enlisted men. She stated that the wife of a master sergeant—a noncommissioned officer of the highest enlisted grade—should serve as a “leader” among wives and concern herself with the well-being of other service families. Shea instructed officers’ wives to take on many more responsibilities than those assigned to wives of enlisted personnel. The wife of an Air Force squadron commander, for example, was to organize social activities such as picnics, barbecues, and family visits to sites of military operations; call
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upon new families; arrange luncheons, teas, coffees, and business meetings with other officers’ wives; and create a committee to aid the families of squadron members in case of an emergency.21 Many officers’ wives contributed to activities that benefited military communities because they enjoyed the camaraderie and believed that their social contacts and public service would help their husbands’ careers. Mary Jane Vann had initially worried about raising a family in Army life. Her activities with the wives of high-ranking officers (headed by the commanding general’s wife), older women who coached the younger wives, helped alleviate her concerns. The women’s group activities gave her a sense of community and security. She relished the volunteer work, dinners, dances, and bridge parties organized by the wives, and appreciated the kindly guidance of the wives of her husband’s superiors. Vann also prided herself that her activities assisted her husband’s military career.22 Wives of men who did not plan to make a career of the military would have been less invested in joining the social circle of those committed to the armed forces for the long term. Officers’ wives felt pressured to join in military community activities whether or not they wanted to do so. Many did not hold paying jobs; military culture discouraged officers’ wives from such employment because of the assumption that the military establishment required these women’s unpaid participation, and some wives who held jobs were pressured to quit them.23 The commanding officer’s wife tried to ensure that all officers’ wives joined the wives’ club, attended meetings, and signed up for volunteer work. Writing under a pen-name, an author introduced as “the wife of a Marine colonel” offered a semihumorous account of how senior wives kept women busy: “There are committees for teas, luncheons, charities, dances, Gray Ladies, Nurses Aides, flower shows, canteens, thrift shops, and committees to stir up committees. You are never ordered to do any of these things. You are asked kindly and politely. . . . You’re too busy? Perhaps you don’t realize the importance of a wife to a man’s military career?”24 Military leaders also demanded the attendance of wives at clubs, dances, and cocktail parties, all of which upheld the social structure of military communities. Even women bored by club meetings, card games, and parties dutifully participated, sensing that not conforming to expectations could harm their husbands’ chances for promotions. Wives who resisted the push to join the base groups risked reproach and isolation.25 Higher-ups in the military indeed assessed wives when considering prominent personnel assignments. A 1963 document that discussed updating the Navy’s fitness report to evaluate the “suitability of the officer and his family [specifically, his wife] for assignment to responsible posi88 A U.S. Lady’s World
tions as representatives of the Service and the Nation” stated that the practice had existed “since the very beginning of the Navy” but was now especially important due to more frequent international contacts. The Navy’s intention in updating its fitness report for personnel was to obtain more fair and “objective evaluations” in determining the suitability of a married couple for “social and diplomatic contact with the officials and people of our own and foreign countries,” rather than relying on rumors to ascertain how successful the “Officer-Wife Team” would prove. In making the case for amending the fitness report, the document claimed that “most wives have been strongly in favor” of the joint assessment and some even thought that the children of the family should be included as well.26 In fulfilling the roles of unpaid employee for the military and leader of women married to lower-ranking personnel, officers’ wives reinforced rank and class hierarchies. For the most part, wives did not socialize extensively across ranks. Besides the physical separation of families by grade, military culture shaped women’s association with one another. Nancy Shea professed that “there is no rank among women unless they are members of the Armed Forces.” In reality, wives’ status in military communities indeed corresponded to that of their husbands. Women in the higher tiers of a military community were expected to guide and act as exemplars for the women whose husbands served in lower ranks, without becoming too friendly with them. Officers’ wives checked their interactions with the wives of lower-ranking personnel. A commanding officer’s wife advised her peers not to behave like “one of the girls” or in a “cheap good-fellow” manner. Other wives of commanding officers agreed that dignity and avoidance of “intimate entanglements among superior and subordinate” should characterize service wives’ relations across the ranks. The fiction that “wives have no rank” can be interpreted as a message to wives that because they did not officially work for the armed forces, they should not make demands on the military for themselves or their families.27 Armed forces policy limiting government-funded travel and access to housing to the families of personnel above the lowest ranks, and the structure of base housing areas, also encouraged the segregation of wives and families by rank. Because those families in the lowest ranks of enlisted personnel who could afford to come abroad had to obtain off-base housing, they were less likely to mix with families of higher ranking personnel and receive encouragement from officers’ wives to engage in intercultural interactions with local people. Residence in off-base neighborhoods, however, actually might have increased the likelihood of daily contacts between these families and non-Americans. On-base living arrangements A U.S. Lady’s World 89
that grouped families according to the status of service members also encouraged separation by rank. Although larger families received roomier quarters than smaller families, grade and length of service also influenced housing assignments. A colonel’s family was not likely to live next door to a sergeant’s family.28 In addition, military culture did not pressure the wives of enlisted personnel to engage in the kinds of activities that involved encounters with occupied and host nation residents—volunteer work, teas, women’s club meetings—expected of officers’ wives. For this reason, along with other cultural and physical barriers, officers’ wives who shouldered the unofficial ambassador role tended to socialize with other officers’ wives more than with enlisted men’s wives, and to encourage wives in their own peer groups to work on fostering friendly relations with local peoples.
Military Wives’ Advice Literature and Concerns about Anti-Americanism Although families began arriving at foreign posts in 1946, advice literature by women addressing relations with non-Americans abroad remained sparse until the mid-1950s. Military wives (most notably Nancy Shea) had written advice books for women since the early 1940s, but these contained few or no guidelines on encounters between Americans and local peoples abroad.29 As the number of family members living overseas multiplied fivefold between 1950 and 1960, the prescriptive literature on relations between Americans and people in various countries burgeoned.30 For the wives who undertook the ambassadorial role, their job included encouraging other wives to do the same. Whereas official personnel received instruction from supervisors, wives received direction from orientations for families, official military prescriptive literature, and other wives. In describing their experiences abroad in published accounts, women presented examples of ideal interactions with local peoples for other military families. Military wives’ personal accounts of interactions with people abroad appeared in published books and popular magazines (e.g., Saturday Evening Post); the richest source of such accounts is the magazine U.S. Lady. Military wives’ accounts of their experiences with occupied and host nation residents, and their advice to other wives on forging positive relations abroad, indicate a sensitivity to negative images of the United States and its people. As part of the U.S. military presence abroad, many wives made self-conscious efforts to avoid provoking resentment by local people and to counter stereotypes of Americans as rude, insensitive, and materi90 A U.S. Lady’s World
alistic. Dorothy House Vieman arrived in South Korea in April 1949 to join her Army officer-husband posted there with the U.S. Military Advisory Group. Back in the United States, she published an account of her experiences in Korea, put together from letters she had written to her family in Texas while in Asia. Her book’s introduction expressed strong concern about, and intended to rectify, American attitudes and actions that would alienate would-be Cold War allies: Will America continue in her mistaken philosophy of trying to win friends and influence people by buying them and advocating that her way of life is the only way for them? Will she eventually learn, perhaps too late, that friendship cannot be won by diplomats over the cocktail table or by “riding herd” over the servants in the kitchen or by the American attitude of superiority?31
Vieman’s criticisms of the U.S. government’s economic inducements to foreign nations, the American superiority complex, and diplomats socializing with elites at cocktail parties instead of mingling with and getting to know ordinary local peoples presaged the argument made by the authors of the best-selling novel The Ugly American (1958), who charged that U.S. foreign policy and officials were out of touch with the thinking and needs of average Asians, and that such negligence and ignorance imperiled the containment of communism and even pushed potential allies into the enemy camp. Although the book’s title is actually an ironic appellation for one of the heroes of the story, the term “ugly American” came to denote Americans who disgraced the United States and damaged international relations by behaving boorishly abroad.32 Criticism and ridicule of U.S. policies and American culture and society by foreign observers stretched back to the nation’s founding and took numerous and sometimes complicated forms. During the Civil War, for example, many in France condemned the South for clinging to slavery and yet rooted for the Confederacy, viewing the Union as an economic exploiter of its southern brethren.33 In the next century, the Cold War expansion of U.S. power provoked outcries from citizens of allied and adversarial nations who feared U.S. domination, although the disparagement was never monolithic or universal. Moreover, one must keep in mind that positive views of the United States and its people were also common, even among people in countries such as those in Latin America that had been subjected to U.S. military intervention and economic dominance. Indeed, in many countries, anti- and pro-American camps coexisted, divided by generational attitudes, political leanings, economic interests, socioeconomic class and education, religious beliefs, region—in A U.S. Lady’s World 91
short, on local social-cultural-political contexts, as well as Americans’ actions at home and in the larger world. And many people around the world harbored mixed feelings toward the United States — for instance, the young people who admired American democracy and selectively enjoyed American popular cultural products (e.g., wearing blue jeans and listening to rock n’ roll, but resisting Coca-Cola) while opposing certain U.S. foreign policies. Many people liked individual Americans they encountered but despised what they perceived as U.S. militarism and economic hegemony.34 In Japan and West Germany in the 1950s, where the U.S. military presence was largest, local people held mixed views of the United States. The U.S. occupations of Japan and West Germany were considered by many Americans as well as citizens of those countries to have been successful in establishing democracy and aiding in the construction of thriving capitalist systems, and in cultivating Japan and West Germany as loyal allies of the United States in the Cold War. Still, many Japanese and Germans were ambivalent toward, if not severely critical, of U.S. power, and attitudes could shift over short periods of time. A 1950 national survey asking Japanese whether their nation should be “pro-American, pro-Soviet, or neutral” reported that fifty-five percent of respondents favored the United States, twenty-two percent favored neutrality, and less than one percent were pro-Soviet. The same poll taken in 1953, a year after the end of the occupation, reported that now only thirty-five percent of respondents were pro-American, while neutralists rose to thirty-eight percent, although pro-Soviet attitudes remained low at one percent. Thus, while the Japanese in 1953 remained far more pro-American than pro-Soviet, the tendency to favor the U.S. alliance dropped significantly between 1950 and 1953. A 1957 poll that inquired into the Japanese people’s chief objections to U.S. policy compared responses in Osaka and Izumo to “provide an extreme urban-rural contrast.” This poll listed the top criticism as the “selfish, superior attitude” of U.S. policy (twenty-three percent of responses in Osaka, fifteen percent in Izumo), with “military bases” in second place (ten percent for Osaka, nine percent for Izumo), and “nuclear weapons tests” running third (five percent for Osaka and four percent for Izumo).35 A variety of polls conducted between 1950 and 1958 found that Japanese support of U.S. bases in Japan fell from thirty percent in 1950 to eight percent in 1958. In other words, support of the bases was not overwhelming in 1950 (during the occupation), and drastically declined in the years after the occupation ended. Socialists were the harshest critics of the U.S. military presence (a fact that U.S. policymakers tended to exaggerate when discussing their nation’s armed forces in Japan), although the ma-
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jority of Liberal-Democratic voters (the dominant political party) also wanted the removal of U.S. air and naval forces.36 West Germans tended to be more positive toward the United States and its military presence in their country, decidedly so when asked to choose between the Americans and the Soviets. A May/June 1954 poll found that sixty-two percent considered “a good relationship” with the United States “more important for the future of the German people,” in contrast to only ten percent who preferred a good relationship with the Soviet Union. In response to the question posed in 1955 of whether the presence of U.S. forces was more advantageous or disadvantageous for Germans, 41.2 percent considered it advantageous, while 15.2 percent thought it disadvantageous. Indeed, attitudes about the U.S. military presence seem to have grown more positive among West Germans between the mid-1950s and the late 1960s. In July 1956, fifty-one percent of those polled by the Allensbach Institute said that they would approve the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe, but in April 1969, at a time when the Vietnam War made the U.S. military highly unpopular around the world, only seventeen percent of Germans interviewed would want U.S. forces to leave Europe, with fifty-six percent disapproving (and twenty-seven percent undecided). A poll measuring “fondness for Americans” in general shows that at various intervals the percentages of Germans who liked Americans always significantly outweighed those who disliked them. The “fondness” increased between January 1957, with only thirty-seven percent of respondents saying they liked Americans (and twenty-four percent selecting the response “Don’t especially like them”), and May 1965, with fifty-eight percent claiming that they liked Americans, as opposed to nineteen percent who did not. The percentages of those who liked Americans peaked in 1965 and 1966.37 Cold War tensions in the late 1950s and early 1960s and fears of Soviet encroachment, in Berlin for instance, contributed to West Germans’ increased acceptance of the U.S. military presence and favorable attitudes toward Americans. Military wives’ published accounts of their experiences abroad and their advice to other women shared numerous characteristics in addition to a sensitivity to anti-Americanism. Many wives wrote that they experienced apprehension as well as excitement in anticipating their journey to a new land. They recounted—sometimes with humor, sometimes with humility—the challenging process of encountering new peoples and strange landscapes and ways, and growing to appreciate and respect new communities as they learned about them. They told of interactions with local people—children and adults, domestic workers, vendors, neighbors—and of how they strove to understand their perspectives and values, while
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helping them to better understand Americans. Most wives’ accounts depicted the U.S. military presence as more beneficial than harmful to local peoples in that it protected them against communist forces and helped them to improve their standards of living. In detailing their experiences abroad, the authors not only portrayed interesting and vibrant other worlds for their American audiences, but also presented model attitudes and behaviors for their readers. These accounts also served as justifications for maintaining American military families abroad at a time when taxpayers at home complained of the costs, and presidential administrations worried about the outflow of U.S. gold reserves to foreign countries. The military wife-authors sought to show that families were abroad not merely to improve servicemen’s morale, but perhaps even more important to make friends for the United States and gain support for U.S. military bases and policies.
U.S. Lady Magazine U.S. Lady magazine, first published in 1955, vigorously promoted the role of military wives serving as unofficial ambassadors in host nations and respecting cultural diversity, despite its creation by a man who would a few years later found the American Nazi Party. George Lincoln Rockwell started U.S. Lady as a money-making venture after his discharge from the Naval Reserves. It was never an official military publication, although it sometimes published essays and announcements sponsored by the armed forces. Although the magazine attracted advertisers and proved profitable, Rockwell’s conflicts with partners and financial backers led him to sell it in 1956 after publishing only four issues. Rockwell formed the American Nazi Party in 1958 and grew increasingly notorious thereafter, prompting the publisher-editors who took over from Rockwell to tell readers in 1965 that they had no association with him. Alvadee and John Adams, both civilian journalists, stated that they had known little of Rockwell when they purchased U.S. Lady from him (and other stockholders) in 1956, and had known nothing of his extremist political views. The Adamses assured readers that they denounced racism and fascism, that they “staunchly” supported civil rights for all citizens, and that Rockwell had no connection with the magazine after selling it to the Adamses.38 Rockwell in fact complained — in his anti-Semitic, racist, misogynistic, anti-communist, and anti-left autobiography—that the women on the U.S. Lady staff during his brief association with the magazine “overwhelm[ed]” him and effectively undermined his control of the publication. And he blamed “the Jews” for his failure to maintain ownership of U.S. Lady.39 94 A U.S. Lady’s World
U.S. Lady under the control of Rockwell and then the Adamses did not preach racism or anti-Semitism (biographer William Schmaltz writes that “the magazine was an inadequate vehicle for [Rockwell’s] anti-Jewish beliefs”).40 The publication, which reached “thousands of subscribers” and which the Adamses described as “global-circulating,” took a culturalhumanitarian-internationalist outlook that was also definitely anti-communist and generally supportive of U.S. foreign policies, although mild criticisms of U.S. military policies (particularly those considered detrimental to military families) did occasionally appear.41 Despite its oft-professed respect for cultural diversity, however, U.S. Lady reinforced the assumption that the model ambassador of feminine good will, embodied by the dozens of “U.S. Ladies-of-the-Month” lauded in the magazine between 1955 and 1968, was an officer’s wife, white, and U.S.-born. In 1956, the U.S. Lady-of-the-Month Selection Board comprised the spouses of many of the nation’s highest-ranking military and federal government officials: the wives of the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Air Force, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Army, Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Commandant of the Coast Guard. Wives of more ordinary servicemen rounded out the board: the wives of an Air Force Reserves captain, a Marine Corps Reserves staff sergeant, a chief petty officer (Navy), another chief petty officer (Naval Reserve), an Army master sergeant, an Air Force master sergeant, and a widow of a Marine Corps technical sergeant.42 Between June 1956 and April 1968 (the final issue of U.S. Lady), members of the board changed, but the board continued to include the wives of high-ranking military officials as well as spouses of lower-ranking personnel. Out of all of the “U.S. Ladies-of-the-Month” honored between 1955 and 1968, only one African-American woman received recognition. Mary Lee Harvey, the wife of an Air Force major, volunteered in an Air Force hospital in Ankara, Turkey, and in a variety of activities (especially for children) in the military community. The 1963 U.S. Lady article that pronounced Harvey a “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month” did not mention whether she engaged in social or cultural exchanges with Turks, though it did state that she escorted her children and others on excursions into the Turkish countryside where they surely encountered host nationals.43 Perhaps Harvey’s numerous responsibilities on the Air Force base limited the time she could spend in host national communities; or perhaps the author of the article did not conceive of her as an “unofficial ambassador,” although most descriptions of “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month” honorees who lived abroad included some mention of the women’s participation in offbase activities that put them in contact with local people. Despite the fact A U.S. Lady’s World 95
that African Americans constituted a significant proportion of the armed forces, articles, photographs, and even mention of African Americans in U.S. Lady appeared only occasionally before the early 1960s, and remained sparse in contrast to coverage of white service wives until the magazine ceased publication in 1968. Pictorial evidence in U.S. Lady from the early 1960s onward indicates that African-American women participated in overseas wives’ clubs (mainly for noncommissioned officers’ wives), but the magazine provided little information about these women individually. In the view of those who defined women’s unofficial ambassadorial duties, white officers’ wives best represented the American military community. Although the editors of and contributors to U.S. Lady claimed that their publication addressed all wives regardless of rank, its title and content suggested otherwise. The designation “ladies” in the military community conventionally referred to officers’ wives, while the spouses of enlisted men were simply termed “wives.”44 Thus, the term “lady” in the magazine’s title would have reinforced assumptions that the intended audience was officers’ wives. In letters to the editors, readers of U.S. Lady occasionally criticized what they perceived as the magazine’s slant toward officers’ wives, suggesting that enlisted men’s wives who read the magazine wanted to participate in military culture but felt excluded.45 Although U.S. Lady aired such complaints, the focus on officers’ wives did not substantially change. A concept frequently articulated in U.S. Lady was that women were both helpmates to servicemen-husbands and soft-power resources in U.S. international relations who augmented U.S. hard power. “At a time when world leaders are engaged in meeting one crisis after another, women pray for peace and work in the kindly way they know best to back up their men,” declared the editors of U.S. Lady. “They are living history and making history, and just like the million-man armies and complicated weapons, they too pack quite a wallop.”46 In a letter to U.S. Lady, Army wife Routh Trowbridge Wilby declared that American women’s influence— their “feminine good will”—was crucial for strong international relations. She argued that economic assistance alone (an inducement that lies closer to hard power than soft power on the hard-power/soft-power spectrum, according to Joseph Nye) could not secure other nations’ alliances with the United States because recipients considered such impersonal aid crass and manipulative, as if the more prosperous Americans were trying to buy the allegiance of less powerful countries that accepted financial help out of necessity rather than a sense of shared goals with the United States. Along with numerous others who expressed similar opinions, Wilby believed that interpersonal relations conveying American sincerity and good 96 A U.S. Lady’s World
will should accompany large-scale economic assistance to foreign countries, and that women were ideal representatives in such encounters.47 Advice and examples for would-be ambassador-wives appeared in the form of statements by the editors, readers’ letters to the editors, articles, short fiction, and visual representations. Military wives authored most of these items, though sometimes articles composed by servicemen or servicewomen appeared. “A U.S. Lady’s World,” a full-page image of a military wife and a description of her multiple levels of responsibility that appeared in 1956, illustrates assumptions that military wives were part of “a bigger defense team” and that their domestic, feminine activities were not only important within their families and communities, but also integral to the success of national and international goals. Author Jean Andrew, an Army wife, presented a drawing of a woman smartly clad in a skirt suit, hat, gloves, and pumps—proper public apparel denoting a wellbred middle-class woman—holding hands with a young girl. The woman —a service wife and mother and a “U.S. Lady”—and the girl, who are both turned away from the reader, stand before a globe ensphered by arrows pointing to regions worldwide. This type of portrayal of Americans in relation to the rest of the world, signifying U.S. global supremacy, appeared frequently after World War II. In the U.S. Lady illustration, the leadership in this sphere of influence is feminine: the woman’s and girl’s perusal of the globe, with the United States at its center, depicts the world as their domain; there is even an air of window-shopping in their demeanor, suggesting that the globe is theirs for the taking, although they might also be cautiously pondering the consequences of such an acquisition. To the right of this image is a column of written text that delineates the numerous realms in which service wives were considered important participants, spanning a spectrum that ranged from “The World Itself,” to the United States, to the armed forces, down to their communities and families. In this vision, women were simultaneously domestic, public, and international figures; their activities as wives and mothers served as the foundation for the local community, the military community, and international relations, and all were interconnected.48 Jean Andrew’s fifteen years as an Army wife and her experience as an officer in the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) no doubt informed her vision of women as actors in national and international affairs.49 The document “A U.S. Lady’s World” recognized and encouraged wives who contributed to military and international aims while also reminding them of their numerous areas of responsibility. Illustrations, articles, books, and other items by and for military wives defined realms where women were particularly responsible for advancing friendly relations between Americans and local peoples. Americans worA U.S. Lady’s World 97
“A U.S. Lady’s World,” by Jean Andrew, an Army wife, appeared in U.S. Lady in 1956.
ried that servicemen’s involvement in local communities mainly consisted of frequenting off-base bars and clubs and socializing with local women. While many servicemen of course engaged in other kinds of interactions as well, such as giving parties for and playing on sports teams with local children, writings for military wives assumed that women were especially capable of adapting to a foreign country and engaging in a wider variety of contacts with local people than were servicemen. A guide coauthored by service wife Elizabeth Land and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Carroll Glines (who had created an “indoctrination course” for new Air Force wives in Oklahoma) advised women abroad to “Explore every ruin there is, visit every art museum, make excursions to historical sites, take part in festivals and celebrations, learn the language, be a part of the country.”50 In a facetious article titled “How to Be Perfectly Miserable Overseas,” 98 A U.S. Lady’s World
service wife Pat Moore described undesirable attitudes and behaviors that members of military families presumably exhibited. Moore “recommended” that service wives associate only with Americans, order hamburgers rather than regional dishes when dining in local restaurants, and teach their children that “those foreign kids are different.” The surefire way to establish ill will, according to Moore, was to respond to a host national’s patriotism by informing him or her that “If it wasn’t for U.S. Foreign Aid, this place’d be starving to death.” Moore playfully yet pointedly chided Americans who exhibited clannishness rather than involvement in host communities, aversion to the local culture rather than adaptability and adventurousness, and superiority rather than compassion and respect. Underneath the jocular tone lay the assumption that military families who ventured into host communities and tried to understand and respect local people’s feelings and ways would not only improve international relations but would also enjoy and enrich themselves.51 Occasionally, wives from host nations provided advice to help U.S.born women better understand and get along in the author’s country of birth. Army officer’s wife Chantal M. Moon informed readers stationed in her native France, where many Americans lived “at least partially ‘on the economy,’” that learning the basic elements of the language for starters, choosing the right place to live—not a “huge chateau” that would run up heating bills—and practicing local customs and courtesies—“don’t try to reform the local citizens to the American way of doing things”—were fundamental to enjoying oneself in France and making friends there.52 German-born Elizabeth Dallmeier LaMantia’s advice, which was far more critical of American women, assumed connections among women’s behavior, family relations, household maintenance, and international relations. LaMantia sternly reproved American women who allegedly gave Germans a poor impression of the United States and undermined U.S.German relations by neglecting housework, dressing immodestly, drinking, and spoiling children. LaMantia, a self-described “war bride,” had lived in the United States with her husband for twelve years when she returned to her native Munich and encountered Americans whom she considered ill-behaved. “I found myself apologizing to old friends,” she said, “trying to convince them that the United States is not a land where all the women dress indecently and everyone attends dusk ’til dawn cocktail parties. I tried explaining that slovenly habits and complete disregard for the appearance of a home are not the norm. And I attempted to dispel the notion that American children are baby monsters, permitted free and uninhibited reign in the family.” The failures enumerated stemmed from what LaMantia considered the dereliction of women’s duties: control over sexuality, care for the domestic sphere, and responsibility for raising selfA U.S. Lady’s World 99
disciplined children. “It seems incongruous that so many tax dollars are spent for international good will, for fostering better understanding abroad,” complained LaMantia, “when the example we show is far from commendable.” The solution to the problem, as LaMantia saw it, was for women to better regulate themselves, their families, and their households to save U.S. diplomatic aims.53 Women’s advice literature targeted wives’ sloppy and immodest dress as detrimental to relations with host nationals and the international image of the United States. Service wife Sally Ramsey wrote that “Psychologically, the way we dress affects our personalities. We feel more inclined to act like ladies in a becoming dress than we do in blue jeans and sneakers.” In Ramsey’s perspective, “to act like ladies” was to promote good international relations. Ramsey worried that “we may be seen [by residents of host nations] as vulgar upstarts with poor taste in dress and poorer taste in most cultural areas.” By this logic, women who dressed carelessly gave the impression that members of the U.S. military community—and by extension, Americans generally—were a coarse people who did not belong in countries whose citizens considered themselves refined.54 Like Ramsey, Navy wife Trudy Sundberg feared that sloppily dressed women fostered poor impressions of Americans. Sundberg called attention to a United States Information Agency poll which found that more than three-quarters of British, French, Italian, and West German respondents harbored strong negative impressions of American women. According to the poll, Europeans described American women as “shallow, lazy, vain, showy, frivolous, domineering, [and] oversexed, with bad taste and no elegance.” Sundberg asked service wives overseas to help dispel these unflattering perceptions by projecting an image of “sensitivity, intelligence, and understanding.”55 Teenage girls also received instructions on how to dress in public. Joyace Ann Downing Katz recalled that while living in Spain, “We were to dress up [e.g., not wear curlers or jeans]—not like ‘Ugly Americans.’”56 Advice on appropriate feminine dress and conduct abroad disclosed concerns about behavior that denoted class status. The advice was intended for all women, regardless of the rank of their husbands, but might have especially targeted women who authors worried were more inclined to display behavior considered “low-class”—drinking heavily, wearing revealing clothing, going out in curlers—perhaps the wives of enlisted men. Advocates of military wives in the ambassadorial role admonished compatriots not to brag of American superiority for fear that it would antagonize host country citizens, but neither did they want to appear inferior to local observers.
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A recurring theme in the writings by and for military wives was that one of their principal responsibilities was to counteract negative impressions of Americans by leading their own exemplary daily lives in the presence of host-country spectators. Ann Saling described how as a service wife in South America she attempted to interact with as many Latin Americans as she could so that they would think that “Perhaps all norteamericanos are . . . friendly and interested in us.” Military wives like Ann Saling accepted the suggestions for positive American-host national relations found in the official prescriptive literature, but then expanded them into stories of personal interactions that readers would relate to their own encounters with people abroad. For Saling, establishing friendly relations between the United States and South American countries required fluency in Spanish and Portuguese, informal discussions on a variety of topics that ranged from regional recipes to international politics, exploration of the countryside, and enjoyment of the wine offered by host citizens. Although the U.S. military presence in Europe and Asia was much larger, Ann Saling viewed the American presence in places like Brazil and Chile as nonetheless significant for foreign relations: “[T]he military missions in South America are not large, so the behavior of each man and his family is magnified far beyond what it would be if we were counted by the hundreds.”57 American women who tried to strengthen international relations through personal encounters with residents of occupied and host countries viewed such interactions as weapons in the war against the spread of communism. Ann Saling believed that her immersion in local communities and her attentiveness to host cultures helped to counter “Communist-inspired” stereotypes of Americans as “luxury-corrupted.” She also strived to discredit the idea that middle-class Americans were unsympathetic to disparities between rich and poor in other countries. She related her own approach to accomplishing this, describing how she socialized with people of various classes rather than only with other Americans or elite host citizens. She recalled “Two charcoal-makers in Brasilia [who] will remember that I stopped to ask about their work in their language.” Saling also believed that photographing farm work, speaking with locals about “traditions, heroes and customs,” and accepting the hospitality of host citizens without complaint or criticism negated impressions of Americans as arrogant and self-centered. Showing respect for Chileans and Brazilians, learning about them, and caring about their problems, she told readers, won for the United States “staunch Latin American friends who know we care about them—who know our freedom is their freedom, worth defending in a cold or hot war.”58
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Social and Cultural Interactions Many activities of military wives put them in contact with residents of occupied and host countries and served as forums for projecting “feminine good will” and utilizing women’s talents. The earliest and most common forms of interactions—charity work, the employment of domestic servants, and contacts with local children—set the stage for relations between American women and local peoples. Charity enabled women to demonstrate motherliness, compassion, and generosity while establishing an international hierarchy between benefactor and beneficiary. Interactions between military wives and local children combined charitable gestures with women’s expressions of maternalism. In their encounters with children, Americans acted as surrogate parents to young residents of occupied and host countries. The employment of domestic workers brought military wives and residents of occupied and host nations together in the setting of the American home. Like charitable efforts, the employment of domestics reinforced the higher status of the American employers over their non-American employees. Indeed, Americans considered such employment a form of charity. Other arenas in which Americans and local peoples encountered one another afforded opportunities for more balanced social and cultural exchanges. Off-base excursions gave American women opportunities to demonstrate interest in host customs—for instance, worship at Buddhist shrines in Japan or Catholic processions in Italy—and local history, such as that of the Roman priestesses of Cuma or the Crusaders in Turkey. Military wives hoped that their attempts to learn about host nationals’ values and customs would convey understanding and respect. Women’s club activities also served as forums in which military wives attempted to demonstrate understanding and friendship. They believed that the cultural and social exchanges transacted in these clubs generated mutual good will and acceptance. In other settings besides clubs, American women made friends with non-American women and men, taking excursions together, visiting one another’s homes, and sharing perspectives. Yet military wives who endeavored to forge good international relations found themselves attempting to achieve conflicting, though not necessarily irreconcilable, goals. On the one hand, they tried to help and befriend local peoples and understand and respect their cultures and customs. On the other hand, women’s extensions of friendship and assistance meshed with U.S. postwar foreign policy objectives to demonstrate the presumed superiority of American ideals and institutions to peoples of occupied and host nations and create international alliances that ultimately served the economic and political interests of the United States. 102 A U.S. Lady’s World
Charity Charity stemmed from compassion, yet also reinforced Americans’ sense of economic and social dominance and helped to uphold their nation’s military presence in foreign countries. Charitable works constituted some of the earliest points of contact between military wives and peoples of war-torn nations. When military wives arrived abroad shortly after the end of World War II they joined efforts to aid war survivors and rebuild shattered regions. They established the first postwar American women’s organizations in Europe in 1946. Charitable efforts were extensions of women’s conventional familial responsibilities. Military wives, often working with wives of civilian government personnel, supplied orphanages, gathered food and clothing for victims of war, and gave comfort and aid to the infirm. These maternal gestures were expressions of national power as well as personal generosity and kindness. Americans on the home front had not suffered the death tolls, starvation, and destruction that Asians and Europeans had, and were in a position to help the less fortunate. War victims’ acceptance of American aid opened the door for Americans to help reconstruct ravaged nations, strengthen international relations, and establish U.S. influence. Inhabitants of Germany and Japan were among the first recipients of American women’s charitable efforts. Many American women could not remain indifferent to the suffering they witnessed, even when the victims were recent enemies. Marjorie Clay, the wife of General Lucius Clay, founded the American Women’s Club of Berlin upon her arrival in Germany in 1946. The club’s activities included community fund drives and the publication during the Berlin Airlift of a cookbook titled Operation Vittles. The women donated the proceeds to various charities, favoring those that aided ill or impoverished children. American women were considered especially effective representatives of American sympathy and mercy toward former enemies. “The good work which [women’s] clubs accomplished was remarkable and contributed much toward making the Germans understand the humane characteristics of the American people,” proclaimed General Clay in appreciation of service wives’ contributions to military and foreign relations goals.59 Margery Finn Brown, the wife of an Army colonel stationed in occupied Japan, performed numerous charitable deeds. Compassion motivated her actions, though she did not conceal her sense of the superiority of the American attitude toward those in need. She pitied the impoverished, bedraggled people she encountered, yet also condemned the Japanese for what she considered their heartless indifference to suffering strangers. Brown claimed that she tried to understand the Japanese world view, but A U.S. Lady’s World 103
declared that “The Japanese attitude [toward want and suffering . . .] constitutes a major obstacle in any attempt to understand or like the Japanese.” As a columnist for a Japanese newspaper, Brown wrote an article about her inability to comprehend the apparent callousness she witnessed among Japanese bystanders when a boy died in the street after being struck by a truck. She received a flood of responses—“tearful, shocked, and explanatory”—in which readers expressed their sadness at such indifference but also tried to explain that while Japanese people would do anything to help a relative, assisting strangers was not the norm. Brown considered it her responsibility as a compassionate person, and as an American, to alleviate the hardship she encountered: she took a homeless woman found lying in a ditch to a hospital and paid for her medical care and food (later she learned that the woman was a prostitute), gave money to a repatriated woman in Hokkaido who had lost her husband and son when the Soviets invaded Manchuria in 1945, and donated food to a Catholic church that aided the poor of Kyoto.60 The benefactor-recipient relationship between service wives and residents of occupied nations positioned Americans as strong and capable benefactors, and the beneficiaries of their largesse as weaker people in need of aid and protection from the powerful United States. Supplies and volunteer aid possibly made the U.S. presence more tolerable to those who otherwise considered it an intrusion. In American minds, non-Americans’ acceptance of humanitarian aid from the U.S. government and from individual Americans living abroad served as a justification for maintaining overseas bases.
Local Children American adults’ relations with children of occupied and host countries, like connections established through charity work, arose out of kindness but also harbored an inherent hierarchy. Many American women and men became parents—figuratively and literally—to children of occupied and host nations. Americans encountered local children in and around their homes, in classrooms, and on visits to orphanages and hospitals. Some Americans adopted orphaned children. The positioning of Americans as mothers and fathers to non-American children created maternalistic and paternalistic relationships that Americans believed also strengthened long-term international relations. Americans who befriended, taught, adopted, and gave charitable assistance to local children endeavored to win allies for the indefinite duration of the Cold War. Routh Trowbridge Wilby advised American women to “Work with the young people of the country. They are the future leaders 104 A U.S. Lady’s World
and any good influence we may have on them will pay dividends for America in the years to come.”61 Wilby and others believed that although adult host nationals might stubbornly cling to prejudices against the U.S. government and its citizens, military wives could cultivate children’s appreciation of Americans and acceptance of the U.S. military presence and diplomatic influence, thereby securing long-term international alliances and accommodation of bases. Military wives exhibited friendliness, maternalism, charity, and American prosperity in their relations with local children. Although the Germans and Japanese had been formidable enemies during the war, Americans pitied their children as innocent victims of the hostilities.62 In 1947, Margery Finn Brown’s family threw a Christmas party for fifty Japanese children in their Kyoto neighborhood. According to Brown, the family’s cook disapproved of allowing the poorer children to mix with the more affluent children, but Brown disregarded the Japanese woman’s objections. The Brown family ordered red mittens from Sears Roebuck as gifts for the children, filled bags with American candy and chewing gum (“the first candy many had seen since before the war”), arranged for a magician as entertainment, and erected a thirteen-foot Christmas tree decorated with Japanese lights. Describing how the children lined up for their gifts, Brown wrote that “It was disturbing . . . to watch the orderly way they took their places; no scrambling, no jockeying, no ‘me-firsts.’ Silently they waited, held their gifts eye-level in a formal gesture of thanks, bowed and departed.”63 Brown’s generosity and pity for the children mixed with her implicit condemnation of the Japanese culture that enforced segregation between rich and poor and, in her view, robbed children of the spontaneity and individuality considered characteristic of American children. Working as teachers, often on a volunteer basis, enabled American women to become acquainted with large numbers of non-American children whom they hoped would come to favorably view Americans and their country. In explaining why she declined a request to teach American children in Seoul, Dorothy House Vieman wrote that “I didn’t come to Korea to teach squirming American kids. If I lend my time to anything I will teach Koreans, for I’ll be here only once, more than likely, and I want to know the Korean people.”64 Many military wives taught English without monetary compensation because schools could not afford to pay salaries. Vieman taught sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds at Ewha Girls’ High School. The education of Korean girls and women was of great importance to Vieman; when she died a few years later at the age of thirtynine, her mother established a scholarship in her name for Asian women at colleges in Texas.65 Routh Trowbridge Wilby volunteered as an English teacher at a Tokyo high school. She observed that “the adults already A U.S. Lady’s World 105
have formed their opinion of us and our country. But these young, future leaders of Japan are still in the formative stage, and if we as Americans can have successful, individual relations with them, maybe they will always have a warm place in their hearts for us.”66 Teaching English promoted communication with Japan’s future adults with whom Americans one day would negotiate diplomatic alliances. Americans must have assumed, however, that English would be the language of such interactions, unless their own children learned Japanese. Through adoptions, Americans installed themselves as legal parents to children of occupied and host nations. Military wives who had adopted children received honorary recognition from U.S. Lady, garnering praise for exhibiting the qualities valued in Cold War American womanhood and serving as models for international relations. Aurelia Richards, U.S. Lady’s very first “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month” (October 1955) and “U.S. Lady-of-the-Year” (1957), adopted several children, some born in foreign countries. While living in Japan with her Army husband and six other adopted children, Richards took in a Japanese toddler. A U.S. Lady article described the Richards family as a “Little United Nations,” composed of children of European, Native American, and Japanese descent. Alvadee Adams and John Adams declared that the family constituted “living proof that persons of different nationalities can live together harmoniously like those of the same flesh and blood.”67 As an ideal Cold War military wife, Aurelia Richards embodied motherliness, generosity, compassion, and an internationalist perspective. Another lauded wife, Bea Best—a “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month” in 1961 and “U.S. Lady-of-the-Year” in 1962—and her Navy husband adopted a Japanese girl in the 1950s. Among the accomplishments that earned Best these honorary titles were her study of Japanese adoption laws and her work to assist other Navy couples to become the legal parents of Japanese children. According to Alvadee and John Adams, “The Japanese authorities were so grateful [for Bea Best’s arrangement of eighteen adoptions] that they gave her a little Japanese boy as a surprise gift, which is somewhat unique in the awards department.”68 American accounts portrayed adoptions as demonstrations of compassion and generosity that also symbolized taking host nationals into the American fold and commitment to the long-term and intensive financial, psychological, and moral care of the people of other nations. The short fiction story “Au Revoir, Mike” (1961) suggested that adoption represented the ideal American-host citizen relationship. The tale casts aspersions on the limitations of women’s club activities by portraying these as frivolous expenditures of wives’ time and energy, and half-hearted efforts to forge international friendship and understanding. Adopting a child, in contrast, demonstrated a whole-hearted American 106 A U.S. Lady’s World
commitment to international relations. In the story, Liz and Bill, a childless American couple, invite a French boy from the local Catholic orphanage to visit their home. Liz spends her time playing bridge and enjoying her husband’s pampering. The boy brings out a maternal instinct in Liz (early in the story more interested in appearing “slim and beautiful in a black chiffon copy of a Dior” than in being motherly), and she and Bill adopt Mike so they can bring him back to the United States. The boy is excited by the prospect of moving to America and becoming a cowboy. The moral of the story is that Liz and Bill do more for international relations by adopting Mike than Liz did in participating in her superficial wives’ club activities such as playing bridge with a French woman with whom she could not communicate.69 In actuality, bringing host national children into American homes did not always result in the youngsters’ wholehearted gratitude for their American caretakers. In 1955, the family of an Air Force major stationed in Madrid took in two Spanish brothers, ages fourteen and nine. In a letter to Jacqueline Cochran (a California businesswoman, politician, and aviator who was the legal guardian and financial supporter of the boys), the major wrote that “The boys seem very happy here—muy contento— and are becoming more and more a part of the family.” The family took the boys to their first dental appointments. They hired tutors to help them learn English more quickly and tried to cope with language differences by establishing a household rule that everyone would speak only English in the mornings and only Spanish in the afternoon until dinner. They gave the boys American-style birthday and Christmas celebrations. In December 1955, the major’s wife reported to Cochran that the boys were “really becoming Americanized.” In later letters, however, the couple expressed disappointment that the brothers did poorly in school, were not self-disciplined, and exhibited “indifference” and a lack of appreciation for the Americans’ care and attempts to give them educational opportunities that their father/caretaker asserted they would not have enjoyed otherwise, given their “humble background.” Overall, the correspondence regarding the boys’ upbringing suggests that although the American couple was fond of their charges and tried to raise them fairly alongside their other children, the brothers did not smoothly integrate into the family and did not, according to the adults of the family, unquestioningly view the Americans as benefactors.70
Domestic Employees The employment of domestic workers served as another arena in which Americans tried to project benevolence and even affection toward nonA U.S. Lady’s World 107
Americans. Yet relationships between American employers and local domestic workers were inherently and explicitly hierarchical. Service wives’ supervision of household workers reinforced the pecking order between employer and servant, benefactor and beneficiary, American and nonAmerican. During the early years of occupation, the military housing office in Tokyo furnished white jackets for Japanese male domestics, presumably to emphasize their status as servants.71 Americans sometimes characterized the employment of domestics as an act of charity, reasoning that it provided income to the needy. They depicted servants as childlike people who required the guidance of American “parents.” The poverty of domestics, as well as their racial and cultural differences, brought out American attitudes of condescension, classism, and racism. Routh Trowbridge Wilby worried that Americans limited their involvement with residents of host countries to the maids and seamstresses who came to American homes.72 The prevalence of American employer–local servant relationships probably troubled her because it suggested American dominance and exploitation of host nationals rather than the ideal of friendship between allies. Wives’ accounts of relations with domestics conveyed the idea that occupied and host nation residents, including those who had been enemies in World War II, accepted and even desired the U.S. military presence. Army wife Bernadine Lee described her apprehension that she and her young daughters would encounter hostile Japanese when the family joined her husband in Tokyo in 1946. She told readers that the courtesy and friendliness of the four Japanese domestic workers who lived with the Lee family, and their affection for the children, changed her attitude about the people who so recently had been foes of the United States.73 The fictional short story “May Day” (1961) also reassured Americans that ordinary Japanese people liked Americans, wanted to live with them on friendly terms, and accepted the foreign military presence. The story is set well into the Cold War, amid the anti-American agitation of Japanese communists. It depicts anti-Americanism as stemming from violent communist fanatics who did not represent the majority of Japanese. Kit and her Marine husband, Bob, live among the Japanese in a village rather than on a military base. On May Day, Kit is at home awaiting the return of her husband from an assignment in Korea. A Marine captain comes to the house to warn her to be on guard against an attack by communist protesters, and gives her a rifle for protection. The Marines are especially concerned about the Americans’ safety because on May Day the year before, communists had thrown acid into the face of a military wife. Kit grows apprehensive and fears that her gardener, “Papa-san Cut Grass” (a name that pigeonholes him by the work he does for the Americans) is 108 A U.S. Lady’s World
plotting against her. She imagines that she sees him leading a mob to her house and nearly faints from fear, but then discovers that the Japanese group is bringing flowers to her because they felt sorry that the communist activities might delay her husband’s homecoming, which they knew she eagerly anticipated. Kit invites the “mob” in for tea and in the end reclaims May Day as a celebration of spring and flowers rather than a communist holiday.74 American women’s anecdotes suggested that domestic employees did not necessarily assume the role of deferential servant in their relations with their employers. Army wife Ruth Bryant, whose family lived in Manila, claimed that the Filipino cook-houseboy “runs us and our house.”75 Margery Finn Brown described a favorite domestic employee upon whom the family heavily relied as an amazingly capable fellow who happily handled much of the cooking, child care, and repair work. Brown affectionately declared that “Tanabe was our friend. We were his,” thus casting the employer-employee relationship as egalitarian and mutually enriching rather than hierarchical. Brown described another domestic worker as an unpleasant and intimidating presence, who “hissed her orders [to the other household workers] out of the side of her mouth like a lady gangster,” thus undercutting assumptions about meek Asian servants.76 Characterizations of household workers as domineering, indispensable, beloved, or intimidating downplayed hierarchies that might have made American women uncomfortable. One also may read such accounts as evidence of domestic employees’ power negotiations that challenged American authority. American notions of racial, class, and cultural differences bolstered views of Asian servants—and, by extension, Asians generally—as primitive and childlike. Margery Brown described her household employees as “pathologically sensitive,” “stubborn as Arkansas mules,” and “hysterical.”77 When writing about Asian domestic workers, American women indulged in making fun of their mistakes. One service wife offered this assessment of Japanese and Korean maids: “A few are excellent workers; some are more trouble than they are worth. But they usually have one thing in common. They are good for a lot of laughs.”78 The view of Asian household workers as laughably backward reinforced assumptions that the U.S. military presence could serve to guide and enlighten the locals. Dorothy Vieman saw her supervision of her three Korean “houseboys” as a vehicle for changing the servants’ views of gender relations: “Women in Korea are subservient to men, as a rule, and houseboys are generally suspected of respecting the man’s word around the house. Doc [her husband] told them that they were to do as I said, and I guess all American wives will soon change this idea of man’s word ruling A U.S. Lady’s World 109
the home.”79 Barbara Richardson, an Army wife in Korea, described a male employee’s disapproval of his American employers’ apparel: “My houseboy became righteously indignant when his young mistress appeared in public in a strapless evening dress; and my insistence upon sunning on our terrace in a halter and shorts nearly caused his resignation.” The Korean man’s notions about women’s dress reinforced Richardson’s conviction that Koreans would benefit from what she considered the civilizing influence of Americans living in Asia. Korean women were, in her view, “the epitome of all stay-at-home women” who enjoyed far less freedom than American women. She observed, however, that the presence of Westerners would eventually bring enlightenment to Korea, and asked Americans to exercise patience in the meantime: “Koreans are eager to learn, to progress [. . . but this must occur] in their own way, in their own time.”80 The employment of domestics also bolstered the status of families within the military community. Many families, even the families of officers, could not have afforded to hire maids in the United States. But salaries for domestics were cheap in countries damaged by war or in other places where people were desperate for work. Hiring maids also gave officers’ wives more time for other activities expected of them, such as charity work and women’s club meetings.81
Religion American women did not interact with residents of occupied and host countries only as charitable ladies, maternal figures, teachers, and employers. Religion, Christianity, in particular, provided other venues for contacts between Americans and non-Americans. Americans believed that attending religious services with local people demonstrated spiritual and cultural fellowship. American families in Europe often worshiped in Protestant or Catholic churches in communities near military bases rather than on base. A service wife reported that “Many chaplains encourage families to [attend religious meetings in the civilian churches . . .] believing that it is not only good for the family, but excellent public relations for the military.” Going to church benefited families, service wives believed, because it created a sense of continuity and stability that could help military families (especially children) cope with the numerous moves they made around the United States and across the ocean. And attending religious gatherings in foreign churches could convey an image of Americans as devout and family-oriented. “The French see us mingling with them in their bars,” admonished one military pamphlet. “We should let them see us worship with them in their churches.” Americans hoped that church at110 A U.S. Lady’s World
tendance would counteract impressions of Americans as hedonistic and materialistic.82 Besides worshipping alongside local peoples in churches outside the military community, American women performed charitable work and made donations through religious organizations. Military wives in Izmir, Turkey joined the St. Anne’s Society for Catholic Women. Their charity projects included fund-raising for Greek nuns who tended to the city’s poor children and for needy Catholic clergy.83 Margery Finn Brown made donations to a Catholic church in Kyoto staffed by three priests who aided thousands of ill and impoverished people of the city by providing food, clothes, and medical care.84 Even in countries where non-Christian religions predominated, Americans could encounter host nationals through Christianity. Nearly the entire population of Turkey was Muslim, but Christian service families who learned about the history of Christianity in the region could demonstrate interest in the Turkish past and make a historical connection with the local people. Americans made excursions to early Christian churches and shrines, and ruins and landmarks from the Crusades. They visited sites that commemorated Saint John the Apostle, who came to Ephesus (a Roman city near Izmir), and Saint Paul, who was born on Turkey’s southern coast and established churches in Ephesus.85
Excursions Other excursions into local communities, such as shopping trips and visits to points of historical and cultural interest, provided still more opportunities for service wives to show good will toward and interest in local peoples and their ways of life. While servicemen symbolized military power in a region, service wives who considered themselves unofficial ambassadors attempted to show that Americans were interested not in conquering a country but in learning about it and mixing with the local people as admiring guests and friends. Pat Donat, an Army wife, wrote that she discovered through her interactions with shopkeepers that “Japan is not a group of islands on a map. Japan is peopled with men and women who graciously allowed a foreigner to learn that sympathy and understanding have no nationality but belong to the world.” Donat enjoyed the respect shown to her by a Japanese couple when she brought her fiveyear-old son into their shop. In Donat’s view, the encounter showed that Americans and Japanese were alike in their regard for motherhood and family.86 Family excursions provided opportunities to demonstrate friendliness and enthusiastic interest in a region, and also allowed local peoples to A U.S. Lady’s World 111
observe American family relations and the consumer goods they enjoyed. Virginia Ferrell Alfonte, her Army husband, and their three children embarked on a ten-day Alpine camping trip from their post in Germany. On their trip through Bavaria, Switzerland, and Austria, they encountered curious and friendly local residents and European vacationers who, according to Virginia Alfonte, were pleased to meet the American campers. A Swiss man invited the Alfontes to camp in a scenic spot on his property, and a Dutch family helped them quickly set up their tent in the rain. At a campsite in Austria, curious children from a nearby village joined the family in toasting marshmallows. According to Virginia Alfonte, “The gasoline stove fascinated them as did the big fancy American car.” The local adults, also curious about the American family, preferred to examine the Alfontes from a distance. Virginia Alfonte considered the camping trip in the European countryside a means to transcend national boundaries by bringing various peoples together in a “feeling of well-being and comradeship.”87 American women stationed abroad with their husbands for two- to three-year tours of duty enjoyed ample time to immerse themselves in local history and culture and in so doing tried to project American appreciation of a region while countering stereotypes of Americans as unsophisticated and uninterested in culture. A group of women married to military staff at NATO southern European headquarters and Navy staff in Naples, Italy became known as the “Culture Vultures.” Groups of as many as 140 women visited regional sites, including the catacombs of Naples and the nearby ruins of the ancient Greek city of Cuma, where Roman Sibyls had delivered prophecies from their mountainside dwellings. Residents of Sorrento greeted the American women with shouts of “Viva gli amici della cultura” (“Long live the friends of our culture”), and the town council made the Culture Vultures honorary citizens. The American account of the Culture Vultures depicted the good relations between military wives and Italians as stemming from friendship and the Italians’ gratitude for the American women’s appreciation of their culture and history. The Italians also undoubtedly appreciated the revenue generated by the influx of American women who dined and shopped in the towns they visited. The military wives’ attempts to convey cultural interest and dispel stereotypes of Americans as materialistic ironically involved spending money in host communities.88
International Women’s Clubs Through women’s club activities, military wives could establish American-host national connections where they were not primarily benefactors, 112 A U.S. Lady’s World
mother figures, employers, tourists, or customers in foreign countries, but rather friends with local people. Host national women who invited Americans to club activities or formed clubs with American women tended to be of higher social and economic status than the domestic workers employed by service families. A Korean women’s club that put on parties and dances attended by Dorothy Vieman and other Americans was composed of westernized, college-educated “wives of the professional men; the doctors, Army officers and business men.”89 Military wives regarded women’s club gatherings as “woman-to-woman project[s]” that allowed American and local women to learn about and show appreciation for one another’s ways of life. Club members shared interests in art, opera, and literature, though they also discussed domestic matters such as cooking, child-rearing, and gardening. An article on Izmir reported that service wives who joined the Turkish-American Association learned the local language, customs, “household arts,” and folklore. American women who met with the Zama Town Women’s Club in Japan took doll-making and cooking classes together. These military wives also observed Japanese dances performed by the members, and tried to express their admiration and understanding of this cultural form by learning the movements.90 Military wives viewed women’s club meetings as opportunities for friendly, informal exchanges that fostered mutual understanding and countered unflattering stereotypes of American women. Jane Metzger, a Marine officer’s wife, described American and British women’s discussions of such topics as appliances, American holidays, life on a Texas ranch, recipes, and gardening. American women in the group hoped to dispel notions that they were “boastful” and “badly spoiled,” and that their children were “ill-mannered.” Yet in informing her English audience that modern appliances did not eliminate all of the hard work required of American housewives—“There has never been an appliance, I assured them, that will replace the one with two willing hands to cook, clean and mind the baby”—Jane Metzger hoped to convey the superiority of the American way of life. “I always tried to point out—tactfully,” she wrote, “that convenient kitchens and labor-saving equipment are relatively cheap in America because we have an economy based on mass production, relatively lower taxes and houses built for what amounts to a servantless society.”91 Even in casual exchanges among women who wanted to consider one another friends and equals, American women found opportunities to favorably compare their country with host nations and gently extol the superiority of the United States.
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Friendships Friendships constituted the most egalitarian relations between nonAmericans and military wives who wished to exhibit good will and transcend the superficiality and hierarchy that characterized many encounters between service families and residents of occupied and host nations. People who accepted American charity or employment or allowed their children to receive American gifts did not necessarily consider Americans their friends. Moreover, although some Americans interacted frequently with domestic employees or shopkeepers, language and cultural barriers often prevented such contacts from developing into anything more than polite acquaintanceships. Residents of occupied and host nations attempted to negotiate friendships on terms that they were comfortable with and that allowed them to retain their dignity and autonomy. Some might have resented the foreign military presence in their region but came to like individual Americans. Margery Finn Brown’s friendship with a college student illustrates how the wife of a colonel in the occupying forces and a citizen of an occupied nation took great care to negotiate a relationship more egalitarian than most Japanese-American affiliations, considering the military and cultural contexts. Brown arrived in Japan intent on getting to know its people well. She met a young college student, Horace (Brown did not give his last name), who had lost a brother in the war. A mutual interest in literature sparked Brown’s and Horace’s friendship. Their association developed in the context of two cultures: the Japanese culture, in which women were expected to defer to men (more than in American culture); and the culture of the U.S. military occupation, whose personnel viewed the Japanese as inferior. Yet Margery Brown and Horace managed to forge a friendship more balanced than most Japanese-American relationships. Brown was older than Horace, the wife of a colonel, educated, and a working woman (a journalist). Horace was a younger, poorer college student coping with family and health problems. Brown was learning Japanese and Horace knew English fairly well, so they communicated in both languages. Horace took Brown to Japanese theatrical productions and always paid for her tickets and interpreters. She lent him books and gave him gifts from the United States. Brown worried about Horace’s poor health and family problems but tried to express her concerns nonintrusively. Horace felt comfortable enough with Brown to openly disagree with her about aesthetic and literary preferences. Their friendship shows that maintaining any semblance of equality between Japanese and Americans required effort and high mutual regard.92 Often, cultural differences and lack of language training prevented mil114 A U.S. Lady’s World
itary wives from developing friendships with non-Americans. Bernadine Lee arrived in occupied Japan fearful of its people, but quickly came to feel gladly received by the Japanese. The Lee family lived in a Japanese community. Lee thought her neighbors gracious and mentioned their courteous bows of greeting and the gifts they gave to welcome the American family. Still, she longed for informal chats which the language barrier prevented. Lee expressed a desire to learn Japanese; in the meantime, she hoped to find English-speaking friends.93 American women’s accounts of relationships with neighbors described some as occurring easily and others as requiring much effort and perseverance. Josephine Pope, her Army doctor husband, and their two children resided in a French farm community for nearly two years. Pope portrayed relations between her family and the locals as warm and unconstrained. The invitation for the Popes to join their neighbors at an all-night village wedding dance signified that the French residents had accepted the American family into their community. “The months I spent in this French village were the most challenging, yet the most rewarding, of my ‘army-wife’ career,” Pope recalled. “I realized that home can be anyplace, anywhere. And I found out that good neighbors, good friends are not limited by geography.”94 Military wives who shouldered the ambassadorial role considered it their duty to build friendships with local people, even when this proved difficult, in order to show American good will and perseverance. Patricia Moore’s account about slowly getting to know her English neighbors cautioned other service wives that friendships did not necessarily come easily, even when Americans and host nationals spoke the same language. Yet she assured readers that patience, persistence, and understanding would eventually pay off. When the Moore family came to live in a fishing village on the North Sea coast of England, Moore’s cheerfulness and informality met with cool responses from her neighbors. After many lonely months without neighborly interactions, Moore asked several people in the community to a housewarming, which she told them was an American custom. Many of the neighbors accepted the invitation and dined on hamburgers with the Moores. After this gathering, Moore perceived the neighbors as barely friendlier than before. She experienced a crucial breakthrough when her husband left for an assignment in Turkey shortly before she was to give birth to their second child. One neighbor took it upon himself to build fires for the Moore home and bring in groceries from town; others looked in on her regularly. Only after the baby’s birth did the neighbors truly welcome the Moores into their community activities, voting the Americans into the local dart team and inviting them into their homes. The village women asked Patricia Moore to join their A U.S. Lady’s World 115
Women’s Institute, where she “spent many happy evenings learning how to make a Yorkshire pudding and showing how to make barbecue.”95 Moore’s account suggests that neighbors’ perception of her as vulnerable —pregnant, with her husband out of the country—finally sparked the friendship for which she had longed. The locals allowed the Moores into their community on their own terms, in their own time. Once this connection finally occurred, Moore could enjoy the cultural and social exchange that she and other American women sought abroad.
American Homes as Showcases and Embarrassments For military families overseas, the home was not necessarily a haven apart from international politics and foreign relations. Rather, many Americans believed that their homes advertised to other nations the American way of life and the prosperity that sprang from democracy and capitalism. Military wives who showcased the American home assumed its superiority and, by extension, the supremacy of their nation’s ideals and institutions. At the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959, American Vice President Richard Nixon pointed to the modern home appliances on display as evidence of the success of the American economic and political systems. In a famous exchange known as the “kitchen debate,” Nixon asked Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, “[I]s it not far better to be talking about washing machines than machines of war, like rockets? Isn’t this the kind of competition you want?” The American vice president admonished Khrushchev to “Let the people choose the kind of house . . . the kind of ideas they want. We have many different manufacturers and many different kinds of washing machines, so that the housewives may have a choice.”96 For many years before the Nixon-Khrushchev kitchen debate, military wives stationed overseas had enacted the kind of international competition later advocated by Nixon. They had invited local women to their homes to admire their refrigerators and washing machines, and had tried to project American power through their appliances and domestic ideology rather than “weapons of war.” Whereas many service families who came to foreign countries soon after World War II lived in ill-equipped, makeshift quarters, some in extreme disrepair, much of the military housing constructed in the 1950s more closely approximated ideal American homes. When Air Force wife Marian Merritt came to Okinawa the first time in 1946, her family lived in a Quonset hut afflicted with leaky plumbing, a moldy wooden shower, a defective refrigerator, and cockroaches. When the Merritts returned in 1952, Marian Merritt described their brand-new quarters as “a dream of 116 A U.S. Lady’s World
a house compared to the little quonset we lived in [in 1946].” The home was so new that the sidewalk had not hardened by the time the Merritts arrived; construction of the house had been completed only the night before. Marian Merritt appreciated the tiled bathroom with a tub and shower, and the absence of insect infestations. American families at other overseas bases also enjoyed modern appliances, fixtures, and furnishings provided by the military.97 Americans considered modern homes for military families important not only for the comfort of the occupants and the morale of personnel, but also for projecting an image of American life to local peoples. In the early Cold War era, Americans believed that the home showcased the finest qualities of their way of life: happy family relations, democracy, freedom, and prosperity. In some areas, especially poor regions or countries still recovering from World War II, many local people did not possess such amenities as washing machines, refrigerators, or indoor bathrooms. When military families invited local people into their homes they gave them opportunities to view American family relations and modern appliances, which were intended to proclaim “the American way of life.” Yet the armed forces’ policies regarding housing at overseas stations, especially for the families of enlisted personnel, undermined the attempt to display ideal American homes. The unavailability of military housing for the families of the lowest grades of enlisted personnel, or at stations that did not provide quarters for any dependents (regardless of a service member’s rank), compelled personnel in these situations who wanted their families with them to rent residences off base. In some areas the only affordable rentals were cramped and dilapidated and lacked the modern appliances considered essential in American homes, such as hot water or indoor toilets. Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s 1958 report on the retention of Air Force personnel called attention to deplorable housing conditions for enlisted members. In 1957, Smith, a Republican senator from Maine and a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve, toured eighteen bases in the United States and overseas to investigate the problem of retaining skilled personnel. She interviewed more than three hundred junior officers and airmen, and also spoke with wives. She found that whereas officers seemed for the most part content with their quarters, twenty-four percent of airmen gave poor living conditions as a reason for leaving the service (this complaint ranked third, after “job dissatisfaction” [twenty-eight percent] and “pay” [twenty-five percent]). Personnel stationed overseas were nearly three times as likely to complain about inadequate quarters as those stationed in the United States. As examples of poor housing conditions in Europe, Smith reported that a sergeant and his wife and baby stationed in France lived in a one-room apartment and shared with five A U.S. Lady’s World 117
families an outhouse near the sidewalk, and that the family of an air mechanic in Germany used a coal range for cooking.98 In addition to official reports of wretched housing for families abroad, complaints from wives to White House officials reveal the limits of the military’s ability to back the rhetoric of the superiority of the American way of life with exemplary American homes. At Camp Zama, Japan, ten to twelve families living in temporary quarters (consisting of one and a half rooms per family) shared one stove, one washing machine, and one dryer and experienced frequent loss of heating. Air Force families at a station in Turkey made their homes in trailers until asked to relinquish these quarters to official personnel. Because the Air Force provided no family housing in the region, families were expected to find quarters off base. They faced living in hotels that one wife described as “filthy” and insectinfested, or leaving the country.99 Constructing and maintaining good family housing was expensive. Policymakers’ decisions to curb costs by limiting overseas housing primarily to officers’ families compromised American proclamations of family togetherness and democracy for all citizens. Moreover, the sight of American families of lower-ranking personnel residing in run-down, antiquated residences off-base would have called into question Americans’ claims that their superior economic and political institutions resulted in prosperous living.
American Marriage, Gender Relations, and Troubles at Home Military wives tried to portray American marital and gender relations, like American homes, as representative of the superiority of American ideals and society. Americans who lived overseas in the early Cold War era often considered their country’s gender relations egalitarian in contrast to relations between men and women in the lands housing U.S. military bases. Margery Finn Brown communicated to readers of her memoir her own sense of greater equality in American marriages as compared to Japanese marriages. She perceived that her Japanese neighbors disapproved of her sitting in the front seat of the car with her husband, rather than in the back seat with the children. She reported that her Japanese friends from the women’s club asked for her advice on coping with marital problems, including infidelity and physical abuse (ostensibly for the sake of friends, though Brown doubted this; she believed that the women described their own predicaments), suggesting that they viewed the American woman as someone more capable than they of countering male dominance and adultery.100 Americans’ sense of equality between husbands 118 A U.S. Lady’s World
and wives reinforced the idea that they were more socially advanced than people of occupied and host countries. It might surprise those looking back on mid-twentieth-century families from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century to learn that Americans in the 1950s considered relations between men and women in the United States to be vastly more democratic than gender relations in other countries. But the idea that American women enjoyed equality with or even dominance over their husbands became entangled in some minds with the misogynistic idea that mothers and wives pathologically wielded their power in familial relations.101 Implicit critiques of American women were embedded in observations of their allegedly immense freedom and undisputed equality. A U.S. Lady article on American–host citizen relations reported that according to a United States Information Agency survey, respondents in Great Britain, France, Italy, and West Germany viewed American women as “domineering.”102 American declarations of American women’s equality and liberty sometimes represented attempts to contain women’s dissatisfaction with their lesser status relative to men and defiance of the constraints they faced. Those who claimed that American women enjoyed unparalleled high status in their own society sent the message that they should consider themselves fortunate for enjoying such a privilege in contrast to women of other countries who were purportedly far more oppressed than they. Military families, like families in the general American population, experienced internal conflicts that challenged the nuclear family ideal that Americans wanted to enjoy and project. Despite claims of egalitarian gender relations, wives possessed less legal and economic power in their marriages than their husbands. Some women believed that the military establishment sided with servicemen against wives in family conflicts, ignoring wives’ complaints and protecting men who shirked their family duties.103 And though allowing families to join personnel in foreign countries was intended to reduce family separations, men’s temporary duty assignments or other activities (such as maneuvers) away from their home bases meant that women often ran households and raised children without help from husbands. Couples struggled with infidelity, real or suspected, believed to pose a particular stress for military marriages because of men’s frequent workrelated absences. Even when families were together overseas, some American husbands engaged in extramarital relations with non-American women, although wives almost never alluded to these liaisons in contemporary published accounts.104 One Navy wife who did focused her article on criticizing civilians — “poisoners,” she called them — who over the years barraged her with questions about what her husband might be up to A U.S. Lady’s World 119
while he was away. She relayed to readers her Navy doctor’s assurances that “This business of men ‘needing’ biological indulgence is an old wives tale—not a medical actuality,” and his assertion that wives were just as likely, and perhaps even more likely, to engage in extramarital sexual activities as their sailor husbands (thus turning fears about marital infidelity around to cast doubt on wives). The author also told of a fellow Navy wife who received a letter from her husband’s commanding officer regarding an unknown squadron member who allegedly sent “poison letters” to wives about their husbands’ frolics in the Philippines. The commanding officer reassured the wives that “The typical husband out here is not ‘running around.’ He is working long, hard hours.”105 Despite strict rules that families who joined military personnel overseas were to remain with their sponsors until the end of a tour of duty, some wives and children left early due to divorce, separation, or wives’ documented psychological illnesses.106 Yet the most sensitive problems within military families did not receive widespread public attention in the 1950s and 1960s. In its thirteen-year run, the magazine U.S. Lady rarely gave attention to topics such as alcoholism and depression and did not acknowledge domestic violence in service families.107 It focused instead on less provocative subjects such as the difficulties of making frequent moves and raising children in military life. Despite military officials’ acclaim of wives and families in the 1950s, few services for military families suffering serious personal problems existed before the 1970s. The increasing willingness of the armed forces to acknowledge domestic violence, incest, and alcoholism in military families paralleled changing attitudes in the general American society. The resurgence of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s pushed taboo family problems such as alcoholism, incest, wife battering, and child abuse into public discourse. Furthermore, the rising proportion of married personnel between the 1950s and 1970s—from 38.3 percent in 1953 to 56.9 percent in 1974, declining only between 1965 and 1968 during the drastic increase of U.S. troops in Vietnam—compelled government agencies to provide greater assistance to military families.108 During the 1970s, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and sociologists also began to give greater attention to military families — though still not enough even into the 1990s, according to critics.109
Racism and the Cold War After World War II, as peoples of colonized nations broke away from imperial powers and the civil rights movement in the United States gained 120 A U.S. Lady’s World
strength and momentum, many Americans became concerned with how foreigners perceived race relations in the United States. The international media reported on civil rights events in the United States, watching how Americans responded to efforts to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in September 1957, for example. The Soviet Union used accounts of white Americans’ racist violence and their treatment of African Americans as second-class citizens in propaganda intent on discrediting the United States’ self-appointment as the beacon of freedom in the Cold War.110 Racism in military communities contradicted American claims to promote democracy, equality, and freedom for all citizens. The segregation of the armed forces, which continued for several years after the end of World War II, meant that black families, like black servicemen, used housing, travel, and care facilities separate from whites. In 1948, President Harry Truman issued an executive order that declared a policy of “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services, without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.” By 1954, the armed forces had abolished segregated units and prohibitions against African Americans serving in all branches, in any combat or noncombat positions. The Department of Defense also desegregated on-base schools for service children. Despite progress toward integration within the armed forces, segregation persisted well into the 1960s in schools and housing used by the many families who resided near, but not on, military bases.111 As in the United States, African Americans and their families encountered discrimination abroad, on and off military bases. Mrs. Theodore Miles wrote to the White House in 1957 to complain of the military’s poor treatment of her son, an African-American airman stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, and his Filipina wife and their young son. Miles informed President Eisenhower that service wives at the base were hostile to her daughter-in-law. She blamed the family’s problems— bad housing conditions, difficulty obtaining food for the baby—on racism in the armed forces. Dollie Allen, whose family lived in Munich, asked for Eisenhower’s assistance with obtaining permission to move out of government quarters because other tenants in her building spat at the Allen family, cursed them with racist and obscene language, and vandalized their home. Evidently, Allen believed that her family would fare better living among Germans, also known to exhibit racism toward African Americans, than in an American military community.112 Racism also poisoned relations between residents of occupied and host nations and white and black Americans. In 1954, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of New York reported that white Air Force personnel in France urged host nation merchants and landlords to discriminate against African-American service A U.S. Lady’s World 121
members.113 White Americans’ encouragement of discrimination abroad represented resistance to desegregation within the military and an attempt to impose Jim Crow customs in foreign communities to prevent African Americans from using the opportunity of being stationed overseas to break out of the racial hierarchy found in the United States. Examining U.S. military and government responses to attempts to form interracial families, through marriage or the adoption of mixed-race children, reveals the limits of policies concerning what constituted a “legitimate” family in the years following World War II. Military officials in European and Asian commands could obstruct interracial marriages between U.S. soldiers and local women (some of whom had children with the men they wished to marry). And U.S. state anti-miscegenation laws and federal immigration laws posed challenges for soldiers who wanted to take legal responsibility for mixed-race children they had fathered abroad, and for Americans who wanted to adopt mixed-race war orphans. Historian Brenda Gayle Plummer argues that “the military so strongly resisted black GI attempts to establish legitimate paternity and play the maledominant roles that were conventional in society at large” because recognizing their ability and their right to lawfully assume such roles would threaten assumptions about African-American men’s moral inferiority and irresponsibility that in racist thinking justified the denial of equal citizenship rights to them.114 For all the rhetoric glorifying the American family in the early Cold War era, those who conceived of mixed-race families as legitimate social units found that U.S. policies, laws, and attitudes were not necessarily as broad-minded. In the 1950s, African-American Elks, the black press, and the author Pearl S. Buck publicized the cause of “war ophans” resulting from the U.S. military presence abroad, urging Americans to take greater responsibility for their welfare. But recognition and resolution of the plight of Japanese-American children met with daunting obstacles in Japan and the United States, where according to historian Yukiko Koshiro, American and Japanese racism toward mixed-race children dovetailed to make them into pariahs in both societies. Officials in SCAP (the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, the title of the occupation government in Japan) tried to minimize attention to these children for fear that it would exacerbate strains in U.S.-Japanese relations. Occupation officials deported from Japan an American reporter who published an article about G.I. babies in the June 1948 edition of the Saturday Evening Post, and forbade the official gathering of data that would show the exact number of such children. And although politicians, clergy, and other advocates for the “Japanese-American war orphans” tried to facilitate their adoptions by American parents, anti-Asian U.S. immigration policies and 122 A U.S. Lady’s World
state anti-miscegenation laws made this extremely difficult into the 1950s. Cold War politics also shaped American attitudes toward dealing with these children, expressed in concerns about international criticisms of American racism, and competition with Soviet efforts to bring babies fathered by their forces in East Germany to the Soviet Union—and, reportedly, 467 German children fathered by African-American G.I.s, cast away by both Americans and Germans. U.S. Representative Frances Bolton, for example, urged Congress to facilitate the acceptance of such children into the United States, for otherwise they could be appropriated by the Soviets and transformed into communist agents.115 But in a 1954 Reader’s Digest article by the popular novelist James Michener, the author claimed that the issue of G.I. babies was a communist-promulgated exaggeration.116 Publications by and for military wives occasionally raised concerns about racism, but for most who produced and consumed this literature it did not become a major issue. In the late 1950s, U.S. Lady began to print editorial comments, letters, articles, and short stories that addressed racial issues, including items about African Americans, Asian women, and mixed-race couples and children.117 The adoption of nonwhite children by white women such as Aurelia Richards and Bea Best made a bold statement against racism at a time when many white Americans still vehemently opposed interracial social relations of any sort.118 As for the issue of race relations between Americans in mostly white U.S. military communities abroad and nonwhite host nationals, however, white unofficial ambassador wives were more inclined to view Americans’ negative attitudes toward local peoples as a problem that could be rectified through striving to understand and respect cultural differences; they rarely articulated the problem in terms of racism. To do so would have risked facing the issue of racism within American military communities, including their own complicity in reinforcing (whether passively or actively) hierarchies of race and rank. Wives of career military men rarely publicly criticized the armed forces for fear that it would endanger their husbands’ advancement, as well as their own status.
Rejecting the Unofficial Ambassador Role Not all military wives embraced the ambassadorial role. Some lived abroad without interacting much with local peoples or self-consciously projecting a positive image of American life to local observers; some wives unabashedly expressed contempt for local peoples. In 1955, Elizabeth Happan published an entire book, based largely on her experiences as an Army wife, enumerating scathing criticisms of the military establishment, A U.S. Lady’s World 123
masculine military culture, domestic violence in military families, and her own husband. Besides condemning militarism and many problems endured by military wives and families, she fulminated against maids hired by military families at unnamed overseas locales. “Girls who take jobs working as maids for Army dependents,” she declared, “are held in disrepute by the general civilian population of their own country.” Her extensive list of maids’ offenses included “Filthy smell,” “Jabbering to other maids, garbage men, and other people in foreign language in presence of third person,” “Stealing,” and “Ganging up with the [American] husband against the wife.”119 Some wives found that they simply could not acclimate to a new environment. In 1965, Mrs. Honour P. Brinlee, who described herself as “a fellow Texan,” wrote a letter to President Lyndon Johnson complaining of living conditions in Bangkok (where she had resided for five months), a three-foot-long snake that had found its way into her kitchen, and the Thai people, whom she characterized as exploitative of the Americans (charging as much rent as they could get away with) and ignorant. “I have lived in England, Ireland, Australia, and the U.S.A.,” she wrote. “I have always been able to adjust and be happy. Here it is impossible to be happy. . . . My only reason for staying here is to make a ‘home’ for my husband and maybe prevent him from going crazy.” She claimed that nearly all the other wives shared her dislike of Bangkok.120 Happan and Brinlee’s tremendous disdain for local peoples would have horrified military wives who sought to promote international friendship and understanding. Their attitudes and grievances may have been shared by many Americans in military communities, but rarely did they appear in print for public consumption, possibly because those who agreed with them feared being labeled “Ugly Americans” or that complaining too vociferously would incur the ire of military officials who wanted to minimize tensions between American and host communities (and who in some cases paid little heed to wives’ complaints, however valid). Although many Americans who advocated good relations with local peoples did harbor feelings of superiority, their published accounts usually did not consciously reveal this, let alone openly disparage host nationals.
Gold Outflow and the Fear of a Feminized Military In the early 1960s, assumptions about how families aided U.S. military and foreign relations aims by bolstering servicemen’s morale and advancing relations between nations ran up against the expense of maintaining them abroad. Following the November 1960 elections, President Eisen124 A U.S. Lady’s World
hower announced a drastic “phased reduction” of dependents of military and civilian personnel abroad—from 484,000 to 200,000, at a rate of three percent per month—in order to reduce U.S. overseas spending and stanch the outflow of gold from U.S. reserves, especially to host nations in Western Europe such as France and West Germany whose economies had greatly improved in the 1950s and that had accrued dollars from the U.S. military establishment, as well as American tourism and private investment.121 Eisenhower’s announcement distressed military wives, whose advocates pressed the new president to countermand the previous administration’s order. In their January 1961 editorial, Alvadee and John Adams reviewed the activities of numerous U.S. Ladies of the Month to present the case that families abroad not only sustained the morale of “fighting men” but also aided international relations. The editors also urged wives to contact their government representatives, including President-elect Kennedy, to make their voices heard.122 In a January 25 press conference, Kennedy acknowledged that officials in the outgoing and incoming administrations were examining the effects of reducing military families abroad on “military morale, military strength, [and] the rate of enlistment.” On February 1, the president announced the reversal of Eisenhower’s plan as a determination of “national interest” and stated that the government would find means other than reducing the number of family members at overseas stations to decrease spending abroad, such as demanding that prosperous host nations reimburse a greater share of U.S. defense costs.123 It was neither the first nor the last time that the question would arise of whether large numbers of family members should accompany military personnel abroad. The expense, the fear that wives and children feminized and softened the armed forces, and the concern that the American women and children were in harm’s way should the Cold War break out into a hot war, formed the basis of opposition to the policy. In 1951, Collier’s ran a lengthy and sensationalistic article titled “U.S. Army Wives—the Big Snafu in Europe,” criticizing the presence of thousands of American dependents in Germany as a potentially catastrophic hindrance to military readiness. “The ‘front lines’ of the Seventh Army,” argued author Ernest Leiser, are cluttered with nearly 45,000 wives and children and mothers-in-law of the American soldiers and civilians on duty here. They are cluttered with their dogs and cats and household goods; with their schools and their 400 American schoolteachers; with their flower shops, their supermarkets, their bowling alleys, their night clubs, their golf courses, their snack bars, their summer and winter resorts, their movies. A U.S. Lady’s World 125
Leiser contrasted the image of “tough and fit” GIs with “laughing and chattering” civilian women and children whose presence, he editorialized, blunted the fighting spirit of servicemen and would pose a devastating distraction in the event of a Soviet attack in the region. As to the assertion that the removal of American families would cause panic among Germans who considered their presence a comforting safeguard against Soviet aggression, Leiser countered that the Germans would be more grateful than sad to see them leave.124 Nearly seventeen years later, Howard L. Burris, an Air Force official who had served as a military aide to then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson, forwarded to President Johnson’s chief of staff Marvin Watson a similar (though somewhat less strident) story from Business Week. Published at the height of the Vietnam War, the article examined the costs of sustaining wives and children in Western Europe and painted a picture of a U.S. military whose sharpness had been dulled by families and consumerism. A photograph of a row of women sitting under hair dryers at a post exchange beauty salon evidenced the alarming message that the wives and families were draining the armed forces of its virility and taxpayers of their dollars. In his letter to Watson, Burris expressed concern, as others before him had done, that American women and children in West Germany might become “hostages” in a clash with communist forces and that “one of America’s great tragedies will have occurred,” bespeaking the notion of family members as potential victims to be protected rather than critical to military effectiveness. Burris’s letter to Watson is dated February 2, just days after Vietnamese communists launched the Tet Offensive; perhaps these surprise attacks intensified his anxiety about the safety of American families in West Germany at this time.125 Even those who considered families important to servicemen’s morale and did not anguish that they distracted and emasculated the overseas armed forces did not necessarily view them as an asset to U.S. foreign relations goals. Historian Walter Hixson has demonstrated that for the most part, government officials and the American public “accepted Cold War militarization as the dominant paradigm of postwar foreign policy.” Although the Eisenhower administration proved more successful than Truman’s in implementing cultural exchange as a means to attract foreign peoples to American ideas and values, many Americans remained convinced that superior military power far surpassed soft power as the means for winning the Cold War.126 In the Kennedy administration, the emphasis on masculine toughness in the anti-communist fight shaped even the Peace Corps, “Conceived by its proponents as ‘the moral equivalent of war’” that in its grassroots humanitarian projects would rely on male resource-
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This cartoon portrays a military wife’s response to a “Noncombatant Evacuation Operation” exercise in West Germany. Military families practiced emergency evacuation procedures. According to artists Walt Howard and Dick Wolf, “The monthly alerts or readiness tests are frightening at first but rapidly become annoying. After the first few, you become nonchalant about rising in the wee hours of the morning and doing your part to protect the Free World.” Source: Walt Howard and Dick Wolf, Dependents’ Dilemmas in Deutschland (Germany, 1964), 31.
fulness and ruggedness to accomplish its development goals.127 Upon learning of the Peace Corps, military wives and their proponents had been excited at the prospect of the federal government recognizing and making greater use of their feminine influence abroad. At a May 1961 press conference, the U.S. Lady editors asked President Kennedy “what are you and the Defense Department doing to better prepare the one-half million dependents, more than half of whom are wives, sons, and daughters, of Peace Corps qualifications, for their roles while living overseas?” After overcoming his confusion about the question, Kennedy expressed polite but fleeting interest before moving on to the next inquiry.128 So while the military offered orientations for families, handed out guidebooks, and reminded wives and families to project friendly, positive images of Americans in foreign nations, those who wanted to make the most of opportunities to interact with and influence peoples abroad continued to rely chiefly on their own initiative.
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Conclusion Although American women in the years following World War II tried to adopt a cultural-relativist attitude in host countries, they concurrently endeavored to project the superiority of American homes, ideals, and institutions. In an article on good behavior abroad, Margaret Wayt DeBolt used Tennessee Ernie Ford’s closing words from his Armed Forces Radio Station program as advice to other military wives: “When you’re in a foreign country—you’re the foreigner.”129 This reminder was a point that emerged frequently in women’s accounts: Americans should try to accept other peoples and cultures on their own terms and not behave as if American ideas and ways were the universal norm. The military advice literature as well as women’s unofficial writings urged Americans to try to understand non-American ways of life. Yet for Cold War Americans, recognition of cultural diversity did not extend to acceptance of all ways of life as equally valid. Americans understood that environment, culture, and socialization influenced the world’s various peoples, and that multiple societies could coexist. But tolerance of difference extended only so far. During the early Cold War era, denunciation of communism and Soviet society as politically, economically, and morally inferior to American institutions and life reemerged more powerfully than ever.130 The American Cold War mindset that viewed the world in terms of communism and totalitarianism versus free enterprise and democracy allowed Americans to tolerate and even appreciate non-American cultures and customs while never relinquishing the conviction that converting foreigners to American anti-communist values was the ultimate safeguard of freedom. Cold War Americans considered their way of life superior to any other in the world. By taking flower-arranging classes, learning tea ceremonies, visiting castles, or dressing up in local people’s traditional apparel, American women tried to understand and show admiration for non-American cultures. They believed that social and cultural exchanges with the peoples of countries housing U.S. bases benefited all parties concerned. Yet military wives also considered themselves ambassadors of the American way of life—to them, the ultimate way of life—even when they proclaimed their admiration and respect for other cultures. They attempted to exemplify American prosperity and freedom through demonstrations of charity, modern appliances, and family relations. Social and cultural activities in occupied and host nations were intended to perpetuate a sense of parity, of equal international exchange between friends and allies who were innately curious about one another. Accounts from military wives that tried to convey the basic attitude of “we American women teach nonAmerican women about our ideas and way of life, and they teach us 128 A U.S. Lady’s World
about theirs” assumed that mutual understanding would foster harmony among the world’s peoples, regardless of cultural and political differences and material inequalities. But such exchanges occurred in the context of U.S. occupation in Japan (until 1952) and West Germany (until 1955), or in nations that were not occupied but that accepted (or tolerated) the U.S. military presence. The semblance of equal cultural exchange served to cast relations between Americans and residents of occupied and host countries in terms of mutual learning and benefit rather than as domination of less powerful nations. This message targeted various overlapping groups: Americans affiliated with the armed forces, urged implicitly or explicitly in the published accounts to take on the ambassadorial role themselves if they had not already done so; citizens of countries housing U.S. bases; critics of the international U.S. military presence; and civilian Americans on the home front, some of whom felt uneasy about their nation’s global display of military power, and others who questioned whether their taxes should pay for maintaining military families abroad. Do the unofficial ambassador U.S. military wives warrant the label of “cultural imperialists”? Insofar as they were citizens of the most militarily and economically powerful country in the world, supporting their nation’s global military dominance, and endeavoring to convince residents of far less powerful occupied and host nations to accept U.S. military and foreign policy objectives and persuade them to share Americans’ anticommunist convictions and appreciate and perhaps adopt aspects of the American way of life, they were engaged in imperialistic activities. Yet branding them as “cultural imperialists” is too simplistic, for one thing because it obscures the agency of the peoples whom the Americans encountered and tried to persuade. In the process of cultural transfer, people select and resist aspects of cultures they encounter. Moreover, even between parties of unequal power, cultural influence is not a one-way street, as we have seen in military wives’ reception of ideas and customs of occupied and host nation residents.131 “Cultural imperialists” is also too cumbersome and general a term that does not capture how American women’s attitudes and actions varied depending on locale and historical context. In Okinawa, for example, “maternal imperialists” may more accurately describe certain military wives in their interactions with adults and children between the 1940s and 1960s, while in Germany this term is more apt during the early years of military occupation (1946 to 1949) than in later years.132 What military wives’ ambassadorial efforts abroad were not is “a handy fig leaf for naked ambition,” to use Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman’s description of how some view the proclaimed idealism of the United States in its humanitarian endeavors abroad.133 Conceding that American A U.S. Lady’s World 129
military wives sincerely believed that their exercise of cultural influence benefited peoples of occupied and host nations is not to assert that they were not engaged in cultural imperialism; and conceding that the wives engaged in cultural imperialism does not mean that they were deviously coating the exercise of U.S. military and economic power with feminine sweetness—they were not, and to conceive of it as such is to be blind to the intricacy of American attitudes and influence abroad. Examining military wives and their day-to-day encounters with residents of occupied and host countries illuminates the complexity of international power relations in the early Cold War era. Many Americans were convinced that winning the Cold War was an imperative that required military strength of an immensity unprecedented in world history, but that also could be greatly advanced by persuasive feminine demonstrations of compassion, good will, and cultural interest. In the post–World War II period when nations around the world gained independence from colonial powers, some striving to form democratic governments, and when the United States’ principal enemy expropriated the freedoms of its own citizens and threatened those of citizens in neighboring nations, Americans did not wish to appear as imperialistic exploiters and oppressors but as benefactors and friends who sensitively aided and attempted to understand other peoples—even though U.S. covert operations as well as public policies sometimes contradicted this image. Still, foisting American ideals and objectives on residents of countries housing U.S. bases without consideration for their values and preferences would have contradicted claims that the United States promoted freedom and self-determination, undermining the alliances crucial to Cold War foreign relations. Ideal military wives, in extensions of their family roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers, tried to gently guide other peoples toward American ideals and international political and military goals. Closer studies of relations between American military families—especially women—and the people of West Germany and Okinawa reveal how social, cultural, and power relations played out in these particular contexts.
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4 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
In 1946, Lelah Berry and her two young children left Louisville, Kentucky to accompany Army captain Elmer Berry on his tour of duty in Berlin. Before Elmer Berry joined the armed forces in World War II he had worked for the Louisville & Nashville railroad. Lelah Berry had never ventured outside Kentucky. For the first two years of Elmer Berry’s service his family lived in military camps around the United States, setting up house in “cooped-up, ramshackle living quarters,” and living on a “careful budget.” But in Germany, declared Lelah Berry, “The Berrys really never had it so good.” The family resided in a spacious German house, enjoying fresh meat daily, yet put a large portion of Elmer Berry’s salary into savings. Three domestic employees cooked and cleaned, and cared for the children. When Elmer Berry received a short leave he took his family on a ten-day “dream-come-true holiday” in Switzerland arranged by the Army Special Services Division for military personnel. While the Berrys reveled in this new standard of living, the elderly German couple who owned the house made their home in a nearby garage. Hundreds of thousands of Berliners suffered from hunger. Throughout the winter, Lelah Berry witnessed Germans trudging through the cold, shattered city and standing in long lines for their fuel rations. The stark contrast between American ease and German hardship during the early occupation was not lost on Lelah Berry. “We enjoy this scale of living, as anyone would,” she admitted, “but compared to the lives of the Germans around us it is embarrassingly luxurious.” Berry tried to muster resentment of Germans to curb her pity: “I don’t want to coddle or whitewash the Germans, and I tell myself over and over, ‘After all, they started it, they asked for it.’” Still, even fresh memories of German aggression could not eradicate Berry’s compassion for the Berliners: “I do not believe the German people yet accept any responsibility for the war or Nazi crimes. Just now, however, they are too hungry and too cold to think much beyond tomorrow’s or next week’s rations.”1 131
Many Americans in Germany shared Lelah Berry’s ambivalence toward the Germans during the early months of occupation. The Americans were not yet ready to forgive the Germans for the horrors of World War II, yet they could not ignore the suffering of shivering and undernourished people. Moreover, although Berry and her compatriots believed that the occupation required a firm stance toward denazifying and democratizing the defeated Germans, they were uncomfortable in the role of conquerors over people who did not seem entirely different from themselves. U.S. military authorities, and American “dependents” themselves, considered American families key contributors to U.S.–West German relations. They factored into military policies in Germany between the end of World War II and the 1960s. When families first arrived in Germany in the spring of 1946, military officials expected them to aid in reeducating Germans and establishing democracy and to demonstrate the intention of the occupation forces to help, not oppress, their former enemies. American women endeavored to accomplish these objectives in charitable and community activities and American homes. In their accounts of such interactions, military wives tried to rehabilitate Americans’ impressions of Germans and thereby gain support for occupation policies. As the Cold War developed, another policy use of families emerged. Families came to represent the U.S. military’s commitment to stand its ground against the Soviet attempt to take over Berlin, as well as continued resistance to the feared encroachment of communism in Western Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1946, Americans like Lelah Berry had expressed ambivalence toward Germans. But a 1960 Army Information Digest article on community relations by Colonel Morton P. Brooks, the chief of the Information Division at Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe, captured the ideal of German-American relations that had since emerged. German-American relations were “better now than ever before,” wrote Brooks, fortified by “the events which made it necessary for Germans and Americans to stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of their liberties.”2 The events invoked here were the establishment of communism in Eastern Europe in the latter half of the 1940s, the Berlin Airlift, and the division of Germany into Eastern and Western states. In the 1950s and 1960s, family members strived to aid U.S. military and foreign policy goals by projecting an impression of a staunch alliance with West Germans against the Soviet Union and communism. Americans considered West Germany, on the border of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, a crucial Cold War battleground watched by the rest of the world. Americans described their nation’s military presence in West Germany as welcomed, and needed, by Germans. For Americans, the defense of West132 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
ern Europe entailed not only military strength but also the promulgation of a sense of unity with peoples who shared American values and ideals, and the commitment to safeguard the “free” world from communism. Military wives’ and husbands’ portrayals of a firmly anti-communist, anti-Soviet alliance with West Germans celebrated German-American interactions as warm and anchored in cultural commonalities, and overlooked the tensions that resulted from basing a large American population in a foreign country. West Germans remained economically and militarily dependent on the United States after the occupation ended, though U.S. military and diplomatic objectives—fundamentally the prevention of Soviet dominance of Western Europe—required negotiations with West Germans, who hoped that cooperation with the United States would help them achieve their own goals of greater autonomy and eventually the reunification of Germany.3 American military families’ attempts to generate the impression of an equal alliance with West Germans served as a gloss to deflect the undemocratic and imperialistic aspects of maintaining bases and service personnel in Western Europe. The image of Americans and Germans standing “shoulder to shoulder” also downplayed Germany’s dependence on the United States while advancing a conception of West Germans as a rehabilitated people, now trustworthy allies, who deserved to take their place among the peoples of the free world.
Early Occupation U.S. military authorities decided to allow families to join service personnel in 1946 in the belief that they would improve morale, “present excellent examples of American life to the German people,” and “foster an informal atmosphere” for better German-American relations.4 Along with the dismantling of Germany’s war-making capability, the replacement of Nazi ideology with democratic values topped the list of occupation goals. In an orientation program for families, a discussion leader informed the wives, daughters, and sons of personnel that the armed forces designated them “ambassadors of democracy.”5 Model American families were to represent a society that enjoyed prosperity and democracy without persecuting or exploiting other peoples, one that contradicted the Nazi argument that the German people’s needs could be fulfilled through the oppression of Jews and other vulnerable groups, and the acquisition of territories for German Lebensraum. Military leaders hoped that families would make the occupation more stable and pleasant for troops, and in so doing, would “[impress] upon the peoples of occupied countries an example of democratic family and home life.”6 Informal settings such as the “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 133
American home, military leaders expected, would make American attempts to teach democracy to the Germans seem uncontrived rather than forced, and would undercut German perceptions of Americans as cultural imperialists. Rather than leaving American family members to invent their own ways to teach democracy in encounters with Germans, the United States Information and Education Service developed an orientation program to guide them. Children over fourteen and spouses of occupation personnel met with a military representative for a total of four hours to discuss the role of families in the occupation mission and their expected relations with the German people, the Allies, and displaced persons. The facilitator explained the occupation mission as a “complete house-cleaning of not only German war potentials but also German minds in order that Germany may one day again assume her role in the family of peaceful nations.” The “family of peaceful nations” metaphor for ideal postwar international relations asked participants to envision a world whose nations pulled together as a family and took care of one another. In 1946, Americans still viewed Germany as a nation (gendered female here) of wayward children as yet unworthy of trust and incapable of self-discipline; the occupiers were prepared to assume the role of a stern parent-nation.7 Early in the occupation, U.S. military policy assumed that fundamental ideological differences divided Americans and Germans. The Allied Control Council began to relax nonfraternization laws as early as October 1945, only five months after the cessation of hostilities between Germany and the Allies, in the hope that informal contacts with Allied nationals would help to teach democracy to the Germans.8 The discussion leader for the dependents’ orientation informed participants of the likelihood that they would meet a range of Germans, from servants to members of the upper classes. Family members learned that they might encounter friendly Germans who were “outwardly very much like us,” and who “share your tastes in sports, games, books, and music,” mutual interests that could serve as opportunities to “show them the American and democratic way of living.” But the women and children also were warned that apparent cultural similarities between Germans and Americans could deceive well-meaning Americans into doubting the occupation mission and sympathizing with unrepentant Nazis. The discussion facilitator cautioned them to be on guard against not only physical disease but also “the mental disease of Nazi-thinking,” said to reveal itself in statements like “Hitler did some good,” “Nazism was a good idea badly worked out,” and “Democracy is bad because you don’t feed us; at least we had plenty to eat under the Nazis.” Each participant was admonished to “Be a teacher, not a pupil,” to reinforce the status of Americans as conquerors 134 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
and Germans as a defeated people. Lest the American women and children remain unconvinced of the deep ideological differences between them and the Germans, the last hour of the orientation was devoted to viewing a documentary titled Here Is Germany, likened by the discussion leader to “horror films,” that presented “Nazi atrocities” such as the bodies of concentration camp victims, and “strips away the mask of good temperament and docility which now hides Germany’s crime [. . . and] shows what the behavior of these ‘kind and gentle’ people has cost the world.” The film’s gruesome reminders of Germany’s recent brutality indicate the fear that, even so soon after the war, American and German cultural commonalities would lure Americans into a mistaken sense of sympathy for the Germans and endanger occupation goals.9 Despite admonitions to exercise caution and, when necessary, sternness in their informal contacts with Germans, occupation leaders did not want Americans to be perceived as tyrants. Upon the Allied victory in Europe, General Dwight Eisenhower announced to the German people that “We come as conquerors, but not as oppressors.” Because the Americans wanted to “teach the Germans that the whole concept of ‘superiority,’ glorification of military power, and intolerance of others is evil and leads to war,” a harsh and vindictive occupation would have contradicted American goals of establishing democracy, equality, and freedom, declared the cornerstones of the American way of life. Spouses and children were advised to carefully negotiate relations with Germans. They were to show no rancor toward their former enemies, even while refusing to brook Nazi attitudes: “Hate will not solve the problem before us; it would estrange those Germans with whom we can cooperate and it would distort or destroy the democratic objectives we seek.”10 Occupation planners believed that service families, especially women, could show Germans that patient guidance and compassion, rather than animosity, would characterize the occupation. Military wives, in accord with the official occupation stance toward Germans, sought to demonstrate a humane dimension of occupation. Accounts about American women portrayed them as motivated by compassion for the people of Germany. A 1956 U.S. Lady article on the history of American women’s charitable efforts in Europe recounted how in the “desperate days of 1946,” Margaret Thompson Biddle, the wife of a former major general and ambassador, invited American wives to her home in Frankfurt to discuss the plight of Germans and the promotion of “international understanding.” Over tea, the women discussed their personal encounters with “victims” of World War II. Biddle had been especially affected by a baby who had frozen to death in a wet diaper; one simple, motherly act might have saved this war casualty. Biddle and the others “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 135
found it difficult to look upon the Germans simply as “conquered enemies responsible for their misery.” The women devised a plan to collect necessities from friends and relatives in the United States for the underfed and ill people in the American Zone, including refugees and transient German mothers and babies. In consultation with the German Red Cross, the American women also visited families who needed food, clothing, and medicine. This “welfare work” constituted the first projects of the American Occupation Women’s Voluntary Service, which later became the Conference on American Women’s Activities in Europe. In January 1948, as many as 3,000 American women came together in Kronberg at the first big conference to find an answer to the question “How can we help?”11 The women’s charity work stemmed from benevolence, yet also emphasized the higher status of the American conquerors over the vanquished Germans. The title of the U.S. Lady article about Margaret Thompson Biddle, “When Mrs. Biddle Poured,” and the description of American occupation wives meeting over tea to discuss the plight of the unfortunate, conjure an image of noblesse oblige—of American “aristocrats” who gave succor to the pitiful masses of Germany. Furthermore, the account of the women’s “welfare work,” “case work,” and visits to needy families depicts them as social workers who tried to remedy the ills suffered by those unable to care for themselves. Military wives were, in fact, acting as unpaid social workers for the armed forces. Not all Germans, however, considered American women’s clubs and charitable efforts to be as helpful as Americans liked to believe. Germans of Marburg criticized women’s clubs for failing to use requisitioned gardens productively in spite of American women’s pledges to supply hospitals and children’s homes with fresh fruits and vegetables during the food shortages of the late 1940s. Marburgers were distressed that many gardens either remained unused or were given over to the Americans’ domestic employees for personal use.12 Americans also attempted to extend good will and reform Germans through contacts with children. Military wives and children attending the 1946 orientation program for newly arrived families were told, “Wherever and whenever you can, work with German children. They are our main hope in the reeducation of Germany.”13 Hundreds of thousands of German children encountered Americans in programs affiliated with the military. At Christmastime in 1948, nearly 1,700,000 German boys and girls participated in the German Youth Activities program organized by Americans and Germans.14 In a Frankfurt “Girls’ Center” and a Munich “Friendship House,” military wives instructed German girls in cooking, sewing, and housekeeping.15 Occupiers’ portrayals of Germans as promising candidates for demo136 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
cratic reform attempted to win support for the occupation from the skeptical general American public. Lelah Berry told the Saturday Evening Post that one of her domestic employees “simply cannot grasp the fact that we didn’t all have to vote for Roosevelt, and that many people voted freely against him,” and that “She can’t understand how every citizen at home has an interest and plays a role in his Government, demands to know who runs it and how.”16 Berry’s anecdote about her maid suggested that Germans were less evildoers than casualties of authoritarian government. In this perspective, Nazism had deprived them of even comprehending the concept of participatory democracy; the people could not be despised for not enacting a political system that they did not understand. Thus, it would be up to Lelah Berry and other ordinary Americans to teach democracy to the Germans through informal discussions and patient explanations. Berry’s narrative provided a description of postwar Germany and the occupation to Americans thousands of miles away from the occupation zone, and also tried to elicit acceptance for the maintenance of military forces abroad (and their families) from Americans who remained suspicious of Germans and doubted the efficacy of the occupation mission. Early occupation objectives—to dismantle Germany’s industrial capacity to wage war, and purge Nazis through a program executed by occupation officials—gave way surprisingly quickly to a less punitive and more cooperative approach to rehabilitating Germany. In September 1946, Secretary of State James Byrnes announced that the recovery of the European economy required the industrial reconstruction of Germany. In November 1947, Byrnes’s successor George Marshall advocated the inclusion of Germany in the European Recovery Program (also known as the Marshall Plan), arguing that a strong German economy would benefit not only Germans but also all of Europe. U.S. occupation officials also determined that denazification would be accomplished more effectively by the Germans themselves, a decision that signaled confidence in the people’s capacity to shoulder greater responsibility for self-government, and in their willingness to cooperate with the occupying powers.17 The military’s stance regarding Americans’ interpersonal relations with Germans reflected this shift to a more cooperative occupation policy. The orientation program for spouses and children of personnel toned down the reminders of Nazi atrocities and the warnings to avoid a “soft attitude” in encounters with Germans, and schools for American children stressed German language as part of the curriculum.18 The return of residences to German owners exemplified the policy shift to a more democratic and nonpunitive occupation. Until 1947, occupation officials believed that the confiscation of property to house personnel and families and for other military purposes was necessary and appropri“Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 137
ate. From the first, Germans challenged the seizure of their property. In March 1946, several hundred German women and children in the Stuttgart area protested the requisitioning of homes. Another demonstration occurred shortly before the arrival of the first military families in April. Three hundred Germans, upset that a suburb of Stuttgart would be claimed to house the incoming Americans, demonstrated in front of the home of the city’s burgomeister (mayor). The protestors displayed a sign that read “Don’t Rob the Home of Our Children,” and voiced fears about the fate of their gardens, fruit harvests, and furnishings. The Military Government director of Stuttgart informed the demonstrators that the Americans would consider the Germans’ concerns and take only homes “vitally needed” for service families, but that the Americans intended to carry out the current requisitioning plan. Military Government officials subsequently received instructions from European Theater Headquarters to announce a prohibition on housing demonstrations.19 Most American families lived in requisitioned apartments and houses until the late 1940s. Former Nazis were the first to lose their residences and other buildings, but if these proved insufficient then the military took property from non-Nazis. Giving up a residence meant relinquishing not only one’s home but also the furnishings and other belongings in it. Germans in the town of Marburg told the story of a Military Government officer who confiscated the family dog along with the home. Marburgers considered the loss of property to be one of the worst conditions of occupation (second only to the denazification program). Despite the severe housing shortage, Germans in Marburg were not allowed to live with Americans in requisitioned residences, even in sections unused by the Americans. Germans criticized this segregation as debasing and the requisitioning of property as undemocratic. In Air Force communities, security measures such as barbed wire fences, and later, Polish and German guards posted to reduce theft and vandalism, perpetuated Americans’ isolation from and suspicion of non-Americans. In other communities, however, the separation of Americans from Germans was less severe. Germans lived in the basements and upper stories of their houses, while Americans lived in the main sections of the homes. David Klinger, the son of an Army officer whose family lived in Bad Nauheim between 1946 and 1947, said that his father allowed the eighty-year-old widow who owned the home used by the American family to live on the third floor along with a German couple who cared for her and also did domestic work for the Klinger family. Some Germans were allowed use of the gardens on their requisitioned property. Others visited the American residents of their property—according to an Air Force report, “to lend the new tenants a helping hand, showing the occasionally puzzled Americans little things about the opera138 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
tions of their homes”—but also, no doubt, to check on their property and try to minimize potential damage by the current inhabitants.20 In concession to German demands and to improve German-American relations, occupation officials began planning in 1947 to return requisitioned property to German owners. Derequisitioning was intended to demonstrate consideration for the Germans and to alleviate the economic hardships and housing shortage of the difficult postwar years. Although U.S. occupation personnel and their families were not the primary cause of the housing shortage, allowing Germans to take back their residences showed Americans’ respect for property ownership and family homes. By 1951, Americans inhabited only one percent of privately owned German residences.21 The housing shortage seriously affected the growing population of American families in Europe, who waited up to one year for permanent military housing. Although the number of armed forces personnel in the European Theater had dropped from almost 350,000 in 1946 to about 123,000 in 1949, the number of family members of the Allied forces had more than quadrupled in this time, from 7,500 to over 33,000.22 The presence of American families continued to expand in the 1950s: 44,337 dependents of U.S. military and civilian employees resided in Germany in 1950, increasing to 183,896 in 1960.23
Cultivating the German-American Cold War Alliance The Berlin crisis of 1948 to 1949 illustrates the enlistment of American families into the Cold War. Approximately 1,000 American spouses and children of occupation personnel lived in the American zone of Berlin, located 175 miles northeast of the section of Germany controlled by the U.S. armed forces. U.S. military officials worried about the welfare of these family members when the Soviets, in an attempt to claim the entire city, closed off access to the American, British, and French zones in the spring of 1948. General Lucius Clay, the military governor of the American zone, decided that despite the potential danger it would be “politically disastrous” to immediately evacuate American spouses and children of occupation personnel from the city. In a top secret teleconference between General Clay and Army officials in Washington, D.C., Clay stated that “withdrawal of dependents from Berlin would create hysteria accompanied by rush of Germans to communism for safety.” He also feared that the evacuation of families would provide Soviets with propaganda to the effect that American leaders were preparing for war with the Soviet Union, and that Germany’s western neighbors would interpret the “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 139
evacuation as evidence of the U.S. military’s imminent flight from Europe.24 In another teleconference shortly thereafter, General Clay assured Army officials that “we could support the Americans in Berlin indefinitely with a very small airlift . . . we should not evacuate our dependents.”25 General Clay was so deeply committed to keeping American families in Berlin that he announced his unwillingness to work alongside personnel who wanted to send their families home. When occupation personnel in Berlin sought permission for their families to return to the United States, Clay informed his staff that he considered it “unbecoming for an American to show any signs of nervousness,” and that those whose families intended to leave Germany would be expected to join them. Clay anticipated a deluge of requests for permission to leave Berlin. To his surprise, the applications to depart dwindled to a trickle, and most personnel who had submitted these withdrew them after he made his position clear. According to Clay, most American families remained in Berlin during the blockade.26 An Army history of the military in Europe pronounced American service members and their families “a symbol of American intent to remain in Berlin and to keep it safe.”27 Army Colonel and later Brigadier General Frank Howley’s account of the June 1948 to May 1949 Berlin crisis illustrates how a high-ranking serviceman conceived of his official decisions as interwoven with a sense of parental responsibility. His own account of the blockade intertwined the personal with events of international import. Howley served as deputy and later commandant of the American sector of Berlin between 1945 and 1949, and as head of the Office of Military Government, Berlin Sector. His wife, Edith, and their four children lived with him in Berlin. Howley’s 1950 chronicle of the Soviet blockade, which he described as “an atrocious crime” plotted by “the cold, inhuman minds of the Kremlin,” opened with an anecdote about a significant decision he made just before the Soviets blocked access to the zones of the Western allies. Days before the blockade began, Colonel Howley learned that the Soviets had reneged on their agreement to exchange milk from Russian cows for American flour. “I am a family man,” Howley later wrote, “and I could share the anguish of the German mothers and fathers who were faced with this dreadful calamity. As commandant of the American sector of Berlin, I could not let this happen.” According to Howley, he saved the day by bringing in plenty of milk just before Soviet forces blocked access to the city: “I had brought in 200 tons of condensed milk and 150 tons of powdered milk. When the Russians screamed to German mothers over the radio that the Americans couldn’t feed their babies, I fought back over the air and in the newspapers with a special formula, using prepared milk as a substitute for fresh milk.” Howley proudly declared that thanks to his 140 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
foresightedness, “Not one of my babies died!” He recalled that as he left Berlin in 1949, a German mother pushed through a crowd to thank him for saving her baby from the Russians during the blockade. In his story about providing milk for the babies of Berlin, Howley cast himself not only as a high military official but also as a protective, even maternal parent, who would not allow his children to starve.28 The Cold War antagonism that propelled the Soviets and the Western powers to a showdown in Berlin resulted in the creation of the “two Germanies” in 1949. The Soviets established East Germany, known as the German Democratic Republic, as a communist state. West Germany, which officially became the Federal Republic of Germany in September 1949, attained a semisovereign status, with the British, French, and American occupiers holding residual authority and maintaining forces in the new nation. Although Germans in the East and West sought reunification, the division of Germany lasted four decades, until the end of the Cold War.29 For the remainder of the occupation and thereafter, Americans in military families contributed to the U.S. objective of opposing the spread of Soviet influence and communism in Western Europe by promulgating American–West German unity. West Germany was a Cold War battlefront, the site of military as well as ideological competition. Vernon Pizer and Perry Hume Davis II, servicemen who authored a 1955 guidebook for military families stationed abroad, declared that “The American in Germany today is watching history made. Germany is the battleground between our way of life and Communism.” Americans in West Germany felt a strong sense of participation in what they considered a grand struggle beheld by the rest of the world. Pizer and Davis cast the Soviets in the role of villain, and the Americans as the heroes of the Cold War epic: “While Russia still ‘occupies’ East Germany, with all of the restrictions the term implies, in West Germany our troops are at once friends and allies to people they were fighting just a few years ago.”30 The themes of friendship and alliance between Americans and Germans, which emerged frequently in American accounts, attempted to justify to Americans at home the large and expensive U.S. military presence in Western Europe, and to portray it to the rest of the world, and to West Germans, not as martial dominance but as a stouthearted measure to preserve democracy and economic freedom among allies who did not consider themselves oppressed by the United States, unlike the peoples of Soviet-controlled states. In depicting West Germans as worthy Cold War allies, Americans in military families helped advance the U.S. government’s cases for West Germany’s eventual sovereignty, membership in NATO, and rearmament. American family members’ promotion of equal partnership between “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 141
West Germany and the United States also appealed to Germans’ sense of dignity, helping to gain their acceptance of the expansion of U.S. forces in West Germany in the early 1950s and the continuation of the U.S. military presence well after the end of occupation. In 1950, under 89,000 U.S. forces personnel (military and civilian) were stationed in Germany. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 led to the Truman administration’s decision to fortify Western Europe against possible Soviet aggression there (which strategists feared could occur if the Soviets perceived the U.S. military and its allies as pinned down in Korea). U.S. military and civilian personnel in West Germany swelled to 317,500 by 1952, then decreased to under 226,000 by the end of the decade—still more than double what they had been in 1950.31 Although many West Germans were convinced that they needed the U.S. forces as a defense against Soviet encroachment, the large foreign military presence and the concomitant requisitioning of land for U.S. bases exacerbated the feeling of being an occupied and subordinate nation.32 In his discussion of the psychological effects of “security dependency” on West Germans, political scientist Daniel Nelson observes that “No person individually or no people collectively enjoys being dependent upon someone else for protection or security,” and that frustration and resentment born of dependency can excessively strain the security relationship.33 U.S. military public relations officials sought to reduce West Germans’ sense of occupation by urging commanders to help promote an image of unity among Western European and U.S. forces.34 With the entrenchment of the Cold War, the Soviets supplanted the Germans as enemies of the United States and its allies. Frank Howley’s account of the Berlin blockade ranked the Soviets among the most infamous villains in world history. The blockade, wrote Howley, was “a wicked decision, the most barbarous in history since Genghis Khan reduced the conquered cities to pyramids of skulls. In order to retain their tottering control of Berlin, undermined by the development of democratic processes, they decided to starve the Germans into revolt against the Western powers and thus drive us out.”35 This condemnation of the Soviets, whose actions in Eastern Europe Howley likened to the bloody Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, not only reinvented the Soviets as barbaric Eastern “others,” but it also blotted out Germany’s still fresh crimes against humanity: the Holocaust; the imprisonment, torture, and murder of millions of other victims of Nazism (including communists); and the incitement of a world war in which millions died, including twenty million Soviets. Within a few years after the war’s end, Americans had reconceived of Germans as their staunch ally against the Soviet Union and generally tried
142 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
to avoid undermining this alliance with references to past atrocities and enmities. For the most part, West Germans believed in the need for protection provided by the United States against potential Soviet aggression and the spread of communism. The vindictiveness of Soviet military personnel in their occupation zone contrasted with the friendlier, if by no account flawless, behavior of U.S. service personnel. Furthermore, the postwar establishment of communism in Eastern European nations, the Soviet blockade of Berlin, and the Korean War fueled West German fears of Soviet designs on their region. Most West Germans, having to decide between Soviet or American domination, with independence not yet an option, judged it in their best interest to side with the United States. The Berlin Airlift had boosted West Germans’ and Americans’ confidence in one another and fostered a strong sense of cooperation. The Berliners’ self-rationing, stricter than that demanded by the American Military Government, had impressed the Americans. And the airlift convinced West Germans of the Americans’ intention to defend them.36 West Germans’ support of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the leading political party between 1949 and 1969, indicated a willingness to cooperate with the United States politically, economically, and militarily. Konrad Adenauer, the leader of the CDU and chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963, and his party colleagues developed a pro-United States, pro-free market, anti-communist policy approved by a majority of Germans. Adenauer, like most Germans, hoped for reunification with East Germany, but believed that in the meantime cooperation and integration with the Western powers would allow the West Germans greater independence than would an orientation toward the Soviet Union. In contrast to the CDU, which won more votes than any other party during the 1950s (and a majority in the 1957 elections), West Germany’s Communist Party obtained only a small percentage of votes (5.7 percent in 1949, 2.2 percent in 1953). The United States, the CDU, and less powerful pro-American political parties in West Germany forged strong economic and military alliances. West Germany’s political and economic stability relied on American aid, investments, and trade. Confidence in the West Germans as solid allies of the Western powers manifested itself in the proposed rearmament of West Germany in 1952 and its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with the end of occupation and the attainment of full sovereignty in 1955. In 1957, after negotiations in NATO, the United States placed nuclear weapons systems in West Germany, with the warheads under American control.37 Although most West Germans opposed housing nuclear weapons, public opinion polls in the
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late 1950s and 1960s showed that they continued to support the U.S. military presence and their nation’s foreign policy orientation toward the United States.38
From Assistance . . . Military families, especially wives, strived to demonstrate the American commitment to assist Germans in the reconstruction and defense of their country. Although economic conditions in West Germany improved remarkably during the 1950s, American women continued to engage in charitable activities that aided some Germans as well as refugees from Eastern Europe. Such activities contradicted communist critiques of the United States: that the American democratic capitalist system fostered greed, selfishness, and hedonism, and that the United States used its power to exploit weaker peoples. Accounts of American charity also suggested that the U.S. presence in Western Europe provided not only military protection but also much-needed material help for those still recovering from World War II. As evidence of the engagement of American personnel and their families in President Eisenhower’s People-to-People project, military officials pointed to the “social and welfare efforts” of women’s clubs in Germany. The clubs (300 in Germany, according to Headquarters, European Command) gave food, clothing, and Christmas gifts to orphans, families, villages, refugees, hospitals, and the elderly, including Holocaust victims.39 In Berlin, members of the Non-Commissioned Officers’ and Enlisted Men’s Wives Club worked at the OskarHelene-Heim (Home) for disabled children; a group of Air Force wives stationed at Tempelhof Central Airport helped to support a small local orphanage.40 The Wiesbaden Officers’ Wives Club, whose 800 members included wives of American and allied officers, wives of government civilian employees, teachers, and women officers stationed in Wiesbaden, donated clothes and other necessities to an orphanage for boys and a home for the elderly.41 American military personnel and their spouses who wanted to “make friends with German children and help those from broken homes experience some of childhood’s joys” formed a group called “The Friendly Hand.” The couples invited the children into their homes and sponsored them in summer camps to “[teach] the new German generation about Americans.”42 In other areas of Germany, American families and soldiers who “adopted” children and orphanages visited the youngsters and gave them food, clothing, and Christmas gifts.43 Donations of food and clothing denoted American prosperity, signaling that here was a people who enjoyed an excess of the things they gave to the less affluent. 144 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
During the 1950s, women’s charitable activities became more explicitly connected to anti-communist objectives. Americans intended to aid Germans not only materially, but also ideologically, and hoped that GermanAmerican interpersonal relations rooted in anti-communism would bond the nations of the free world. An article on the volunteer work shared by American and allied women described their charitable activities in terms of uniting against communism. According to the article, the women’s volunteer efforts helped to fulfill “the ever-present necessity for good foreign relations — good will, neighborly communication and the exchange of ideas to prevent the spread of Communism.” The Wives’ Club of the Sixth Infantry in Berlin donated clothing to refugees from East Germany. The American Women’s Club of Berlin awarded scholarships to students at the Free University in West Berlin, established in 1948 by faculty and students who had left East Berlin. Women’s clubs also distributed food, clothing, and medical supplies to refugees from Hungary and other Eastern European countries in the Soviet bloc.44 Military wives’ assistance to German women who had given birth to children fathered by American servicemen represented the hands-on sharing of responsibility with Germans for the consequences of stationing a large population of foreign men in their country. Many women’s club members performed volunteer work on behalf of “GI babies.” In Mannheim, eight African-American Army wives formed a Child Welfare Group in 1948; by 1950, their number had grown to thirty-five. The women established a work space (provided by the Central Billeting Office of the Army) to which German mothers brought their children weekly and received donations of food, money, and other necessities. The commander of the Heidelberg Military Post allowed the service wives to open an account with the commissary there to obtain nonrationed food, and the African-American chaplain for Mannheim, who referred German women to the welfare program, offered financial assistance. In addition to providing for the children’s basic needs, the Army wives also gave Easter and Christmas parties for all mixed-race children of unwed mothers in the area, and their white siblings. The Child Welfare Group assisted approximately 150 children. Many fathers of German-American children, however, helped support their children and declined aid from the women’s group.45 Many Americans adopted children born of German women and American fathers. Mary Sawyer, the wife of an Air Force sergeant stationed at Spangdahlem Air Base in 1953, was one of the few noncommissioned officers’ wives featured as a “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month.” She had cofounded a noncommissioned officers’ wives’ club in France in 1952; in Germany, she worked with a welfare committee that aided a local orphanage. “The plight of the children who had been fathered by American GIs and left to “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 145
grow up in kinderheims tore at my heart,” Sawyer recalled. “[The welfare committee] bought a bolt of outing flannel and I made nightdresses and nightshirts galore. We arranged for Father Christmas to visit and we brought personal gifts, candy and fruit for each child. There were something like 150 children on the list. As I worked with these children a great desire was born in my heart to take a child home to Bob.” The Sawyers eventually adopted a three-month-old baby and helped other American couples prepare for adoptions. White couples who adopted mixed-race children, however, faced anti-miscegenation laws if they intended to return to states that enforced such legislation.46 Servicemen, like service wives, advanced an image of American relations with German children rooted in the promise of the benefits Germans would one day enjoy as a result of their alliance with Americans. Army Signal Corps Captain Joseph Boyle wrote and filmed a story for the armed forces television station about his family’s relationship with a German girl named Gudrun Paskarbis, who was fourteen in 1956. Gudrun’s father had been killed during World War II. The Boyle family hosted Gudrun in their home for a month, giving the American father the opportunity to capture her reactions to “typically American things” such as bubble gum, hot dogs, and baseball. Captain Boyle filmed scenes used for a television program titled “The Friendly Hand,” as part of an Army-sponsored series, “The Big Picture,” produced by the military for Armed Forces Radio and Television and broadcast to all stations in their domain. Boyle appeared in the program as a “warmhearted Army sergeant,” rather than in his actual higher rank of captain, “whose ‘friendly hand’ reached out across a generation of conflict to bring happiness to a young girl.”47 Perhaps by representing himself as an enlisted man rather than a commissioned officer, Boyle intended to convey the message that all ordinary Americans, not simply the elite, wished to share the tokens of American prosperity—enjoyments like baseball and bubble gum—with the German people. The description of the television program suggested a one-sided acculturation, however: the German girl became Americanized, but it is not apparent that the American family became Germanized.
. . . to Commonality and Reciprocity In addition to trying to establish themselves as material and cultural benefactors to Germans, Americans also proclaimed alliances with them grounded in cultural commonalities. American families who arrived in Germany in 1946 had been told to regard with suspicion apparent German-American similarities in clothing, housing, aesthetic taste, and appre146 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
ciation for nature. “The German,” the orientation program facilitator had warned them, “ . . . disarms us with his culture.”48 The same cultural similarities that seemed potentially dangerous shortly after the war were invoked by the end of the decade as evidence of deep bonds between Germans and Americans. Declarations of German-American cultural alliance were intended to ensure Germans’ and Americans’ support for the U.S. military presence in West Germany and reinforce the nations’ anti-Soviet alliance. Underscoring American and German cultural affinities contributed to a sense of moral unity in the Cold War struggle. Furthermore, Americans and West Germans alike found it advantageous to imagine Nazism as an aberration in German history. Americans, not wishing to appear imperialistic and undemocratic, upheld West Germany not as a U.S. military colony but as an ally that shared the same traditions and ideals, while Germans wanted to distance themselves from the Nazi past and establish a basis for their claim to national independence. After the end of occupation, West Germany still depended on the United States for help with military defense, but the idea of an equal alliance fostered by the emphasis on cultural commonality deemphasized inequalities that neither Americans nor West Germans wanted to advertise. Americans, and Germans too, appealed to Christianity as fundamental to the unity of democratic countries. A 1948 Army booklet on the goals of the occupation expressed optimism that Germany was on the path to democracy because of its cultural foundations in Judeo-Christianity.49 Through demonstrating Christian piety, Americans believed that Germans might find forgiveness for their nation’s sins. By doing so, they could prove their worthiness and their willingness to cooperate within the democratic family of nations. In 1958, three years after the attainment of full sovereignty, Federal Republic of Germany president Theodor Heuss assumed an alliance grounded in Christianity among the United States, West Germany, and other democratic nations in his address to the U.S. Congress: “It is my firm conviction that the peoples of the free world—deeply rooted as they are in the Christian faith—possess the moral strength to maintain their position and uphold their ideals.”50 Christian worship became a milieu where Americans tried to demonstrate fellowship with Germans. Military officials at some commands urged Americans to attend German churches. In the 1950s, Germans and Americans came together in a Kaiserslautern church to hear Christmas music performed by choirs from the U.S. military community. Germans and Americans led church services, sang together in choirs, and sat together in church assemblages.51 An informational article describing life for military families stationed in the Frankfurt-Wiesbaden area mentioned the “numerous beautiful German Churches” that families could attend.52 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 147
Another article for families in Heidelberg extolled the joint GermanAmerican Easter Sunrise service at a stone amphitheater on the Heiligenberg, built on a site used by Celts, Romans, and Germans for religious worship.53 Of all Christian observances, Americans favored Christmas as the most fruitful for substantiating German-American cultural and political commonality. Many American Christmas traditions, including caroling and gift-giving, had originated in Europe. During the early- to mid-nineteenth century, German immigrants had helped popularize the custom of decorating evergreens in American homes at Christmastime.54 Over a century later, members of the Adjutant General’s Wives’ Club in Heidelberg sought to reinforce German-American unity against the Soviets in a Christmas celebration for the wives of thirty-five German prisoners of World War II still in the Soviet Union. The fate of the POWs plagued the Germans until the Soviets finally released the last 9,626 captives in October 1955. To demonstrate her commitment to “people-to-people friendship,” Dorothy Easely, the wife of an Army general, hosted the party for the prisoners’ wives in her home. Easely and the other American women created a festive atmosphere with food, holiday decorations, and presents. The party was a metaphor for the American conception of the United States as defined against the Soviet Union: Americans offered gaiety, entertainment, and abundance as opposed to the hopelessness and dreariness suffered by those imprisoned on the other side of the Iron Curtain, citizens of Soviet-controlled countries as well as prisoners of war. Easely pronounced her party a resounding success. Despite the language barrier, “the American and German wives suddenly found a common ground in the singing of age-old Christmas carols and the party ended with tears of pleasure in many eyes.”55 The party’s hosts hoped to convey generosity toward and sympathy for the women robbed of normal family life by the Soviets who imprisoned their husbands, and to affirm the German-American ideological commitment against communism. Germans also made friendly gestures to Americans at Christmastime, and worked alongside them on holiday projects. Suzanne Shea, a military wife whose family lived in the town of Bad Kreuznach in 1952, said that German women gave ornate gingerbread houses to American families “as a gesture of welcome and neighborliness.”56 Germans in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate recalled that they made Christmas cookies with their American housemates and neighbors.57 German and American women also worked together on Christmas charity projects. In Heidelberg, the women of the German-American Club organized a Christmas fair, “the big club event of the year,” to fund welfare activities.58 According to Suzanne Shea, her experience in Germany at Christmas148 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
time altered her perception of the season and reshaped her family’s Christmas traditions. This assertion countered accusations that American cultural imperialism in such forms as jazz and Hollywood movies degraded the cultures of non-American countries, and challenged assumptions that cultural transfer occurred in one direction, from the more powerful to the less powerful society.59 Shea and other Americans in Bad Kreuznach learned about German traditions such as the December 5 visit of Saint Nicholas and Schwartz Peter. The American families added Advent Kraenze (evergreen wreaths topped with candles) and crèches (wooden representations of the Nativity)—“the loveliest, hand-carved, sensitively wrought creations imaginable”—purchased in Oberammergau. Shea described the German Christmas spirit as superior to the “feverish activity and frantic haste” found in the United States: “Among the German people in the little town of Bad Kreuznach, there was more the feeling that we were approaching a spiritual event; happy and exciting, yes, but not in the material, commercialized way into which we have fallen, too much, in America. The emphasis was on the Church and the Nativity; and everything was, somehow, simpler and more peaceful.”60 Shea’s depiction of Christmas in the German town evokes an image of a society that had successfully resisted the taint of modernity, and undercut allegations that the U.S. military presence brought with it the destruction of traditional cultures. In Shea’s telling, the transcendent spirituality of the people of Bad Kreuznach trumped American bustle and materialism. In addition to spontaneous interactions, military wives believed that women’s club activities with Germans would solidify their international alliance through cultural and social exchanges. German and American women together engaged in flower arrangement, arts and crafts, a book club, a theater group, bowling, a cooking club, language study clubs, theater clubs, and excursions. Hundreds of women from various nations became members of the Berlin-based Internationale Frauen Gruppe (International Women’s Group), whose activities included attendance at concerts, art galleries, and exhibitions. The group proved so popular that those applying for membership added their names to a long waiting list. The German-American Club of Heidelberg brought together 130 American and 106 German women to make acquaintanceships and engage in community and welfare activities and cultural exchange. Smaller groups met in members’ homes to pursue more focused interests, such as language study (German, French, Italian, and English), bridge, excursions to nearby sites, monthly discussions of “stimulating topics of the day,” and cooking—“experimenting with each other’s national recipes.”61 Although American women tried to show appreciation of European cultures, they also considered it their mission to display American ideals, “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 149
exemplified by the American home. Dorothy Easely devised a plan to display a model American home to a wide audience of Germans. The organizers of the German Baden-Wuerttemberg State Homemakers Fair had invited the American Women’s Club of Heidelberg, where the fair would be held in 1956, to create an exhibition. Easely considered this a means to establish “Direct and friendly contact . . . with the people of the community in which the American forces were living.” She acquired two booths to execute her vision of the ideal exhibit: a “typical American kitchen” featuring housewives preparing American dishes, and also a living room where women made crafts, sewed outfits, and performed common household activities. Although the exhibit originally had been Easely’s brainchild, American officials quickly seized upon it as an important public relations event. The United States Information Service, an agency that arranged for cultural exchange and information programs in foreign countries, took an interest in the exhibit and provided a fully equipped kitchen, which the Army Transportation Division and Engineer Section transported and installed. The Quartermaster of the Area Headquarters Command pitched in an “authentic” furnished living room, complete with fireplace, mantle, and simulated windows that looked out to a garden view. The exhibition of the American home also served, in the military wives’ minds, as an opportunity for the German and American women at the fair to reinforce their sense of a shared domestic standard—specifically, a clean house. The night before the fair opened, the American women impressed the German housewives in the adjacent booth by thoroughly cleaning the display. According to Easely, the “housecleaning” proved a fruitful point of cultural contact, spawning such a strong rapport between the German and American women that “we didn’t have to speak the language.”62 The assertion that the act of cleaning communicated the German and American women’s mutual understanding on a level more fundamental than language reveals American approval of Germans as a clean, home-oriented, and therefore civilized and respectable people. Americans frequently invoked the idea that they shared with Germans a common culture rooted in domestic ideals. A 1955 Air Force guide’s description of Germans as “A religious, home-loving race” whose family life “revolve[d]” around “the mother and wife” closely resembled American domestic ideals of the 1950s. A U.S. Lady short story about a GermanAmerican friendship used the theme of Christmas to illustrate the two peoples’ mutual appreciation for family. In “Christmas at Sea,” a German landlady, Frau Pretsel, cries over the departure of a newlywed American service couple whom she considers her “adopted children.” She gives
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Carol and Harry a present to open on Christmas day, while they are at sea, en route to the United States. Carol wallows in self-pity because she is stuck on a ship during the holidays, rather than home in the United States with her relatives. But upon opening the gift—a small decorated Christmas tree—the American woman realizes that no matter where she is, the most important thing is to be with her husband for their “First Family Christmas Together,” in Frau Pretsel’s words. It is the gift from the German adoptive mother that lifts Carol’s spirits and replaces her self-pity with appreciation for family togetherness through the shared GermanAmerican symbol of the Christmas tree.63 Just as the display of the American home promoted both commonality and American superiority, so did the exhibition of the American family. While Americans attempted to generate an impression of unity with Germans anchored in love of family, they also presented gender relations they believed were more egalitarian than in German families. A Department of Defense guide described Germany as “more of a man’s world than is the United States.” According to the guide, “the father is generally boss in the home.”64 Servicemen stationed in Germany with their spouses engaged in domestic tasks that allowed Germans to observe American men as family men. In Rhineland-Palatinate, American men who assisted their wives with meal preparations impressed German women.65 At the homemaker fair that featured Dorothy Easely’s American home exhibit, attendees considered one of the highlights a cooking contest among German and American men, with the American men preparing spaghetti and sukiyaki to show their multicultural versatility.66 Military wives tried to counterbalance the showcasing of American superiority through gestures that emphasized reciprocity in German-American relations. Barbara Griffith did this in an account published in U.S. Lady about her first meeting with her German maid, Ernestine Schmidt, and the development of their relationship over the course of a few months. When Schmidt first arrived at Griffith’s home, neither of them spoke the other’s language well. Griffith said that while her German improved over the subsequent weeks—“my German vocabulary grew like the national debt”—Schmidt did not seem to learn more English. Upon finding Schmidt perusing a Sears catalog—a symbol of American abundance and choice—in amazement at all of the goods offered, Griffith decided to order some of the items as a birthday gift for Schmidt. Upon receiving the presents, Schmidt burst into English sentences—her surprise gift to Griffith. Barbara Griffith’s story conveyed the message that patience and sharing American access to consumer goods with the German people would result in sincere efforts from Germans to reciprocate with
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friendship and would provide a basis for more egalitarian West German– U.S. relations, rather than an association based primarily on American generosity.67 In learning German, military family members conveyed a sense of reciprocity in German-American relations. The Army encouraged spouses and children to learn local languages, and the armed forces offered classes in German. To promote learning one another’s languages, the members of the German-American Club of Wiesbaden contrived a plan whereby at weekly meetings, the American women were to speak only German, and the German women, only English. A 1952 survey of 215 spouses in Wiesbaden — 115 officers’ wives, eighty-seven airmen’s wives, and thirteen civilian wives—found that upon arriving in Germany, 168 women could not speak German at all, twenty-one knew “very little” German, and three considered themselves fluent speakers. While in Germany, forty-five of the women attended military-sponsored Information and Education language classes, thirteen engaged private tutors for language lessons, and 110 said they had “picked up” German. Although most of the women did not become fluent, a majority claimed to have learned to communicate in the language, albeit to a limited extent: six said that they spoke German almost as well as English; thirty-six considered themselves able to “carry on an ‘ordinary conversation’”; one hundred and thirty-one said that their knowledge of German was limited to greetings and asking questions; and only twenty reported that they still could not speak any German. The 1960 census reported that 45,740 of the 327,446 dependents of service personnel stationed in Europe and the USSR — the majority of whom would have lived in West Germany—claimed to speak the local language. Although according to these figures only fourteen percent of service family members spoke the local language, the majority of those who said they did were adult females, most of whom would have been service wives (though some probably were adult daughters). Just two percent (1,940) of dependent males out of a population of 107,110 (most likely the sons of service personnel) claimed to speak the local language, whereas twenty percent of females (43,800 out of a total of 220,336) said that they did. Only 2,138 of the female local-language speakers fell into the fourteen-toseventeen years age range, while the rest (41,662) were eighteen years of age or older.68 The census data support the assertion that pressure to fulfill domestic and international duties encouraged military wives to learn the local language and show that the American presence relied on cultural mutuality. Some Americans claimed that they managed to convey friendliness well enough without speaking German. Anne Lachaussee, an Army wife, lived among Germans in a Berlin apartment building with her husband, Bob, 152 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
a platoon sergeant, and their two children. The Lachaussees’ neighbors were mostly older Germans who expressed friendliness to the American family by smiling and offering fruit and candy to the children. Lachaussee shopped and took walks with her children in town, and in so doing demonstrated an interest in her surroundings, refusing to remain completely isolated from Germans with whom she could not converse. Americans who did not speak German sometimes befriended Germans who spoke English. Anne Lachaussee, for instance, found a friend in a younger English-speaking neighbor, whom she met for “kaffee klatches” and dinner. An Air Force guide praised Germans who spoke English as “good hosts.” Depictions of friendly relations between Americans and Germans as transcending language barriers, and commendations of Germans who did speak English, reinforced the idea that Germans welcomed Americans and were eager to express their welcome, with or without language.69
Isolated “Little Americas”? Living among Germans, as Anne Lachaussee and her family did, rather than in military base housing made German-American contacts more likely. During the 1950s, numerous friendships resulted from American and German families living closely to one another. In her study of relations between the U.S. military and Germans in Rhineland-Palatinate in the 1950s, Maria Höhn found that Americans with the military in urban areas such as Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich were more segregated from Germans than in more rural Rhineland-Palatinate, where she describes German-American contacts as “intimate.” Because of the housing shortage on military bases, many Americans in Rhineland-Palatinate lived in German communities, and Germans rented out rooms to Americans. In some off-base communities, a third or more of the residents were Americans. The close contact led to shared meals, holiday preparations, and trips to the countryside in American cars (because many Germans did not own cars). Germans seemed to find the presence of American couples more agreeable than single GIs, probably because many Germans disapproved of liaisons between American men and German women.70 Accounts from historians of the U.S. armed forces in Germany contradicted military wives’ depictions of regular and warm encounters between Germans and Americans. Harold Zink, the former chief historian for the United States High Commissioner for Germany, claimed in 1957 that “Americans, both military and civilian, lived in Germany but were never a part of the German community.” According to Zink, Americans segregated themselves from Germans from the beginning to the end of “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 153
occupation. As evidence of this alleged segregation, Zink pointed to barracks and family homes cordoned off by barbed wire until 1947, the development of U.S. military communities, and what he perceived as Americans’ lack of interest in German-American clubs. Yet Zink also stated that “No one can question that Americans, being ubiquitous, were much in the German eye,” and that “Americans, despite all their idiosyncrasies and weaknesses, were regarded more as friends by the German people than as soldiers or policemen of a foreign power.”71 The apparent contradictions in Zink’s account—that Americans lived and socialized apart from Germans, yet were “ubiquitous” and regarded as “friends”—might have stemmed from an underestimation of the impressions made in casual contacts between Americans and Germans, especially those involving American women and children in settings other than military-sponsored clubs. The purview of American families’ activities was much wider than Zink might have imagined. A later (1964) assessment of military relations with West Germans by Army historian D. J. Hickman speculated that German-American encounters occurred more frequently in the first years of occupation than in subsequent decades. Large-scale construction of apartment buildings for Americans began in the late 1940s, in self-contained military communities that included schools, shopping centers, recreational and athletic facilities, and chapels. Despite concerns that German-American contacts would dwindle, military planners determined that it would be less expensive to build separate American communities rather than units for Americans in German neighborhoods. In Hickman’s view, the rise of American military communities, though intended to remedy the housing shortage and improve German-American relations through the return of requisitioned residences, resulted in fewer contacts between Americans and Germans. According to his report, “Little Americas,” such as Mark Twain Village and Patrick Henry Village in Heidelberg, culturally and socially segregated Americans from Germans: “Provided with practically everything he needed to live comfortably, the American soldier and his family could serve an entire tour in Germany—and in some cases in France and Italy— and face no real need to learn the local language or to become interested in local customs.”72 No doubt the establishment of military communities housing large populations of Americans shaped opportunities for German-American relations. Yet that as of 1960 as many as thirty-five percent of adult female armed forces “dependents” (most of whom would have been military wives) in Europe and the USSR spoke local languages attests to sustained intercultural contact.73 Military wives’ published accounts that set forth ideals of German-American relations did not necessarily mirror actual re154 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
As this depiction of a military post exchange in Germany indicates, U.S. military bases were not sealed off from host nation peoples. Source: Walt Howard and Dick Wolf, Dependents’ Dilemmas in Deutschland (Germany, 1964), 11.
lations; nevertheless, they certainly demonstrated the range of interactions which did take place between Americans and Germans. The armed forces employed Germans on bases; families employed maids and gardeners; American children interacted with German teachers in the classroom and with German children on field trips and in school exchanges; and American families took excursions throughout the country. Indeed, the authors of military prescriptive literature were aware that social interactions between Americans and host nationals occurred in off-base shops, churches, and other venues, and considered such encounters influential in shaping perceptions of Americans and their military. To overlook these contacts is to neglect a significant dimension of Cold War international relations.
Falling Short American contacts with Germans sometimes resulted in successful expressions of friendliness, other times in misunderstandings or resentment. In some instances, American deportment offended Germans and risked alienating them. Even seemingly harmless actions could injure feelings or deeply offend. A U.S. Lady article illustrated this by relating an anecdote “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 155
about how an American couple had declined the cognac offered them by a German couple whom they were visiting. Later, after the couples had developed a closer friendship, the American couple learned that the rejection of the cognac had hurt their hosts’ feelings. The lesson underscored that such informal interactions held international significance. The Americans were not simply dinner guests; they were “guests in the country.” Other differences between German and American mores caused consternation among Germans. For example, Germans’ perceptions of Americans as immodest could fuel fears of uncontrolled sexuality. An American employee at an Army hospital told of a German coworker who expressed her dismay at seeing her scantily clothed American neighbors, who in her eyes were essentially “naked,” when they came home from an outing on a lake. When the American attempted to explain that in the United States men could wear t-shirts and women could wear shorts in public, his coworker rejected the notion as “ill-mannered and disgraceful.”74 Germanborn officer’s wife Elizabeth Dallmeier LaMantia’s criticisms of American military wives’ allegedly unrefined behavior—partying, drinking, wearing immodest clothing, neglecting housekeeping and childrearing—also revealed fears about the breaching of class boundaries when American women conducted themselves in a manner she considered to be below their station.75 LaMantia’s perspective shows how Americans’ informal behavior, rather than conveying to Germans what Americans considered to be their freer way of life, could come across as debauched and might even undermine U.S.–West German cultural relations. Fears of the sexuality of American neighbors also beset Germans in Rhineland-Palatinate who circulated a rumor that American housewives had seduced young German handymen.76 Perceived sexual immodesty not only offended Germans because such behavior revealed insensitivity to German standards of behavior, but also because it made manifest the power imbalance inherent in the toleration of a large foreign population and its military bases out of a sense of economic and military necessity. One impression that American families made on observers abroad that is corroborated by numerous accounts, American and non-American alike, is that Americans with the military were quite well-off, which contributed to the image of Americans in general as a prosperous people. The novel Out of the Shelter tells the story of a sixteen-year-old British boy who in 1951 leaves his lower-middle-class family and the bleakness of postwar London to visit his older sister, an employee of the American occupiers in Heidelberg. Author David Lodge described the book as “probably the most autobiographical of my novels,” in that he based much of the story on actual visits to his aunt, who worked as a secretary for the U.S.
156 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
Army in Heidelberg. The experience among the Americans, wrote Lodge, gave him a privileged foretaste of the hedonistic, materialist good life that the British, and most of the other developed or developing nations of the world, would soon aspire to, and in some measure enjoy: a life of possessions, machines and diversions, of personal transportation, labour-saving devices, smart cheap clothing, mass tourism, technologically based leisure and entertainment—making available to a large section of society pleasures formerly restricted to a tiny minority. Is this a new freedom for man, or a new enslavement?77
Many military wives believed that showing off American homes equipped with the latest appliances and plentifully stocked with groceries would help persuade visitors of the superiority of the American way of life, particularly in contrast to life under communism. Residents of occupied and host nations indeed noticed Americans’ plenitude, but the reactions could be negative as well as positive. For example, conservative Germans in Rhineland-Palatinate worried that the American cultural effects and attitudes that accompanied the U.S. military presence would damage German society and culture. German social workers feared that rural women who worked on U.S. bases and in American homes would succumb to consumerism, spending their earnings unwisely in an attempt to emulate the American way of life. In her accreditation thesis, a social worker asserted that exposure to American homes would “confuse” German maids about their station in life, and “upset traditional class boundaries.”78 Höhn’s study of Germans living near U.S. bases in Rhineland-Palatinate in the 1950s found that, in general, interviewees who had encountered American families held a positive view of them. Germans who actually interacted with American families—as opposed to social conservatives and intellectuals who disapproved of the U.S. military presence but did not necessarily have contact with individual Americans—generally considered Americans to be friendly and generous, and behaved in kind. Yet whereas many Germans early in the occupation had identified with African Americans as victims of white Americans’ prejudices, by the latter part of the 1950s, they were expressing their distress over the alleged immorality engendered by the U.S. military presence by vilifying African-American GIs, the German women who socialized with them, and the Jewish owners of bars and pubs frequented by blacks. Throughout the occupation and into the 1960s, white American servicemen abetted
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Germans’ racism by treating black GIs with contempt, harassing AfricanAmerican men in the company of German women, and threatening to boycott German businesses that served blacks, despite Truman’s desegregation order and the illegality of segregation in German law. Although some Germans “recall their surprise as they encountered the deeply troubled racial relations of the soldiers being played out in the streets of their towns and villages,” white Americans’ unabashed displays of racism justified in many Germans’ minds their own bigotry as a “natural” response to blacks rather than a dangerous and shameful remnant of Nazi racial ideology. Thus, argues Höhn, “Germans envisioned their alliance with America as foremost an alliance between two white nations.”79 Germans’ anxiety toward single African-American soldiers was a response shared by German townspeople who encountered them, as well as politicians who exploited fears of German women dating African-American GIs to decry the U.S. military presence in their country. African-American personnel accompanied on their tours of duty by their wives and children were more welcome by Rhineland-Palatinate Germans than were unmarried black personnel. Whereas Germans felt threatened by single African-American servicemen whom they stereotyped as sexual predators, they more readily befriended African-American couples and children, and shared houses and excursions with them. Höhn says that although friendships did develop between Germans and African-American families, in general, “Germans grudgingly accepted the black families who moved into their towns, ate in their restaurants, or shopped in their stores.”80 Although military planners who arranged for families to join servicemen overseas after World War II assumed that spouses and children would establish “normal family life” and create an environment that discouraged American men’s fraternization with local women, the presence of families did not always achieve this goal. While stationed in Japan in the late 1940s, Army officer John Paul Vann engaged in sexual relations with his family’s maids. Mary Jane Vann tried to prevent her husband’s infidelities by replacing the maids, but to no avail. During his assignment in Heidelberg in the mid-1950s, John Paul Vann used the time before his family arrived for liaisons with German girlfriends. His extramarital activities with local women did not stop when his family joined him. In other ways, Vann still behaved as an ideal husband and father. Vann, a father of five (Mary Jane Vann gave birth to the couple’s fifth child in Germany), took his family on bicycle trips in the countryside and car vacations to the Bavarian Alps and Holland, and furnished lavish Christmases for the children. But one day a young German woman arrived at the Vann household to ask Mary Jane Vann whether they were to be divorced, as Captain Vann had told her. John Paul Vann’s military colleagues, and 158 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
probably his superiors, were aware of his extramarital relationships. Still, Vann behaved more discreetly than did some of his married peers who, unlike Vann, brought their German girlfriends to the officers’ club.81
Berlin and the Reemergence of the Debate on Military Families Abroad In addition to what military wives’ (and servicemen-husbands’) writings reveal about actual German-American relations, they are valuable as records of Americans’ assumptions about Germans, and their sense of personal participation in international affairs. While it is difficult to know from Americans’ accounts what their interlocutors truly thought about the foreign military presence in Germany, their stories illuminate how American families abroad internalized, and shaped, the idea of families as “unofficial ambassadors” who aided Cold War objectives. During the 1950s and 1960s, military wives in West Berlin perpetuated the idea, which had become prominent during the Berlin blockade, of American families as representatives of their nation’s commitment to defend Western Europe against Soviet aggression. A decade after the Berlin Airlift, Frances Hamlett, the wife of Berlin’s commanding general, rhapsodized about the courageous people of West Berlin who had stood on the line between communism and the free world, shoulder to shoulder with their American allies: Berlin—where a modern skyscraper stands next to the rubble of a Hohenzollern palace . . . where an old man approaches you on the street, puts his hand on your shoulder and says he hopes you’ll never go away— Berlin with its flame for a heart, standing within the borders of a communist-controlled land into which one may only peer. . . . The Berliner is happy to have us here and we, in turn, are happy to be here.82
American military wives helped to generate a picture of West Berlin as free, prosperous, and family-oriented, in contrast to dreary, subdued East Berlin. Ethel Keener, an Air Force wife whose family was stationed in West Germany, described a 1956 meeting in East Berlin with a distant cousin whose family lived there. Keener claimed a deep connection with the German people through her father’s family, who were Berliners. In an article for U.S. Lady, she portrayed East Berliners as a fearful, shabby people who lived in a city inscribed with ominous Soviet propaganda, such as a poster that asked, “How Does One Live in Siberia?” which Keener interpreted as a threat to East Germans who did not accept Soviet “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 159
domination. In contrast, modern department stores, bustle, and an “air of energetic prosperity” in the Kurfürstendamstrasse commercial district marked Keener’s portrait of West Berlin. Her description of East Berlin supported the argument that Western Europe, and especially West Berliners, needed the U.S. military presence to secure the freedom and prosperity proclaimed by Americans to be the defining aspects of their way of life. Military families in West Germany expressed their defiance of communism and the Soviets by supporting Operation Kinderlift, a project intended to represent the Western allies’ protection of European children in the hot zone of Berlin. This enterprise involved airlifting poor children out of Berlin and bringing them to West Germany to enjoy summer vacations. In 1957, approximately 125 youngsters spent five weeks in American homes “on the free side of the Iron Curtain” where they “enjoy[ed] good food and ma[de] new friends.”83 In attempting to demonstrate the American commitment to safeguard vulnerable young Berliners from communism, the hosts also hoped that their guests would associate Americans with generosity, abundance, friendship, and freedom. Military wives also appealed to the American belief in the sanctity of the family to drive home their condemnations of life in East Berlin and justify the U.S. military stance in Western Europe. Ethel Keener told how her cousin, referred to only as “Herr B.” (because, according to Keener, giving his full name might lead to communist retaliation against his family), lived and worked in West Berlin while his wife and children lived in the eastern sector of the city to maintain ownership of their property. Keener reported that were the family to leave East Berlin they would be forced to abandon all their possessions, and their property would be confiscated by the government. This story tapped into the standard Western concept of the cruel communist world whose citizens, unlike Americans and their free allies, did not enjoy the rights to private property and intact families.84 Anne Lachaussee, whose family lived in Berlin shortly after the construction of the wall that divided west from east, said that “When I write to friends in the States I try to describe all that I see in the city. The most emotional thing is to go to any portion of the border on Sunday and see relatives crying and waving to people on the other side of the wall. You come away counting your blessings.”85 The rise of the Berlin Wall in the summer of 1961, and the U.S. defense establishment’s response to the heightened Cold War tensions, temporarily affected military policy on sending families to Europe and provoked criticism as well as arguments in favor of maintaining service families in Western Europe. Since 1958, the Soviets had demanded a suspension of the Western powers’ occupation of West Berlin and the transformation of Berlin into a demilitarized “free city” independent of West Germany and 160 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
East Germany. The leaders of the Federal Republic of Germany, and their allies, did not wish to relinquish West Berlin, which they considered a bastion of economic and political freedom deep in communist East Germany. Over the next three years, approximately three and a half million people fled East Germany via West Berlin. On August 13, 1961, German Democratic Republic leader Walter Ulbricht ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall to stanch the flow of refugees.86 Anne Lachaussee claimed that after the construction of the wall her Berliner friends took their courage to remain in the city from the presence of American families. “The Germans are glad we’re here,” Lachaussee declared. “Many of them tell you so. Just the other night we had [a German friend] and her husband over for dinner. She told me ‘When you people leave the city, we’ll pack up too, because when you go it’ll be the end.’ She was referring to the children and me.”87 Placing those considered most vulnerable—women and children—on the front lines of the war against the spread of Soviet influence was intended not only to represent the U.S. military’s confidence that it could defend Western Europe from the Soviets and communism, but also the righteousness of Americans’ ideological cause to uphold the democracy and freedom presumed embodied in their families. With the rise in tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in the summer of 1961, arguments reemerged that allowing families to join military personnel at hot spots abroad placed women and children in danger, detracted from the U.S. military’s Cold War mission, and hurt the U.S. economy besides. In July, Representative Bob Sikes of Florida wrote to President Kennedy that American dependents in Western Europe during this tense time would, in the event of a Soviet attack, pose a distraction to American servicemen, who would expend resources rescuing American women and children instead of confronting the Soviets. Sikes recommended the evacuation of dependents to signal to the Soviet leadership the United States’ willingness to fight to save Berlin: “No doubt Mr. Khrushchev is watching for administration rulings affecting dependents. He knows that Americans place great stock in security of their women and children. This could be the weathervane which will tell him we are in dead earnest about Berlin.”88 In response, Lawrence O’Brien, Special Assistant to Kennedy, informed Sikes that “Decisions with respect to dependents in Europe are of diplomatic significance, to our allies as well as to other powers, and any action taken by the Defense Department will be coordinated with the State Department. I should like to emphasize, however, that dependents overseas will not be used for any purposes of diplomatic effect.”89 O’Brien’s message suggests that while the JFK administration recognized that American military families were implicitly of “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 161
diplomatic significance, they were reluctant to wield them as explicit diplomatic signals in potentially dangerous situations (or to acknowledge that they would do so). Two weeks after the Berlin Wall went up, Senator A. Willis Robertson of Virginia sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara about his fears of the endangerment of military families in Western Europe. In Senator Robertson’s view, military wives and children living in and near the contested territory risked annihilation should tensions between the Western powers and the Soviet bloc erupt in war. Unwilling to wait for relations between the superpowers to deteriorate, Robertson protested the continued shipment of military families to Western Europe. He also urged the Department of Defense to inform American military dependents already in or en route to Western Europe that “certainly we hope there will not be [a war] but if such an eventuality should be forced upon us by a ruthless dictator military dependents in Western Europe when the shooting starts will have to take their chances for survival along with other civilians of that area of the world.”90 In September, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced the suspension of military families’ travel to Western Europe, except West Berlin, beginning in October. According to McNamara, the augmentation of U.S. forces in Europe due to the international discord necessitated making available all means of transportation for the shipment of troops.91 Other reasons given were that the armed forces in Europe simply could no longer supply sufficient housing, schooling, and medical care to families; the Defense Department did not indicate that the safety of American military families was a reason for the policy change. Although this policy temporarily halted the travel of an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 dependents monthly to Europe, it did not call for the evacuation of spouses and children from Europe. McNamara’s announcement did not explain why families traveling to West Berlin were exempt from the order. Presumably diplomatic and military officials intended the continued entry of families into this city to represent their nation’s defense commitment to their allies. That the shipment of families to Berlin received the same priority as the transportation of soldiers suggests the extent to which the U.S. defense establishment regarded military families as troops themselves, to be deployed at the focal point of Cold War conflict.92 Although U.S. Lady’s editors argued stoutly for lifting the ban on dependents’ travel to Europe, columnist Fred Lardner expressed more ambivalence. His vivid picture of the perils posed to American families in Western Europe disclosed sexualized and racialized fears about the alleged problems created by the feminized U.S. military presence. Claiming that Europe’s NATO forces were weaker than Soviet forces, and suggesting 162 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
that the Soviets viewed the presence of tens of thousands of American women and children in Europe as a weakness that would undermine the West’s military effectiveness, Lardner raised the question of whether the presence of American women and children might actually tempt the Soviets to provoke a war. “American wives could be a much bigger prize to the Russians than European wives,” he speculated, harking back to the vicious conflict between the Soviets and Germans in World War II. “European women were assaulted, raped, and degraded by Russian soldiers, many of them Orientals. Even Tito complained to Stalin against [sic] the venereal diseases spread by the Russians. Perhaps American wives, earmarked for ransom, would fare better.” Presumably, what Lardner was getting at was that the Soviets would trade the lives of American women and children for territory in Western Europe. An alternative doomsday scenario posited by Lardner was that “all Americans, military or civilian, male or female, would simply be written off if caught in the hug of the Russian bear, just as authorities would shrug off the millions of civilians killed when atomic bombs or missiles hit New York, or Washington, or other cities.”93 While animosity between the Soviet bloc and the West may have contributed to the decision to suspend American military families’ travel to Europe to join service personnel between the latter part of 1961 and early 1962, President Kennedy in February 1962 pointed to the balanceof-payments problem as “the only reason for it. . . . we are losing dollars and gold, and we have to attempt to bring it into balance, and this has been one of the ways which we’ve considered.” Kennedy stated that reducing military families’ travel to Europe served as one means to slash the $3 billion annual expenditure for the global maintenance of the U.S. armed forces by at least one third.94 The Eisenhower administration had determined that it cost the U.S. government $600 million a year to station forces in West Germany. In 1960, Treasury officials visited West Germany to ask for a $650 million annual payment to sustain U.S. forces. Although the Adenauer government refused this arrangement, Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson initiated consideration of what would become an “offset payments” arrangement, whereby West Germany would agree to purchase for its Bundeswehr military supplies and equipment from the United States, and take on other costs for the development of its own armed forces that would offset American expenditures. The Kennedy administration finalized the agreement in late 1961. The solution, renewed in 1963 and 1965, alleviated the United States’ gold outflow problem and satisfied both countries for the next few years, until the costs of the Vietnam War and the downturn in West Germany’s economy strained the arrangement.95 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 163
In the meantime, U.S. military advocates of sending families to Europe worried that the effects of the travel ban ultimately would prove more costly in terms of military effectiveness than to the U.S. economy. In December 1961, Lieutenant General R. L. Vittrup, the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, sent a memorandum to the Under Secretary of the Army that cited the “adverse impact” on the Army caused by the suspension of family travel to Western Europe. Vittrup’s fears that not allowing families to join personnel would “adversely affect the attractiveness of the Army as a career” and harm personnel retention and recruitment resembled military planners’ original justifications, articulated in 1945, for sending families overseas after World War II. The suspension of family travel to Western Europe lasted for only six months. In April 1962, in a decision that attested to the significance of families in maintaining foreign bases, Secretary of Defense McNamara announced that military families could resume travel to bases throughout Western Europe.96 In the aftermath of the travel ban, Josephine Galbraith Stacker, the wife of a major in the 36th Tactical Air Command Fighter Wing, wrote to President Kennedy to thank him for lifting the travel ban on dependents to Europe (so that wives could join “the fathers of our children”) and to reiterate the argument that military families abroad served their nation by strengthening relations with host nationals. Stacker’s inspiration for writing to the president stemmed from a speech by ambassador to Luxembourg James Wine to her officers’ wives club. “Ambassador Wein [sic] gave us a needed ‘shot’ to our morale,” wrote Stacker. “It is not ALL easy to live overseas — and he placed us who are in contact with German housewives and their families in a most responsible position.” She chided those Americans who complained of the expense to taxpayers for maintaining military families abroad and of families spending their money in host nation economies: “Civilians at home have sometimes made us feel too humble and that we are definitely unnecessary burdens to them.” Stacker’s response to such criticisms was that “flashy” American tourists not only contributed to the international trade imbalance but also, in their selfish activities abroad that presumably did not put them in constructive contact with local peoples, did more harm to United States’ interests than did military families. “There are some [military] wives, of course, who are not a credit to their country,” admitted Stacker, and she faulted those Americans who isolated themselves in military communities for “not further[ing] our nation’s cause.” Because of living in off-base housing in England for three years, she wrote, “We . . . have many, many friends there now we would not have otherwise made.” She put forth the idea that military families’ spending in host economies was perhaps better than no contact at all between Americans and local peoples. In closing, Stacker 164 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
assured the president that “the group of wives sitting at my table resolved to do all they can to make the next two and a half years here as beneficial as possible and to be ‘good ambassadors’ for their country.”97
Conclusion In 1967, Army wife Cabrini Lepis, a teacher and writer stationed with her officer husband at Downs Barracks in Fulda, Germany, recounted German and American reactions to the assassination of President John Kennedy in 1963. Like other military wives before her, Lepis illustrated events of international import in terms of personal encounters between Germans and Americans. Her account captured the American interpersonal-international ideal of German-American relations, promulgated since the Berlin Airlift, and well ensconced by the mid-1960s. Lepis heard the news of President Kennedy’s assassination while at home celebrating her daughter’s first birthday with another American couple and two German women. According to Lepis, the German guests were as stunned and upset as the Americans; she speculated that she and one of the German women became close friends because they shared this bond of receiving the news together that night. German neighbors visited the Lepis family in the days following the assassination: “I was amazed at their devotion to the United States and to our late President. It took a tragedy to realize what good friends and allies the present-day Germans are.” It was a German neighbor who came over to tell the Lepis family of Lee Harvey Oswald’s death. Lepis worried that the murders would lead Europeans to think of Americans as “barbarians running through the streets of America with guns,” but said that her German friends knew otherwise. Germans and Americans attended the memorial service for President Kennedy at the military base. Although Lepis felt lonely so far from home during this time, she said that being among the Germans created “a remarkable opportunity to experience brotherhood firsthand” that would have pleased President Kennedy.98 The Lepis family also mourned President Kennedy’s death with Germans at a Catholic church off base: “The mass was crowded and we stood to listen to the most impassioned sermon we had ever heard,” Lepis recalled. “It was about the life and death of John F. Kennedy. . . . We couldn’t understand all the sermon, but we gathered it was a plea for an end to the anger and violence in people’s lives so that we could all live without fear and in peace. I saw several women weeping. Undoubtedly they had lived through the Nazi era and remembered the price of evil.”99 Cabrini Lepis’s idealized recollection of West German-American rela“Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans 165
tions illuminates American assumptions about their nation’s relationship to West Germany, and power relations between the two countries. Lepis perpetuated the ideas of Germans as victims, not proponents, of Nazism, and of American-German unity founded on cultural commonalities, in this case, Christian worship. In Lepis’s telling, Germans and Americans were not just staunch allies, but one cultural and political body. President Kennedy himself had envisioned such a union in June 1963 when he told an audience in Berlin that “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin,” and declared himself a Berliner.100 Likewise, Lepis’s account of German reverence for Kennedy promoted the idea of Germans as honorary American citizens. Both Kennedy and Lepis constructed an ideal of Germans and Americans rejoicing and suffering as compatriots. Yet Lepis’s account of joint mourning for Kennedy as the former leader of both Americans and Germans reveals the persistent inequality of GermanAmerican relations; it is not evident that Americans viewed any West German head of state as their leader. The United States dominated in relations with West Germany, but the intersection of West German and American interests mitigated the power imbalance, creating an interdependent relationship. Army historian D. J. Hickman assessed the U.S. military presence in Western Europe as an “irksome but essential arrangement that [Europeans believed] guaranteed their freedom and prosperity.” A historian of West German–U.S. relations, Manfred Jonas, observed that because leaders of the two nations shared “fervent anti-communism, commitment to European integration, and devotion to the principles of the free market economy . . . the larger aims expressed by the two nations were not in serious conflict, and the relations between them showed a remarkable degree of cooperation and agreement.”101 Each nation wanted something from the other. Americans wanted to maintain military bases and a substantial number of armed forces personnel in West Germany, and to project an alliance with West Germans against perceived Soviet intent to dominate Europe and spread communism. West Germans wanted military assistance from the United States and the economic opportunities that came with U.S. military bases, and ultimately greater autonomy and reunification with East Germany. Although the U.S.–West German partnership was not free of conflict, it was by far more positive than relations between the U.S. military and Okinawans.
166 “Shoulder to Shoulder” with West Germans
5 “Dear Little Okinawa”
While dining at the home of an Okinawan minister and his wife in the early 1950s, Air Force wife Marian Merritt asked her hosts about their experiences during World War II. “Can you imagine how I felt,” Merritt later wrote, “as they told of American planes wrecking their homes and American troops causing them to flee to the northern part of the Island, walking day and night, one woman, who was eight months pregnant, finally, having her baby by the side of the road?”1 The Battle of Okinawa during the spring and early summer of 1945 resulted in the deaths of 75,000 Japanese military personnel (including Okinawan draftees), along with tens of thousands of civilian Okinawans and 12,520 Americans, during the eighty-one days of combat.2 Altogether, over 148,000 Okinawans—between one-fourth and one-third of the prefecture’s population—lost their lives in the war.3 Though saddened by the terrible losses suffered by Okinawans, Marian Merritt firmly believed that ultimately the war had enabled Americans to bring material and social progress to the Okinawan people. In her memoir, Is Like Typhoon: Okinawa and the Far East (derived from letters to her mother in Wisconsin), she wrote: “War is bad and we see and think so much of it here, but it has brought some good things to Okinawa—tremendously increased spread of Christianity, American help, better living conditions and an increased desire for improvement.”4 Convinced that Okinawans desperately needed American assistance and deeply concerned about their welfare, Merritt wanted to use her position as a military wife to help Okinawans recover from the war. Her personal concerns and efforts coincided with U.S. military policies and goals. After World War II the military mission in Japan included demilitarizing and democratizing the former enemy, rebuilding the devastated society and economy, and guarding against the spread of communism in Asia. Marian Merritt and other military wives in Okinawa considered themselves part of the American international Cold War mission in the 1950s. In their charitable activities, church groups, and relations with maids, children, and other ordinary Okinawans, American women established 167
contacts between the military community and the local community. In these informal relations, military wives encountered a population often wary of Americans as a result of the heavy-handed and sometimes violent nature of the occupation. The American conviction—perpetuated by the popular media, the military, and service wives like Merritt—that primitive, victimized, dependent Okinawan “children” needed the guidance and protection of the American armed forces served as justification for maintaining military bases in the Ryukyu Islands throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Despite tensions between the U.S. military presence and Germans, the shared racial identity of most Germans and Americans, as well as a common Cold War orientation, tended to encourage a positive, if sometimes ambivalent, view of Americans in West Germany. In Okinawa, by contrast, race relations, relations with mainland Japan, and international politics complicated Okinawans’ views of the U.S. military presence. Unlike West Germans in the 1950s and 1960s, most Okinawans believed that the U.S. military brought more disadvantages than advantages. In the absence of strong mutual interests and a sense of cultural intersections, the American Cold War rhetoric of international partnership failed to overcome deep-seated Okinawan animosity toward the U.S. military presence. Long-standing beliefs about the otherness and inferiority of Asians also gave a strikingly different cast to the American interpretation of intercultural relations.5 Whereas American service family members in West Germany attempted to generate a semblance of equality, reciprocity, and commonality that served U.S. Cold War aims in Europe, military wives in Okinawa tended to perpetuate ideas of Okinawans as a childlike people who showed promise of one day reaching maturity but in the meantime required American guidance. Even those Americans who intended to project humanitarianism and good will reinforced hierarchical relationships between Americans and Okinawans that characterized U.S. military control of the Ryukyu Islands. For Americans, casting Okinawans as children and Americans as their guardians naturalized control of the island by the United States and the maintenance of military bases there. But American military “fathers” did not always perform their paternal role convincingly. Okinawans deeply resented the military’s seizure of farmland and servicemen’s offensive and often criminal behavior, including sexual violence and murder, that disrupted their communities. American women who positioned themselves as maternal protectors attempted to ameliorate the military’s impact on the lives of Okinawans, yet simultaneously furthered perceptions of Okinawans as a childlike people in need of American guardianship. This maternalism tried to ease the negative effects of paternalistic military control 168 “Dear Little Okinawa”
while reinforcing justifications for the Cold War domination of Okinawa by the United States.
Cold War Island U.S. military control of the Ryukyu Islands began in June 1945 with the Americans’ victory in the Battle of Okinawa. In 1949, as tensions increased between the United States and the Soviet Union and communists prevailed in China, the Secretary of State declared that the United States would establish funding for permanent bases in Okinawa. The North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950 reinforced the commitment to U.S. bases in the Ryukyu Islands. Okinawa became a staging area for American forces in South Korea. In 1951, the United States and Japan signed a peace treaty which gave the United States continued control of the Ryukyu Islands, though Japan gained “residual sovereignty.”6 The Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives stated in its 1954 report on overseas bases that Okinawa truly has become the “Keystone of the Pacific” and a vital link in our defensive strategy. . . . [A]fter inspecting the huge defensive plant already constructed on Okinawa, the subcommittee believes that Okinawa and all militarily important adjacent islands should be retained under the control of the United States for the foreseeable future.
The committee pointed out that the proximity of Okinawa to Japan, Korea, and China meant that “This bastion in the Pacific is too vital to the continued peace of the world to be given away.”7 In the 1950s, the United States spent over two billion dollars strengthening and supplying military bases in Okinawa, installing radar domes and surface-to-air missiles and rockets.8 The Congressional committee’s justification of continued control of Okinawa as a “defensive strategy” indicated the view that protective rather than aggressive intent characterized the U.S. military presence, and that the American armed forces in the Ryukyu Islands shielded the Okinawans as well as the United States and its other allies from hostile communism. Maintaining this “huge defensive plant” in Okinawa meant sending thousands of American service personnel to serve tours of duty there, sometimes for several years at a time. Military authorities recognized that families would make life more tolerable for servicemen stationed on “the Rock.” According to an Army officer’s account of the occupation, the influx of families transformed “the American Ryukyuan atmosphere . . . “Dear Little Okinawa” 169
from a conquered battle zone to a twentieth-century version of an Oklahoma frontier community.”9 The military constructed housing, schools, commissaries, post exchanges, medical buildings, and recreational facilities for the growing American population. The House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, which toured U.S. overseas bases in 1953, reported that 25,000 Air Force and Army personnel, and another 13,000 Americans—including military families, civilian employees, and businessmen—resided in Okinawa.10 By seizing farmland to build bases for military operations and facilities for personnel and their families, the military did further damage to U.S.Okinawan relations. For many decades before World War II, the high population of the islands and the scarcity of farmland had pushed Okinawans to emigrate. In 1940, the population density of Okinawa Prefecture was 588 people per square mile in an area of 866 square miles (by contrast, the U.S. population density in 1940 was forty-four people per square mile). By January 1953, the postwar repatriation of approximately 150,000 to 200,000 people who had left the island in previous decades due to high population and insufficient land helped push the population density up to roughly 730 people per square mile. Between 1950 and 1955, Okinawa’s population grew from 700,000 to 800,000. By 1970, the island’s inhabitants numbered about one million, approximately 60,000 of whom were U.S. military personnel and their families.11 Okinawans had lived in an agrarian society before the war, and many wished to do so after 1945. But the establishment of bases during and after the war exacerbated the land shortage. By 1955, the United States had claimed almost one-quarter of the island’s farmable land for military use, displacing approximately 175,000 Okinawans. According to a Life magazine article, in one particularly dramatic instance of displacement, fifty families gave up the farmland on which they subsisted so that the military could build a golf course.12 The seizure of farmland and the criminal behavior of servicemen, as well as other aspects of the military presence such as vehicular and military training accidents and the harsh noise of aircraft, fueled the Okinawan movement for the return of the Ryukyu Islands to Japanese governance. The Okinawan Youth Association’s 1951 poll of 12,000 people found that eighty-five percent wanted their island returned to Japanese control. Later that same year, seventy-two percent of Okinawan voters signed petitions for reversion to Japan.13 An estimated 50,000 Okinawan families became landless between 1945 and the 1950s.14 By the early 1950s, Okinawan opposition to the U.S. military erupted in spontaneous protests against the seizure of farmland for American use.15 In 1955, when construction crews prepared to dismantle the village of Isahama to 170 “Dear Little Okinawa”
build military housing, 150 village residents blocked them. According to Time, the military eventually “staged a pre-dawn assault with bulldozers and trucks. Paddy dikes that took years to build were churned flat under the bulldozer’s blade. One group of farmers made a feeble stand before the bulldozer. A pistol-carrying US officer shouted them off. Shrugging at the inevitable, they shuffled away.”16 Though these residents failed to save their village, similar protests occurred throughout the decade in what became known to Okinawans as “‘island-wide struggles for [the defense of] land’ (shima gurumi no tochi toso).”17 By the 1960s, Okinawan unrest swelled into mass rallies against the U.S. military presence and control of the islands. Although the Time article reported with some sympathy that 50,000 Okinawan farmers lost the use of their land, it also covered the arguments for U.S. control of Okinawa: that Americans promoted material progress and greater participation of Okinawans in government (more than under the Japanese), that the military provided better economic opportunities than farming for Okinawans, and that the United States needed the island as a strategic defense base in the war against the spread of communism in Asia. But in a letter printed in a subsequent issue of the magazine, a reader scoffed at the notion that U.S. bases improved Okinawa: For two disgusting years (1952–54) I was . . . on Okinawa. . . . Gentlemen, I assure you, I would suffer the loss of my right arm to keep from returning there. . . . If the Okinawa economy has boomed, chances are that this has more to do with more troops, more prostitutes, more saki and beer than it has “military bustle.” This was the basis of the Okinawa economy during my tour there, and nothing short of a miracle could change it.18
The short story “Dark Flowers” (1955) by Kishaba Jun, set during the Korean War and published the same year as the Time article describing the land seizures and military construction, depicted the U.S. military presence as for the most part sordid and depressing. The story, told from the perspective of a young Okinawan woman, refers to numerous aspects of life under the occupation, including prostitution, the proliferation of bars and clubs catering to American servicemen, venereal disease, the rape and impregnation of an Okinawan maid who worked for an American man, land seizures and the “forced migration” of farmers, the harsh noise of military aircraft, and the lesser status of African-American soldiers in relation to white Americans. The story’s protagonist, Nobuko, is in a sexual relationship with an African-American serviceman named Joe. Joe gives her money, but it is much less than what Nobuko’s friend Michiko “Dear Little Okinawa” 171
receives as “the mistress of a white man,” presumably because Joe earns less than white military personnel. The money from Joe is not enough for Nobuko to live on and support her impoverished mother and younger siblings who try to make a living on a tiny farm, so she must borrow money from Michiko. Although Nobuko’s widowed mother depends on her daughter’s earnings to support the family, when Nobuko comes to visit them she realizes that her mother does not want her to stay long because of the villagers’ contempt for the young woman, which they also direct at her siblings. Nobuko feels not only alienated and dejected living in a city near a military base, but she also is an outcast in her family’s village. In this story, the U.S. military does not bring salvation to Okinawans, especially women, but rather destitution and degeneracy. The story does offer glimpses of hope, however, in Nobuko’s brother’s fledgling political activism and his determination to revitalize the farm village, and in Nobuko’s own determination to resist her oppressive circumstances and find joy.19
Americans’ Depictions of Okinawans The American popular media abounded with images of Okinawans as children. A 1947 Collier’s article described Okinawa as “a queer place—a never-never land,” alluding to the Peter Pan fantasy world where children never grow up.20 Americans often noted the small stature of Okinawans, thus reinforcing the idea of the Okinawan-American child-parent hierarchy. Vern Sneider’s popular novel The Teahouse of the August Moon (1951), a critique of the U.S. occupation of Okinawa, frequently mentioned the small size of Okinawans, referring to an elderly man as “this little Okinawan,” and the geisha First Flower as “a tiny doll come to life.” The broken English of Okinawans and the depiction of a male character, Hokkaido (also the name of Japan’s second-largest island), as a crybaby with a cherubic face further promulgated the childlike image of Okinawans.21 An account from former Army officer Morton Morris illustrates the American perception of Okinawans as a childlike, dependent people incapable of making decisions in their own best interests. Morris opposed the reversion of the Ryukyu Islands to Japan. He claimed that “a prominent and knowledgeable Japanese” had informed him that “[the Okinawans] really don’t want us [the Japanese], we can’t ever hope to buy them what you people [the Americans] do. It’s just that under it all they feel left out. You Americans have a cartoon of an infant [Linus from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts] hugging a little warm blanket. The Japanese flag has become the 172 “Dear Little Okinawa”
‘security blanket’ for the Ryukyuan people.” To support his argument for continued U.S. control of the islands, Morris pointed to increases in the height and weight of the generation of Okinawan children born after World War II as evidence of the beneficial effects of the occupation.22 The physical growth of the people served for Morris as a metaphor for the maturation of the Okinawan “children” under American care. The language and imagery that cast Okinawans as children harked back to nineteenth-century metaphors used to articulate the paternal role of American leaders and the childlike status of nonwhite groups whose lands they sought, such as the “father-children” discourse frequently applied to Andrew Jackson’s relationship with American Indians, and the depiction of turn-of-the-century Americans as the caretakers of their “dark little brothers” in the Caribbean and Pacific. Historian Emily Rosenberg’s description of turn-of-the-century ideas about natural hierarchies and dependence also informs an analysis of American-Okinawan relations after World War II: “Women, nonwhite races, and tropical countries often received the same kinds of symbolic characterizations from white male policy makers: emotional, irrational, irresponsible, unbusinesslike, unstable, and childlike.”23 Like Puerto Ricans, Cubans, or Filipinos, Okinawans could, in American eyes, be “good children” or “bad children.”24 A 1962 military report that praised Okinawans as “quick-tolearn, friendly and cooperative” painted an image of them as well-behaved, delightful children.25 But to the chagrin of military officials such as Morton Morris, some “bad children” did not gratefully accept U.S. government of their islands. These included all who protested U.S. civil administration of the islands and inadequate reimbursement for the use of privately owned land, as well as other “fringe elements” (as termed by Morris) such as the Okinawa Women’s Federation, which American military leaders accused of socialist and communist leanings.26 Although communist and socialist organizations did protest U.S. control of Okinawa, Americans freely labeled as “communist” anyone who opposed the U.S. military occupation and presence, or who advocated reversion of Okinawa to Japanese governance. Scholars who closely studied the island’s history and culture cautioned against attributing all criticisms of the military presence to the influence of these groups.27 The 1953 and 1954 editions of The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance, produced by the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, visually reinforced stereotypes of Okinawans as children. One illustration portrayed an American serviceman nearly twice the height of the two Okinawans standing near him. The serviceman looks foolish, standing in the rain without an umbrella, compared with the more provident Okinawans who have prepared for bad weather. By depicting the service“Dear Little Okinawa” 173
man as sheepish and ill-prepared for the weather, the military attempted to convey the impression of itself as an innocent and benign rather than a harsh, intimidating presence. The 1954 edition of the pamphlet offered an illustration of a tall Uncle Sam bending low to hand over a bag of money to a small, tattered Okinawan child. The caption reads, “Almost $177,000,000 has been appropriated for Ryukyuan economics [sic] assistance.” Behind Uncle Sam stand tall office buildings, while behind the Okinawan are a Shinto shrine and what appears to be a thatched hut. The contrast in the American and Okinawan structures stresses an extreme disparity between the economic and urban developments of modern America and rural, “primitive” Okinawa.28 Military officials defended the U.S. presence by arguing that the Okinawans depended on the base economy for their livelihood. In this view, the military acted as a provider for a financially dependent people who would sink further into poverty without aid from their benefactor. In the early 1950s, U.S. agencies employed over 50,000 Okinawan construction, maintenance, and service workers.29 In addition, Okinawan businesses— bars, clubs, brothels, restaurants, tourist shops, and taxis—profited from the leisure spending of American service personnel and their families. General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan between 1945 and 1950, predicted that Okinawans would “pick up a good deal of money and have a reasonably happy existence from an American base development.”30 Major General James E. Moore, the deputy governor of the Ryukyu Islands, suggested that Okinawans should relinquish farming and earn a living by servicing the military, as Hawaiians did. American military personnel and families were told that they aided Okinawans by employing them as domestic workers. Even GIs provided jobs for Okinawans by pooling their money to hire cheap Okinawan laborers to relieve servicemen from mess hall work. In response to Okinawans’ complaints that the military took away land that farmers would use to support their families, Time asserted that “land is lying fallow all over Okinawa because the owner makes better money working for the U.S. Army—running laundry machines, driving trucks, working in construction gangs.”31 During World War II and into the Cold War, the American mainstream and military media often portrayed Okinawans as victims of Japan, and the United States as their savior, thereby reinforcing the child-parent metaphor. The May 1945 issue of Life, published during the bloody Battle of Okinawa, ran a story titled “Okinawa: Except for Japs, It Is a Very Pleasant Place.” The article described Okinawans as rural folk, friendly to Americans, who “as a race are only distantly related to the Japanese,” and
174 “Dear Little Okinawa”
Illustration from the 1954 edition of The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance, produced by the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands.
who had been duped by the Japanese into believing that “Japan would win the war and Americans would grind them up for dog food.”32 A 1947 Newsweek article referred to U.S. occupation personnel as the “liberators” of the Okinawan people.33 A military pamphlet explained that although Okinawans had enjoyed political and cultural benefits from Japanese annexation in the nineteenth century, their remoteness from Japan and their status as “the poorest prefecture” had resulted in discrimination by the Japanese and difficulty in attaining positions of authority.34 Time claimed that under American governance, “Okinawans have more selfgovernment than they ever did under the Japanese.”35 All these documents criticize the Japanese as unfit parents and champion Americans as more suitable guardians for Okinawans. Miyazato Siegen, who denounced U.S. rule of Okinawa, viewed American claims that Okinawans were a minority group languishing under maltreatment by Japan and were better served by paternalistic U.S. governance as a justification for ignoring Okinawans’ demands. “The idea of the minority group and paternalism are still the particular characteristics of the US administration,” wrote Siegen in 1965,
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“and they stand in the way of understanding by the American people of the Okinawan people’s wish to revert to Japanese administration.”36 American assertions that Okinawan culture significantly differed from mainland Japanese culture, even when Okinawans preferred to emphasize the similarities between the two, served American attempts to displace the Japanese as the guardians of Okinawans.37 An American book of photographs of Okinawa portrayed Okinawans as a smiling, docile, childlike people, informing readers that your identification of these people as Japanese was a mistake. Okinawans are quick to remind you that they have an identity of their own! It’s true that their written language came from Japan, and recent generations were schooled under Nipponese guidance, but they have a heritage that is strictly separated from the culture of that nation. Just as there is a difference in facial features, there are certain customs and mannerisms that belong to them alone. . . . The subject of ancestry becomes quite involved, so let’s just recognize them as Okinawans, an identification that fills them with pride.38
Military programs encouraged traditional Okinawan arts and took credit for helping the people to sustain them. These efforts were part of what Asian studies scholar Steve Rabson terms a “campaign for ‘disassimilation’” of Okinawans from mainland Japanese culture. Stressing the uniqueness of “Ryukyuan” culture enabled Americans to discount claims to intrinsic ties between Japan and Okinawa. U.S. military officials took every opportunity to refer to Okinawans as “Ryukyuans,” hoping to persuade them to identify with the history and culture of the former Ryukyu Kingdom that existed in the islands for centuries before the Japanese abolished it and claimed the archipelago as a prefecture in the 1870s. Many Okinawans, however, “resisted the ‘Ryukyuization’ campaign.”39 According to scholar Koji Taira, Okinawans’ insistence on being identified with the Japanese does not mean that Okinawans were uncritical of Japan, or that they did not consider Okinawans historically exploited and subjugated by the Japanese government. Taira writes that “From a historical perspective, it is curious that Okinawans should have claimed that they were Japanese or that Japan was their ‘fatherland.’ It was a stance which implied a rejection of their own ethnic and cultural identity as Ryukyuans.” Okinawans perceived the American distinction between Okinawans and Japanese, explains Taira, as indicative of Americans’ sense of Okinawans as an inferior people: “[Okinawans] inferred that any distinction made by the United States implied a denial of equal respect to Okinawans.” Therefore, 176 “Dear Little Okinawa”
vis-à-vis the Japanese, Okinawans would claim distinctiveness for themselves, but vis-à-vis Americans they would claim that whatever they felt toward the Japanese was none of the business of the United States: i.e., it was wrong for Americans to manipulate Japanese-Okinawan differences in ways prejudicial to Okinawans. From this, then, the most convenient weapon against American racism was to insist that Okinawans were Japanese.40
The American idea of Okinawans as children also encompassed the notion of Okinawans as primitive islanders who had not yet attained a civilized status. Newsweek reported that since the Americans’ arrival in Okinawa during World War II, Christianity had gained a foothold among “the natives” of the island.41 The Teahouse of the August Moon frequently termed Okinawans “natives,” a word that conjured for Americans images of people who were preindustrial, simple, childlike, and potentially savage. American popular literature applied the adjective “primitive” to Okinawans, as in a Better Homes and Gardens article on “primitive mothering,” which touted the alleged benefits of raising children in the manner of Okinawan mothers.42 The authors of a guidebook for servicemen preparing to take their families abroad described Okinawans as “a rugged people who live close to the land and the sea.”43 A 1954 illustration for a pamphlet by the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands presented an Okinawan man wielding a farm implement, standing knee-deep in the water of a rice paddy, with the caption “Farming is somewhat primitive.”44 A 1962 report on the government of Okinawa described the supposed progress of Okinawa from “a stagnant backward society to a preindustrial one,” crediting American aid and guidance for the transformation toward a more mature society, though one not yet full-grown.45
Military Wives’ Maternalism In interacting with Okinawans in numerous unofficial settings, military wives tried to present a less overtly militarized, more humane side of U.S. occupation and control. As many Americans recognized, military “fathers” inadequately protected Okinawans: they seized land, sexually assaulted girls and women, and even committed murder.46 The September 1955 “Yumiko-chan Incident”—the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a six-year-old girl—became the most infamous of all the “base crimes” (kichi hanzai) committed by an American serviceman. A court-martial convicted a noncommissioned officer for the crime; he received the death “Dear Little Okinawa” 177
penalty but was sent back to the United States for imprisonment. If American military men sometimes failed as fathers, American women believed that they could be good “mothers” to Okinawans. Military wives supported U.S. goals while trying to protect and aid Okinawan “children.” They sought to counteract the negative effects of the military through nurturing, intimate interactions with Okinawans while maintaining the power differential. In charitable activities, as “mistresses” of maids, at schools, and in other everyday relations with Okinawans, military wives perpetuated assumptions about Okinawans’ dependency on Americans, which for Americans legitimated the military presence and the allegedly much-needed protection and guidance of the “natives.” In 1947, American women established a thrift shop in Naha to sell second-hand goods to Americans and Okinawans and use the profits to aid orphanages, leper colonies, and schools. A few years later, the women in charge of the shop decided that it would be more profitable to sell gifts such as vases, jewelry, scrolls, and woven handbags crafted by Okinawans. Vice President Richard Nixon and Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson implicitly endorsed the enterprise by visiting the gift shop on a trip to the island. Americans claimed that the shop aided the Okinawan people by creating business for local merchants and craftspeople and profits for welfare projects. They also believed that personal contacts between the gift shop committee members and Okinawan merchants, craftspeople, and charity recipients expressed the “friendliness of the U.S.A.” better than the large but impersonal sums of U.S. government aid to the Ryukyu Islands.47 A group of American women and an Episcopalian priest embarked on a similar enterprise to benefit the residents of the impoverished, tiny town of Nago and to diminish the impression that the military presence harmed Okinawans. The Americans, concerned that “there were more young girls than respectable places of employment,” believed that profits from the Nago Shop (which sold products made by Okinawans in a handicraft center also founded by the Americans) could help lift the townspeople out of poverty and prevent young Okinawan women from “drifting from home and family into unsavory jobs down island.” Whereas Army officer Morton Morris had advocated military-supervised prostitution of willing Okinawan women for the benefit of American men in an effort to minimize sexual assaults and curb the spread of venereal disease, the Nago Shop wives hoped to rescue Okinawan women from prostitution by offering them alternative employment: the production of traditionally woven items and crafts to be purchased by Americans in Okinawa and the United States. The article’s delicate and cursory allusion to prostitution is one of the rare instances in which it is referred to in accounts published by and 178 “Dear Little Okinawa”
for military wives in the 1950s. The silence on the subject stemmed from the taboo against publicly discussing illicit sexuality as well as from military wives’ reluctance to call negative attention to the armed forces or its servicemen for fear that doing so would hurt the U.S. military’s image and their husbands’ careers. The military establishment’s pressure on wives not to criticize the armed forces constituted what Cynthia Enloe has termed a “maneuver” that maintained American women’s compliance with military goals and encouraged them to view their interests as separate from those of local women, thus defusing the potential for women’s united protest. As for the wares sold in the Nago Shop, the selection of handmade Okinawan items also promulgated the notion of a unique Okinawan culture, which helped to justify the military presence and to undercut Japan’s claim to be Okinawa’s rightful guardian. The women who opened the shop decided that traditionally woven Okinawan goods would “ring the bell on the cash register.” These American “mothers” attempted to protect Okinawan “children” from the problems created by servicemen’s demands for sexual commerce and land. They intended that the profits assist not only Okinawan women, but also young Okinawan men who did not possess sufficient land to support their families. Americans considered the Nago Shop project to be “not just another American handout,” but rather an endeavor that relied on the joint participation of Americans and Okinawans (although Americans directed it), as well as proof of American concern for the total welfare of Okinawans.48 The language used in Air Force wife Betty Holshouser’s article about the Nago Shop project noted the smallness of the Okinawans and the relatively larger size of Americans and thus sustained the idea of a child-parent relationship between the two peoples. Describing the opening of the retail outlet store, she wrote that “Okinawans are little people in stature. Most of the women are under five feet tall, but that day they were figuratively standing shoulder to shoulder with their ‘tall American friends.’”49 Military wives’ accounts, like those by many other Americans, frequently commented on Okinawans’ shortness and interpreted this metaphorically as well as physically. Besides offering financial assistance to Okinawans, the American women of the Nago Shop hoped that their enterprise would counteract negative media attention that centered on the bad behavior of servicemen. Betty Holshouser’s article concluded that “the Nago Shop will remain as a powerful testimony to the kindness, understanding and helpfulness of not-so-ugly American women,” in implicit contrast to the “ugly American” military men whose undesirable behavior received international news coverage and harmed U.S.-Okinawan relations.50 The phrase “notso-ugly American women” alludes to the 1958 best-selling novel The Ugly “Dear Little Okinawa” 179
American, which portrayed American foreign service personnel posted in Southeast Asia as ignorant of host nation languages and cultures and oblivious to the needs of local peoples. In the view of authors William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, Americans’ carelessness in their contacts with Asians undermined U.S.-Asian relations and rendered the local people more receptive to the influence of communists. In 1960, two years after the novel’s publication, Americans living in foreign countries would have been well aware of condemnations of “ugly American” behavior abroad.51 The title of the magazine article on the Nago Shop—“Ami, Don’t Go Home”—reassured readers that Okinawans appreciated and needed the military presence and the assistance of American wives.52 Holshouser’s reversal of the anti-American imperative “Ami, go home” and the “ugly American” stereotype represented an attempt to reenvision the U.S. military presence in Okinawa as considerate, beneficial, and essential to the local people, rather than offensive, harmful, and despised. Contacts with children offered another way for military wives to project American kindness and influence. In a 1961 account, Navy wife Francis Lee Buck described her volunteer work as a teacher at the Naha Senior High School. She said that she took the job in part because of her discomfort with “the role of occupation in a foreign country.” Technically, the occupation of Japan had ended in 1952. Buck’s use of the term “occupation” to describe the purpose of the armed forces in the Ryukyu Islands well after the official establishment of peace between the United States and Japan attests to the prevailing sense of military dominance there. Presumably, Buck believed that as a teacher she could most effectively demonstrate friendly intentions toward Okinawans. She also hoped for cultural exchange: “While teaching English,” she wrote, “I could tell them about America, as I learned something of their culture.” Buck declined to accept a salary from the destitute school, and instead received gifts of flowers and tea. Even though many of her students had lost relatives in World War II, she observed that “I could find no bitterness against us on the children’s part.” Francis Buck proposed that the efforts of Americans could help mend past harms and promote pro-American and anti-communist inclinations among Okinawa’s young people. A visit to the school by a personable city official alleged to be a communist, well-liked by the children and the other teachers, prompted Francis Buck to take a more personal approach with her students. “All day I found myself thinking about the Communist sitting and drinking tea with them [the Okinawan teachers and students],” recalled Buck. “With all the money we [Americans] poured into Okinawa, it seemed to me we were not giving anything of ourselves to the Okinawans.” She decided to try to outdo her rival by inviting her forty students 180 “Dear Little Okinawa”
to her home. She treated the children, none of whom had ever been inside an American home, to popcorn, Coca-Cola, lemonade, hot dogs, chocolate chip cookies, and candy. “The girls admired the kitchen, especially the electric stove, the mixer and the toaster,” Buck reported. “The boys were fascinated with the electric lights, the flush toilet and the television.” American abundance, modern appliances, and a personal touch, Buck hoped, would guide the children to the side of the United States in the fight against communism.53 Americans who brought Okinawans into their homes believed that the battle against communism could not be won only with impersonal economic aid and military power, but required intimate settings and relations to attract Okinawans to U.S. Cold War foreign policy goals. Francis Buck and other military wives did not appear to consider that Okinawans might resent the Americans’ displays of relative affluence and privilege. Marian Merritt exemplified the compassionate, public-spirited outlook of service wives who contributed to the promotion of U.S. military and foreign policies. Merritt, described in a U.S. Lady article as “a permanently crippled victim of [childhood] polio [who] learned to walk again,” gained local fame as an activist who cultivated American-Okinawan friendship and worked to improve the harsh conditions in which Okinawans lived. She first arrived in Okinawa in 1946 to join her husband, Robert Merritt, an Air Force officer. When the Air Force sent Major Merritt back to Okinawa in 1952, Mrs. Merritt joined him and became a prominent figure among Americans as well as Okinawans. In April 1956, after the Merritts returned to the United States, U.S. Lady named Marian Merritt “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month” for her work to aid the Okinawan people and promote Okinawan-American relations. Marian Merritt embodied the ideal officer’s wife stationed at an overseas base. On her first visit to Okinawa in 1946, she heeded the military’s call for service wives to staff schools for American children. She later said that her classroom responsibilities had allowed little time for contact with Okinawans. But during her husband’s second tour of duty on the island, she exceeded expectations that service wives should foster positive relations between Americans and local people and make the presence of the armed forces more tolerable. In the twenty-eight months following the Merritts’ return to Okinawa in 1952, Marian Merritt served as president of the Kadena Chapel Guild, founded and directed the Okinawan Maid School, acted as program chair of the Kadena Officers’ Wives Club and the International Club, addressed an audience of 1,000 at a presentation for the Okinawan Women’s Federation, gave a speech to the Okinawa Leper Colony, and taught English to Okinawans. She viewed all of these activities as a bridge between Americans and Okinawans, especially women.54 “Dear Little Okinawa” 181
Merritt’s detailed account of her family’s life in Okinawa between 1952 and 1954 or 1955 offers descriptions of her experiences as well as insights into her assumptions about Okinawans and American-Okinawan relations. Certainly most service wives did not establish as many contacts with local people as did Marian Merritt, so in that regard her memoir does not reflect the experiences and attitudes of all other American women who lived abroad in military families. Nonetheless, her book is valuable for its insight into the mindset of a model service wife. Merritt sympathized with Okinawans, sought to understand their beliefs and way of life, and earnestly believed in the goodness of her intentions toward them, yet simultaneously supported U.S. military and foreign policies that many Okinawans perceived as in conflict with their own interests. Marian Merritt adopted a maternal role toward Okinawans, whom she called “little girls,” “little people,” “little helpers,” and “dear little Okinawans.”55 These terms of endearment that suggested a mother-children relationship meshed with the perception of Okinawans as immature in relation to the more “advanced” American people. A magazine article concerning her activities to foster “Ryukyuan-American” relations depicted the differences between Okinawans and Americans in terms of “obstacles of centuries.” The time metaphor suggested that Okinawans stood far apart from Americans in the imagined spectrum of human progress, with Americans far ahead of them on the path of cultural evolution. According to the author of the article, Merritt concerned herself with making an “inroad into racial prejudice on both sides, oriental superstition and the equally strong, if not quite as ancient, American distaste for anything unsanitary, all complicated by an almost insurmountable language barrier.”56 Although Merritt frequently expressed admiration for Okinawans in Is Like Typhoon: Okinawa and the Far East, the very title of the book enlists poor grammar to evoke an inarticulate and immature people, and the image of the typhoon to suggest an exotic and untamed land. She took the title for her book from what she said was an expression—“Is like typhoon. No can help!”—used by Okinawan women in difficult situations. Merritt liked this expression because it captured what she regarded as the easy-going attitude of Okinawans. Marian Merritt and other wives sought to bridge differences by guiding the backward Okinawan “children” to maturity, as established by American standards.57 Merritt’s maternalism sustained assumptions that Okinawans depended on the military presence for their livelihood. Like military officials and other Americans who argued for maintaining bases in the Ryukyu Islands, she believed that providing work for Okinawans in American homes helped to rebuild the island’s economy. “Imagine . . . how it felt to me,” she wrote, “to arrive on Okinawa and find that I could not only afford [a 182 “Dear Little Okinawa”
maid] but was expected to have one to help the Okinawa economy and to give these little girls something to do!” Merritt proposed that providing domestic service opportunities to Okinawan women would smooth over sore points in local relations, which would in turn make the military presence more tolerable. She reasoned that the employment of servants helped to compensate for the seizure of farmland: “the maids appreciate what the Americans are doing for them, and their parents and their whole villages feel more kindly toward the country, which has taken over their land and their rice paddies in the battle of the free world to remain free.”58 In Marian Merritt’s perspective, the employment of maids and the good works performed by her and other Americans on behalf of Okinawans helped make it possible for the military to maintain the anti-communist front in Asia. “I understand there are some Communists here—one Okinawan woman was arrested recently for collecting non-ferrous metal to be sent to Russia,” she reported, like many Americans in this period assuming that the Soviet Union directed allegedly pro-communist activities everywhere in the world. Yet she reassured the recipient of her letter that, “taken as a whole, I doubt that many Okinawans would turn to Communism after the way Americans have helped.”59 Even if stern American paternalism alienated some Okinawan “children”—discontented communist and socialist critics of the United States—from their “caretakers,” Merritt hoped that American generosity and maternalism could keep the others within the fold. The arena of domestic service offered an ideal environment for the elaboration of American maternalism. Marian Merritt established the Okinawan Maid School, where prospective domestic workers spent sixty hours learning tasks such as making beds, defrosting refrigerators, and cleaning bathrooms. In her view, the school would improve relations between Okinawan maids and their American “mistresses,” as Merritt termed military wives who employed Okinawan domestic workers. She feared that dissatisfied, cross military housewives would give maids a poor impression of Americans, and believed that proper instruction in American household chores would prevent mishaps and bad feelings on both sides. In addition to trying to improve relations by teaching American housekeeping to Okinawan women, Merritt also advised employers on how to behave toward domestic workers. She wanted Okinawan maids to see American housewives as patient and generous. When American women hired maids through the school, Merritt sent letters admonishing the employers to behave in a manner that would reflect well on the United States: “All that these little girls and their families and their whole villages know of America is what they are learning from you and your home. Are “Dear Little Okinawa” 183
you making friends for our country?” Like a mother concerned about the well-being of her children, she also urged American employers to provide their servants with plenty of Okinawan food—rice, canned fish, noodles, soya sauce—warning that they might dislike American food or be too shy to ask for meals. “Tell your maid that you want her to eat,” advised Merritt. “Urge her to eat. See that she does. . . . Be proud if you can add a few pounds to your maid while she is with you.”60 The employment of maids provided an economic opportunity to Okinawan women, and also served as a nonmilitaristic form of American influence. Maid school students received written instructions urging them to “Smile and be happy,” “Be on time for work,” and “[S]urprise [an ill mistress] by taking her a cup of tea.”61 The “maid-mistress” relationship harbored an inherent social, cultural, and political hierarchy between employer and employee, benefactor and recipient, mother and child, military victor and conquered subject. While perhaps appreciative of the opportunity to earn money, some Okinawan women who had worked as maids in the immediate postwar years were less effusive than Mrs. Merritt about employment in American homes. Junko Isa, who worked for an American family circa 1949 when she was eighteen years old, described living with and working for the family as “really hard”: her day, which began at six a.m., included doing all the housework with the American woman watching over her every move. She did not eat with the family, and neither the Americans nor Isa spoke the other’s language, so communication was extremely difficult. One enduring impression of the American home, shared by many local people in various countries that housed U.S. bases, was that “there was always enough food . . . since the family could get American goods at the commissary on base.”62 In an interview nearly five decades later, Isa confessed to having mixed feelings about the U.S. military bases in Okinawa: I’m against the existence of the military bases here, but I have to admit there were some advantages to having the U.S. presence on the island. After all, we women got the right to vote under the American Occupation. That was a good thing. I think a lot of Okinawans feel the same way I do.63
Another Okinawan woman, Mitsuko Inafuku, described a warmer relationship with the American woman for whom she worked as a maid (although she remembered the four-year-old son whom she took care of as “a terror”). She took the job at the age of twenty. In an interview several decades later, she reported being highly impressed by the family’s collection of colorful bath towels—“They had it made, those Americans.” She 184 “Dear Little Okinawa”
also appreciated that the family owned a washing machine, which she said “made me pretty happy since I was the one doing the laundry. I was used to scrubbing clothes in the river.” Inafuku seemed to simultaneously admire and think it strange that the American woman, whom she called “a sweet person,” “tried to fit in with Okinawan society as much as possible,” wearing shorts and geta (Japanese sandals) to shop at the market in Naha. After a year and a half, she left the American family to look for a more “challenging” job.64 At age sixty-seven, having lived through the war, the U.S. occupation, and the continued U.S. military presence in Okinawa, Inafuku said that she had a “good impression” of the Americans and enjoyed talking with them. She recognized, however, that some Okinawans were afraid of the Americans, “especially the ones who run around in their fatigues and uniforms,”65 suggesting that Okinawans found Americans in their civilian roles (possibly including American wives and children) less intimidating than those in military roles.
American-Okinawan Cultural Exchange American women did not simply try to foist their demands and values on a captive audience; they also participated in activities that encouraged cultural exchange. The International Club to which three hundred women (American, Okinawan, and other women “of all nationalities”) belonged organized monthly meetings for members to “satisfy their friendly curiosity about each other.” At these gatherings, the audience looked upon a split stage—“one side oriental, the other occidental”—where club members played out scenes depicting Okinawan and American customs and culture. Marian Merritt devised the split-stage programs to aid in “attaining mutual understandings between women of vastly different ideas.” She believed that “If we knew each other better, we would love each other more.” On their respective sides of the stage, the American and Okinawan women enacted numerous scenes illustrating each group’s customs: a formal tea in an Okinawan home and an informal drop-in for coffee in an American living room; Okinawan and American weddings; the bathing, dressing, and feeding of babies; and demonstrations of how Okinawan and American women dressed, starting from undergarments (the American woman wore a girdle and bra, the Okinawan woman, an underskirt) and finishing with make-up and hair-styling. An American model displayed maternity underclothes that reportedly “brought gasps of amazement, and understanding, from the Okinawan women.”66 The monthly meetings of the International Club provided opportunities for Americans and Okinawans to define their values and demonstrate “Dear Little Okinawa” 185
their customs, and to understand cultural differences. “In so many ways, their customs and habits differ from ours,” wrote Marian Merritt. “And who is to say which way is best?” These scenes acknowledged cultural differences yet also represented attempts to bridge them by demonstrating that although the accouterments of each culture might appear dissimilar on the surface, the peoples were essentially the same. According to Merritt, gender, the home, and families united women of different cultures: “East and West have met and we have found that women the world over think and feel the same. We are all interested in the same things—our homes, our families, our flowers, our food.”67 The women believed that these stage scenes served to demystify each culture, to unveil the differences between American and Okinawan women, allowing them to “see” one another more clearly. Upon arriving in Okinawa in 1952, Marian Merritt wrote that the Americans were “doing much good work among the natives . . . helping them to rehabilitation and I can see that we are going to love this ‘tour of duty.’” But in the course of her stay, she came to see herself as not only rehabilitating, but also learning from and being influenced by the Okinawan people. Merritt acknowledged that she did not always understand Okinawans, and worried that “the language barrier is a great one and often leaves me feeling that I am ‘seeing through a glass darkly.’”68 But she wrote that she strived to understand and grew to appreciate numerous aspects of Okinawan culture and life. She credited her maid with teaching her about Okinawan perspectives. For instance, Merritt found “particularly awful” the Okinawan tradition of leaving the dead to decay in tombs but considered the practice more comprehensible when her maid expressed aversion to Western burials.69 Merritt also said that in her Japanese flower-arranging class she learned to avoid creating “offensive” flower arrangements. Instead of crowding a bunch of flowers, untrimmed, all the same length, into a vase set in the center of a table, she learned to think about the flowers and her own spirit in order to give meaning to the arrangement: “[My] teacher had told us that our arrangements must first express the spirit of the arranger, so, before I could start the actual arrangement, I had to ponder on my spirit.” According to Merritt, “Our teacher is intrigued—and puzzled—with her class of American women. She says that we all spend more time and effort locating flowers and buying vases than we do in thought and actually arranging.”70 Marian Merritt considered Okinawan culture superior in some ways to American culture. She liked the Okinawans’ pride in advancing age, in contrast to the American desire to appear ever-more youthful (Merritt was in her early fifties when she published her account). She enjoyed what she called “the calm beauty and composure of Oriental life,” in contrast 186 “Dear Little Okinawa”
Marian Merritt (left, at the end of the table) with Okinawan acquaintances.
to the hurry, nervousness, and excitability fostered by American society. She appreciated the obedience and eagerness to learn exhibited by Okinawan children and looked upon them more favorably than American children whom she thought undisciplined and disrespectful. She also liked the close connections between Okinawan teachers and their pupils’ families. Merritt wrote that she reacted with astonishment when a chaplain told her that “It is so nice of you [American] women to teach the Okinawans in the International Club.” In her view, “we have learned as much as, if not more than, we have taught. . . . It is hard to figure out who teaches whom.”71 In various activities, Marian Merritt contributed to what American Studies scholar Mari Yoshihara has argued is white American women’s construction of Orientalism. In learning Japanese-style flower arranging and wearing kimonos, Merritt consumed an idea of Asian-ness, and also performed her own understanding of Asian womanhood. In her book, Merritt positioned herself as an authority on Okinawa to Americans. Such activities may not have accurately represented Okinawan culture and gender roles, and served to exoticize and objectivize Asia for Westerners, although Merritt saw herself as assisting Americans to better understand and respect Okinawans’ values and customs. They also, however, empowered Merritt and other military wives who engaged in similar pursuits to experience what for them was a kind of creative freedom of expression and an alternative to the strictures of white American femininity. And in the role of authority on Okinawa, Merritt acquired a degree of power and status not readily available to American women in the 1950s.72 “Dear Little Okinawa” 187
Photograph from U.S. Lady article honoring Marian Merritt as “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month” (April 1956).
Marian Merritt’s account of her relations with Okinawans illustrates an ideological contradiction encountered by American wives at overseas bases. She expressed concern for the well-being of the Okinawan people and admired many aspects of their culture. Nevertheless, she ultimately believed that the military presence benefited Okinawans more than it harmed them. The cultural-relativist perspective did not extend to all aspects of Okinawan life. Merritt wanted not only to understand and appreciate Okinawan culture and society, but she also wanted to influence them in fundamental ways. She hoped that Okinawans would convert to Christianity and reject communism. And she wanted Okinawan women to know what she considered the positive aspects of the American way of life, especially the modern American home and what she regarded as the more egalitarian relations between husbands and wives. Marian Merritt professed respect for Okinawans’ spiritual beliefs, yet she and other Americans hoped to encourage Christianity in the Ryukyu Islands. The predominant expression of religion in Okinawa combined animism and devotion to ancestors, influenced by the diverse traditions 188 “Dear Little Okinawa”
of Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto, and Christianity. Although Christian Okinawans remained few, a Newsweek article reported that the number of Christian congregations had increased from ten to thirty between World War II and 1947. A 1952 military pamphlet estimated that 5,000 Okinawans had become Catholics or Protestants, and said that most Okinawan Christians belonged to a group called the Christ Church of Okinawa, described as “entirely a native church” overseen by Okinawan pastors and financially supported by the Foreign Missions division of the Methodist Church and the Foreign Missions Conference of America.73 Through churches, Americans and Okinawan Christians engaged in projects intended to aid Okinawans, encourage their commitment to Christianity, and increase contacts between the two peoples. The Kadena Chapel Guild to which Marian Merritt belonged engaged in numerous charitable activities that included donating blankets and heaters to a hospital and money and clothing to a Christian church in the village of Yonabaru. Merritt said that she and other guild members brought the offerings themselves because the missionaries had told them that the recipients “appreciated the personal visits as much as, if not more than, the money and other help.” The chapel guild also offered charitable assistance to Okinawan children and worked with them in orphanages and schools. At Christmastime, Americans gave presents to Okinawan children and tried to spread the “Christmas Spirit.”74 Encounters between American and Okinawan Christians enabled service wives (and their husbands who sometimes accompanied them in church activities) to demonstrate American good will and generosity toward Okinawans in a manner that they hoped would influence Okinawans to see deep interconnections between the military, the American way of life (especially American prosperity and the importance of families), and Christianity. The American women from the chapel guild invited the Yonabaru Christians and other residents of the village, including the mayor, teachers, and “other dignitaries,” to worship at the chapel at the Kadena air base, where together the Americans and Okinawans sang Christian hymns in Japanese and English. Following the service, the Americans took the eighty-four Okinawans on a tour of the air base where they watched military planes taking off and landing, and then Mr. Merritt took the Okinawan guests to the Merritt residence so they could see “a real American home.” Afterward, everyone returned to the Kadena chapel where the Americans hosted a dinner for their guests. The American women, out of consideration for Okinawan tastes and customs, had prepared rice- and noodle-based casseroles and provided chopsticks as well as spoons. After ice cream and cookies, the Americans and Okinawans sang more hymns.75 “Dear Little Okinawa” 189
The abundant dinner offered to the Okinawans, along with displays of military planes and the Merritt home and the projection of Christian fellowship, might have persuaded some Okinawans of Yonabaru to see the military presence not as harmful and exploitative but rather as friendly and beneficial for all concerned. The aims of American Christians in Okinawa dovetailed with their nation’s military and foreign relations goals. The military presence in the Ryukyu Islands facilitated the spread of Christianity through American families and missionaries who wished to see, in Marian Merritt’s words, “the Christianizing of dear little Okinawa.” According to Merritt, the Okinawans she knew believed that “the American heart is big.” She and the other chapel guild women would have hoped that their Christian charity and warmth were seen by Okinawans as characteristic of all Americans; and the military establishment also would have wanted to be seen as beneficial to Okinawans. Moreover, American Christians, in combining the religious mission with the anticommunist mission, supported American Cold War goals. The American women’s chapel guild brought Christians of all denominations together for an island-wide Missionary Day. Moved by the missionaries’ accounts of their work on the island, Merritt related how one proselytizer who “does not teach religion directly . . . [at the University of the Ryukyus] is able to plant a doubt in the students’ minds about the Communist propaganda they hear.”76 The education of Okinawans also involved a display of the superiority of the American home. Marian Merritt wrote that “Each American here is really a missionary—for the free world, if not completely in the religious sense of the word. Everything we do is noted, thought about and compared. The American way of life is being appraised—constantly.” She made contacts with Okinawans from all social classes—maids, gardeners, flower peddlers, teachers, reporters, missionaries, and wives of Okinawan government leaders. Years before the Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debate” in Moscow, Merritt invited Okinawans into her home to show off its modern appliances and fixtures. Her description of a visit by a large Okinawan family illustrates how social interactions between American and Okinawan women presented opportunities for exposing Okinawans to aspects of American home life that would not have existed without American families on the island. “After dinner,” Marian Merritt recounted, Bob took the men for a tour of the base while the women did the dishes and visited here at home. I felt sorry about the women not going on the tour until I realized what a thrill they were getting just being in an American home. . . . An electric stove was a marvel to them, an electric refrig190 “Dear Little Okinawa”
erator something beyond all dreams. Our little electric mixer was something they couldn’t understand at all. Those of you who know what an Okinawan benjo is, will realize what they thought of an American toilet.
Describing a visit from another group of Okinawans, Merritt wrote that “a flush toilet is like one of the seven wonders of the world to these people.”77 In likening a bathroom fixture ubiquitous in the United States to ancient architectural feats such as the Egyptian pyramids, Merritt made evident her great pride in American household technology while judging her nation as thousands of years more civilized than Okinawa. Thousands of miles from the home front, on this tiny island teeming with American weapons systems and military men, Marian Merritt’s kitchen and bathroom represented American power in nonmilitaristic terms. Early Cold War Americans equated their modern conveniences with their country’s strength, affluence, democracy, and freedom. While other peoples of the world struggled to recover from the destruction and losses of World War II, Americans purchased cars and the latest kitchen equipment. The availability and vast selection of these items also stood for American democracy during the consumption-oriented 1950s. Moreover, foreshadowing Nixon’s argument with Khrushchev several years later,
Marian Merritt (right) with her husband and daughter. “Dear Little Okinawa” 191
Merritt believed that appliances liberated American women from the drudgery of housework.78 According to Merritt, her home exhibitions awed her guests and to her pleasure received coverage in Okinawan newspapers. Marian Merritt also used the setting of her home to instruct Okinawan women in American gender relations. She observed that her maid took great pains to please Bob Merritt—ironing his clothes but not Marian’s, reserving the choicest portions of food for him. Marian Merritt reported disapprovingly that “She, like all Okinawan women, worships the men.” She delighted in demonstrating the more egalitarian relations between American men and women. An Okinawan woman reporter who witnessed Mr. Merritt assisting Mrs. Merritt in the kitchen described the scene, and the Okinawan women’s reaction to it, in a local paper: “We were only struck with admiration at this sight. The incident appeared to us as . . . the beautiful American life explained in ‘Little Women.’ . . . Besides the adequately equipped rooms, there is the warm affection of the American husband. What a blessed race the American women are!”79 While Marian Merritt hoped that exposure to modern appliances and American gender relations would elevate Okinawan women’s expectations for themselves, her informal influence also served as a vehicle for winning over Okinawan women to American Cold War foreign relations goals. She believed that modern appliances would liberate Okinawan women from heavy work, and that they would find satisfaction in more egalitarian marriages. She expressed delight that an Okinawan couple married in a Christian wedding (by an Okinawan minister) omitted the word “obey” from their vows. “I have talked about the place of women in American life so much,” declared Merritt, “that Bob says if I don’t stop telling the Okinawan women how free and easy our life is and how much power American women have over their husbands with just that little word ‘Love,’ that Okinawan men may start an Anti-Merritt campaign just to shut me up.”80 Mrs. Merritt hoped that her efforts to persuade women of the superiority of American gender relations (at the risk of antagonizing Okinawan men) and to Americanize the Okinawan domestic sphere made Okinawan women more supportive of the military presence. Merritt’s efforts to uplift Okinawan women according to American notions of egalitarian gender relations resembled and carried on the work of U.S. occupiers who in previous years had viewed the emancipation of Japanese women as critical to the democratization of Japan. Scholar Mire Koikari has shown that in transforming Japanese government by implementing women’s suffrage and revising the Japanese constitution to include an equal rights amendment for women (an amendment which still does not exist in the United States’ own constitution), the Western occupi192 “Dear Little Okinawa”
ers who perceived Japanese women as victims of oppressive gender roles received little input from Japanese women themselves and thus perpetuated the notion of Japanese women as helpless, while reinforcing U.S. cultural and political dominance in Japan. In the minds of the occupiers, establishing equality between Japanese women and men entailed reshaping Japanese gender roles in the likeness of mid-twentieth-century American gender relations. Furthermore, although occupiers such as General Douglas MacArthur claimed that democratic ideals were universally appealing and beneficial, the American project of incorporating women into Japanese governance took place with the express intent of recruiting Japanese women to support U.S. political and strategic aims, including the maintenance of U.S. bases during the Cold War. And the occupiers did not consider valid the political activism of all women: American women occupiers worked closely with elite and middle-class Japanese women, but American authorities and the Japanese government obstructed workingclass women’s union activism because it allegedly furthered communism.81
¯ shiro Tatsuhiro’s “The Cocktail Party” O Literature by residents of occupied and host nations can serve as a means for understanding what American military families represented in the ¯ shiro Tatsuhiro’s novella “The Cocktail Party,” publocal imagination. O lished in 1967, conveys the inequality in the relationship between Americans and Okinawans. The story, which won Japan’s Akutagawa Prize in literature, centers on the Okinawan narrator’s anguish over his daughter’s rape by an American soldier. The tale begins prior to the assault, with the narrator arriving at what he calls the “family brigade,” where he has been invited to the home of an American couple (Mr. and Mrs. Miller) for a cocktail party.82 Using a military term to describe the on-base housing for American families indicates the segregation and the oppositional relationship the narrator feels exists between the Americans and Okinawans, despite the friendly overture of the invitation to the party. Walking past the guard house to the party, he recalls that ten years before, while attempting to take a shortcut through the American housing area, he had lost his way and realized that he was a stranger in his own homeland.83 At the party, where the food and liquor are bountiful (as is commonly portrayed in nonfictional descriptions of gatherings hosted by American families), the conversation drifts toward the historical relationships among China, Japan, and the Ryukyu Islands, and the question of whether Okinawan culture should be considered distinct from mainland Japan’s. While the American and mainland Japanese participants in the “Dear Little Okinawa” 193
conversation consider it to be so, the Okinawan narrator insists that it is not.84 The narrator’s position on this issue is a political one. In the 1960s, when this story was published, the Okinawan movement to revert from U.S. military control to Japanese governance was in full swing. While Americans who supported the U.S. military presence stressed the cultural and historical differences between Okinawa and the Japanese mainland to justify it, and Japanese mainlanders historically had treated Okinawans as culturally different and inferior (which to Americans justified prolonging the occupation), Okinawans who wanted to terminate U.S. control emphasized their connections with Japan. After the conversation takes a turn toward the history of what a Japanese guest lightly calls “cultural exchange” between China, Japan, and Okinawa, the party is interrupted by the news that the son of one of the guests, an Army engineer named Mr. Morgan, has disappeared. The guests disperse to help search for the son, who, it is later discovered, had been taken by the family’s maid to visit her village.85 But when the narrator returns home, he discovers that his daughter has been raped by an American soldier who rented an apartment from the narrator’s family. After the assault, the daughter pushes her attacker off of an embankment, which results in him breaking his leg and charging her with assault. The narrator is devastated and outraged. While his daughter is to be tried on assault charges, the Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Japan makes it extremely difficult to bring charges against the American attacker in an Okinawan court, or to call an American as a witness against his will.86 For assistance in bringing his daughter’s assailant to trial, the narrator prevails upon Mr. Miller at his home. Upon hearing the narrator’s account of his daughter’s attack, the formerly friendly Mr. Miller becomes cold and stern, and chides the narrator for asking him to help, endangering what Miller calls the “equality,” “balance,” and “good will” that exist between Americans and Okinawans. Mrs. Miller, who teaches English to the narrator’s daughter, expresses concern about the girl’s absence from class, but grows uncomfortable when she learns of the attack, then leaves the discussion.87 Clearly, she does not want to become involved in this crisis. Subsequently, the narrator turns to a mainland Japanese friend, Mr. Ogawa, and a Chinese acquaintance, Mr. Sun, an attorney residing in Okinawa. The latter is ambivalent about assisting the narrator. The narrator and Mr. Ogawa learn that in 1945, late in the occupation of China by Japanese forces, a Japanese soldier had raped Mr. Sun’s wife. In this way, the author acknowledges Japan’s violence against China in previous decades. Indeed, the narrator recalls his own service in the Japanese army in occupied China, and his insensitivity to the plight of the Chinese. Shocked 194 “Dear Little Okinawa”
by Mr. Sun’s revelation, the narrator insists that despite—or perhaps even because of—the history of Japanese aggression against the Chinese, Mr. Sun must aid him in bringing charges against the American soldier, despite the suffering it will cause his daughter. Later, in deciding to proceed with the case against Robert Harris, the narrator tells Mr. Sun that “the justice I seek for my daughter is the same you would want for the victims of Japanese occupation in China.”88 Coinciding with the narrator’s decision to pursue charges against Harris is the news that Mr. Morgan has decided to press charges against his maid for taking his son to her village without permission. While Americans frequently touted informal visits to the homes of local people as symbolic of international friendship, in this story, an innocent gesture by a naive young woman has become a crime. Again, the author wants to convey to the reader the tremendous imbalance of power between Americans and Okinawans, despite Americans’ proclamations of strong friendship. “It isn’t just the crime of one American that I want to indict,” says the narrator, “but all the pretense of the cocktail party”—what he considers to be a facade of friendliness and cooperation, masking the domination and oppression of Okinawans by the U.S. military.89 His indictment encompasses American military families, whom he sees as accomplices in maintaining the facade. What do the American and Okinawan women and children represent in this story? In contrast to the real-life Marian Merritt, who believed that American wives could help improve the status of Okinawan women, the ¯ shiro’s story expresses no gender solidarity with the American wife in O narrator’s daughter. The narrator finds Mrs. Miller friendly, in a superficial sort of way, and attractive. The Okinawan daughter and the American wife symbolize the unequal relationship between the U.S. occupiers and the Okinawan subjects. After learning of his daughter’s rape, the narrator briefly imagines sexually assaulting the American wife, but is unable to go very far in this vengeful fantasy. Other Okinawan women briefly appear in the story as maids and baby-sitters for American families, accentuating the unequal relationship between the Americans and the Okinawans who serve them.90 The story also contrasts the treatment of the American and Okinawan children to underscore the inequality of Okinawans in relation to Americans, and what the narrator sees as the hypocrisy of American rhetoric about American-Okinawan friendship and cooperation. Whereas Mr. Morgan is pressing charges against the maid who took his son to her village without permission, the narrator’s family does not have the equal means to pursue his daughter’s assailant in court; indeed, his daughter has been charged with a crime by the U.S. military. The daughter does not “Dear Little Okinawa” 195
wish to press charges against Robert Harris, though her father continues to seek a way to do so. Thus, for both the Okinawan family and the Morgan family, the children are pawns in an international conflict, not vehicles for international cooperation, as Americans often portrayed them.
Conclusion Americans wished to consider themselves benefactors to Okinawans, but any positive aspects of maintaining their nation’s armed forces on the island—Americans would have pointed to charity and employment as among the most important benefits—were countered by the costs of bearing an enormous foreign military presence. Service wives attempted to ameliorate the hardships faced by Okinawans, but the military bases and their inhabitants inevitably altered local communities and used the island’s scarce resources. Although American women wanted to reduce prostitution and poverty among Okinawans, these problems remained.91 Furthermore, although profits from ventures such as the Naha and Nago shops were intended to aid poor Okinawan families, the reliance on charitable assistance and the base economy perpetuated the cycle of Okinawans’ dependence on the United States—through restaurants, bars, tourist shops, domestic work, and prostitution—and not incidentally were used to support the argument for maintaining U.S. bases on the island. Besides the toll exacted by the military presence, the divergence of aims and the contrast between cultures militated against Okinawans’ acceptance of U.S. bases. In West Germany, U.S. anti-communist military and foreign relations goals frequently converged with the local population’s desire to stave off Soviet encroachment and promote capitalism. Thus, West Germans were more inclined to tolerate U.S. bases than not. By contrast, the anti-communist foreign policy of the United States that claimed to require control of Okinawa as a defensive strategy clashed with Okinawans’ aspirations for Japanese government and an end to the military presence. Moreover, the American and West German cultures intersected more frequently than did the American and Okinawan cultures and thus strengthened the unity between the United States and West Germany. For instance, many Americans and West Germans found a meeting ground in Christianity and whiteness, whereas religious and other cultural as well as racial differences between Americans and Okinawans upheld Americans’ sense of Okinawans as a backward people and contributed to arguments for U.S. military dominance of the Ryukyu Islands, which further alienated and angered Okinawans. In their interactions with Okinawans, American military families, espe196 “Dear Little Okinawa”
cially wives, could reach beyond official relations to build cultural and social bridges. Service wives engaged in activities which they hoped would improve perceptions of Americans and the difficult economic situation of Okinawans. Some American women, most notably Marian Merritt, even came to care for Okinawans and admire their values and ways. But ultimately, military wives’ activities rested on and perpetuated stereotypes of Okinawans as vulnerable children and assumptions about their dependency. In so doing, military wives and their families helped the United States maintain its bases in what military and government leaders considered to be a crucial Asian outpost in the war against communism, and to justify U.S. control of Okinawa, despite the people’s strong desire to return to Japanese governance. American women’s efforts evidently did not turn the tide of the reversion movement, which grew stronger in the 1960s and finally resulted in the return of the islands to Japan in 1972, although many U.S. military bases remained.
“Dear Little Okinawa” 197
6 Young Ambassadors
When the ship carrying the family of Ann and Robert Chase docked in Genoa, Italy, in 1955, four-year-old Debby walked down the gangplank and greeted an Italian policeman with “Buon giorno.” The delighted policeman responded warmly, “Buon giorno, bambina Americana!” According to Ann Chase, her daughter’s greeting sparked “a beautiful friendship between Italy and my three children.” During Robert Chase’s three-year tour of duty with the Support Command, Southern European Task Force at Camp Darby, the family lived in an Italian neighborhood near the base. Nancy, Debby, and Robbie Chase befriended the Italians who came to their house: the fruit vendor, the garbage collector, the landlord, and the “donkey-ride man.” Ann Chase described her children’s encounters with Italians in their neighborhood as “mak[ing] friends naturally . . . in the ordinary activities of day-to-day living.”1 After World War II, service children’s friendship with people overseas served as a resonant metaphor for ideal relations between the United States and other nations. In an article on raising children in military life abroad, service mother Marcia Matthews observed that children’s “getting along” with others was a “basic tenet” of American education. An American teacher in Tokyo declared in 1948 that Army children, more than their civilian peers, embodied “world citizenship” because of their experience in adapting to “ways of living radically different from [their] own.”2 Well-behaved, friendly children who because of their youth exercised less social power than adults were considered natural internationalists. As the least threatening group of Americans, they were believed to easily befriend residents of occupied and host nations. Service mothers in particular, and also American educators, promulgated an idea of children as more capable than adults of transcending cultural differences between Americans and other peoples, and of facilitating relations between their parents and local adults. In the minds of Americans, children’s ready acquisition of local languages and their enthusiasm for learning about the culture and history of the nations in which they lived modeled foreign relations in their ideal form. 198
Armed forces orientation programs and literature, parents, and schools encouraged service children to learn the languages and customs of other nations and thereby demonstrate respect and appreciation for other peoples and their ways of life. Yet children also were expected to project American ideals of democracy and individuality. In the words of one educator, “prepar[ing] the child for world society”—that is, cultivating children’s knowledge of occupied and host nation histories, cultures, and ways, and helping young Americans establish friendly relations with residents of communities outside military bases in the present and with the goal of maintaining future international alliances — would, it was assumed, “[develop] attitudes and understandings for successful, peaceful relations with other countries while upholding American ideals.”3 Thus, in their relations with non-Americans abroad, children, like their mothers, encountered an ideological contradiction that characterized U.S. Cold War international objectives: they were to demonstrate appreciation of and respect for diverse cultures and ways while projecting the superiority of American economic, political, and social institutions. Children’s misbehavior, which inevitably occurred despite great efforts to minimize it, exposed these tensions and called into question the image of friendship and good intentions that Cold War Americans wanted to project abroad.
Prescriptions for Children’s Behavior Abroad According to the official advice for American children, they played a significant role in relations between the United States and foreign countries. The orientation program for family members arriving in Germany in 1946 instructed the youngsters in attendance that “Even if you don’t play with German children, the chances are that German children will be watching everything you do, virtually every move you make. You will have a chance to set the example—either good or bad—for them.” The occupation government wanted children, designated “young ‘ambassadors of democracy,’” to promote democratization by practicing “good sportsmanship and fair play among yourselves, and obedience of rules and regulations—as will set a good example for German youth which needs to learn much about these things.”4 The idea of children as ambassadors reappeared in Army pamphlets published in the 1950s for families stationed anywhere overseas: “Your children, too, you must remember, are just as much ambassadors of good will as you are. . . . Spoiled youngsters . . . hamper our best efforts at promoting good relations abroad.”5 During the 1950s, Americans who were Young Ambassadors
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sensitive to criticisms of their compatriots abroad feared that ill-behaved children would reinforce stereotypes of rude, arrogant Americans and discredit claims made by the military and politicians about the superiority of the American way of life. A 1952 Army pamphlet for families en route to foreign bases proposed how children could simultaneously demonstrate appreciation for local cultures and embody American ideals. It suggested that parents teach children about how foreign cultures enriched American culture, “that the American way of life, itself, owes a great deal to its foreign pioneers.” The booklet also informed parents that “Loving, wellmannered children can be a tremendous help in showing foreign men and women a better picture of American life.” Whether the intended meaning was a more impressive picture than that suggested by other representations, perhaps such as those conveyed by single servicemen or American popular culture, or a more complete picture of American life, the statement implies that children could model American economic, social, and political ideals and institutions and the benefits believed by Cold War Americans to flow from these.6 Unofficial prescriptive literature composed by and for service youth advised them that their military status conferred upon them the responsibility of getting along well with people in other countries. Patsy Laux, a general’s daughter, described growing up in the military as “a life in which you come into contact with all types of people thrown into one huge melting pot, and in which you learn to respect people’s ideas, which may be radically different from your own.”7 In an article about relations with host nationals, teenager Henrietta Schwartz informed young readers that, by being born into a military family, “[you] inherited the hard job of actively representing your country.” She advised readers to be sensitive to local expectations of children’s behavior, and cautioned that American teenagers who behaved in a casual and outgoing manner might be considered rude, rather than friendly, by non-Americans.8 In questionnaires completed between March 1999 and March 2000, former service children confirmed a strong awareness that the sons and daughters of military personnel were to exhibit exemplary behavior abroad. Whether in the United States or foreign countries, service children were admonished that bad behavior could be detrimental to their fathers’ military careers. Joyace Ann Downing Katz, whose father served in the Air Force in Spain between 1958 and 1961, said that “I feared my Dad’s wrath so I never stepped over the line.” Katz learned about the behavior expected of military children from lists of rules provided by her father’s military base, and from her high school’s monthly paper. “It was ‘be good or be gone,’” recalled Katz. “We were expected to be better than kids in
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America.” Even children who did not consider themselves “unofficial ambassadors” overseas knew from their parents that any trouble they caused could result in their family’s return to the United States. Dale Drysdale, the son of a school principal and superintendent of schools for service children, lived among and attended school with service children between 1957 and 1964. He said that among his eleven- and twelve-year old peers, it was “common wisdom” that children who received “delinquency reports” endangered their fathers’ chances for promotion and risked the return of their families to the United States.9 Many service children, especially older ones, were aware of the connections between the military’s expectations of good conduct and the overseas image of the United States. Hudson “Bill” Phillips, the son of an Army chaplain, lived in Stuttgart, Germany between 1951 and 1953 and attended Heidelberg American High School. He recalled receiving guidance on how to behave as a “goodwill representative” in Germany from numerous sources. All family members departing for Europe from Fort Hamilton, New York, attended an orientation at which a military representative informed them that they would be “ambassadors” of the United States and distributed mimeographed instructions prescribing good behavior as well as behavior to avoid. The families were given more prescriptive materials aboard ship en route to Europe. In Germany, schools, military memos, and Stars and Stripes reminded family members of their ambassadorial duties. Children who participated in Scouting programs and sports events were briefed whenever their activities brought them into contact with the German community.10
Accounts of Children’s and Teenagers’ Interactions with Local Peoples Abroad Military wives’ accounts of life overseas promulgated an ideal of children as valuable agents for smoothing relations between Americans and local people, including those in occupied countries. Frequent contacts between American children and residents of an occupied nation purportedly could make occupation seem less militaristic and more humane. In her portrait of her family’s life in occupied Germany, Army wife Lelah Berry said that she sensed bitterness toward Americans from Germans she encountered. Berry felt that hungry Berliners resented her as she carried armloads of groceries home from the commissary. She perceived that while the Germans considered her a member of the occupying forces, relations between
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Germans and her children Jimmy (age eight) and Bonnie (age five) were friendlier, presumably because young American children seemed less threatening. The children frequently interacted with Germans in encounters Berry depicted as pleasant. Three young German women accompanied the children on the bus to and from the American school. Jimmy took piano lessons from a German woman who came to the Berry home. The family’s German housekeeper, whose husband was killed in World War II, spoke English well, cared for the children, and insisted on working beyond her allotted sixty hours a week to help them with their homework.11 Ann Chase stated that her children’s “natural associations” with Italians in their neighborhood had allowed the Chase family to “buil[d] up a battery of good will” to offset the occasional unfriendly encounter with a local person. By “natural associations,” Chase meant everyday, informal contacts with Italians in or around the home—for instance, between the children and the neighborhood fruit vendor—as opposed to official activities intended to bring together Americans and host nationals, such as military-sponsored club meetings. Chase’s characterization of the children’s relations with Italians as “natural” underscores the idea that children— who were American but less powerful or intimidating than their servicemen fathers or even their mothers—were inherently suited for befriending people in foreign countries and could be more influential than propaganda or official military representatives in establishing friendship and trust. Her use of the military term “battery” to describe her children’s accumulation of good will toward Italians emphasizes the perception of informal friendly relations as a component of Cold War military missions abroad.12 Mothers depicted children’s friendships as the foundation for developing international friendships in peacetime. According to Lelah Berry, her son Jimmy soon dropped his initial hostility toward Germans to befriend local boys and play football with them. Bonnie Berry played with a German girl named Inge who every morning waited for the American girl to return from school. Lelah Berry gave fruit or cake to the neighborhood children who visited Jimmy and Bonnie. The German children’s relative smallness (probably due to inadequate nutrition during the war years) and their friendship with her children softened her attitude toward the German people against whom she had harbored resentment for instigating the war.13 In some cases, service mothers turned over to their children the responsibility for initiating interactions between adults. According to a 1953 Air Force report on families in Germany, “From the very first days, dependent
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children tended to serve as a link between German and American families.” The report credited American children for learning German quickly, acting as interpreters for their parents, befriending German children, and initiating contacts between their parents and the parents of their German friends. The mother of Inge, the German friend of Bonnie Berry, demonstrated friendliness toward the Berry family by sending gifts for Bonnie — “hand-drawn picture books of fairy tales which she has laboriously printed in English, or a knitted woolen scarf or some mittens.” According to Lelah Berry, “The Germans seem to love American children, and would spoil them rotten if given half a chance.” In Japan, Jean Louise and Captain Lauren Elkin befriended neighbors through their children. The Elkin family lived in a Japanese house in Kasahata because of the unavailability of military housing. Lauren Junior (age three-and-a-half) befriended local youngsters who frequently came to the house to play with him and ride in the family’s car. Lauren Junior’s friends also taught Japanese words to Jean Louise Elkin. The friendship between the American boy and his playmates prompted Japanese adults in the neighborhood to invite Lauren Junior’s parents to social events. Eventually, Jean Elkin became a volunteer teacher for Japanese children and recruited other American wives to do the same, and also taught Japanese for Americans at Whiteman Air Force Base.14 Adult Americans and residents of occupied and host nations may have found it easier, especially in the early stages of acquaintanceships, to demonstrate friendliness through children, rather than risking face-to-face encounters with former enemies who still might harbor prejudice and reject proffered kindness. A fictional short story about a military family in Italy illustrated American ideas of how children could help parents overcome the fear of living in a strange place and appreciate the experience of being abroad. In “Domani,“ the narrator, Mrs. MacDonald, arrives in Italy expecting that her family will live in a beautiful home, perhaps on the sea. She is severely disappointed when she arrives at her new residence, a modest, sparsely furnished house. Mrs. MacDonald resents that the Italians stare at her and her son, Bobby, when they venture into town, and perceives animosity in the children whom she describes as “horrible street urchins” and “strange little devils.” She feels like an outsider who will never fit in among the Catholic farmers of the village, and grows increasingly embittered, isolated, and depressed. Her husband, Frank, hires an Italian woman, Lucia, to care for the house and child. Although the woman is pleasant, Mrs. MacDonald resents her. When Lucia finishes her daily work at the MacDonalds’ house, she takes Bobby home with her so that he can play with her son, Tonio. The boys develop a close friendship. At one point, Bobby
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falls seriously ill, but survives. Mrs. MacDonald finally experiences a change of heart toward the Italian people of the village when she learns that Tonio intends to give formal thanks to San Antonio on the saint’s day, presumably for answering the Italian boy’s prayers for Bobby’s recovery. “Gradually I came to understand the deep meaning of Tonio’s action,” recalls Mrs. MacDonald, “and with the understanding the wound in my heart began to heal. Looking back on it now I know that it was the thoughtfulness of a small boy, making a pilgrimage for his American friend, that led me to change my attitude toward the village and its way of life.” Tonio’s generosity of spirit toward Bobby forces Mrs. MacDonald to see that she has behaved selfishly and sparks her appreciation for the Italian villagers and “this country I had learned to love.”15 Stories of American children’s unconstrained relations with local children and adults, facilitated by their apparently easy acquisition of languages, revealed the assumption that children could communicate more naturally than their parents with non-Americans. This supposed ease of communication represented an ideal of international relations based on simple and artless friendliness, untainted by politics and other complications created by adults. A teacher for American service children in Paris marveled that “it seemed . . . the young people absorbed [French] by osmosis,” and noted that many of the students who had lived in other countries already knew two or three languages. She also admitted that American teachers who sat in on the children’s language classes “were unable to keep the pace set by the children.” The theme of children’s ready language acquisition emerged frequently in accounts of military family life abroad. “Don’t be surprised if [your child] learns [a host nation language] more quickly than you do,” advised Ann Chase. “Children are remarkably adept at mimicry and hardly inclined to worry about verb order and sentence construction. They are soon rattling off sentences that may leave you open-mouthed. It’s a wonderful boost to their ego to interpret for you.” She told of how on a visit to a ski resort, her daughter interpreted for her flustered father the instructions given to him by the Italian lift ticket-seller. Chase strongly advocated that children learn the local language: “The most helpful and rewarding thing you can do for your young child is to encourage him to learn the language of the country.” Lillian Mowrer wrote that after six weeks with Polish children her daughter spoke their language easily; at age ten the girl entered a French school and after three months could follow classes taught in the language. Bonnie Berry, a kindergartner, learned simple German words and phrases such as danke schön and bitte. Young children were taught polite expressions first because such words were easy
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and used commonly. Furthermore, they were fundamental to good relations with residents of occupied and host nations. Lelah Berry attributed her children’s ease with speaking German to an absence of self-consciousness.16 These mothers’ observations attest to the idea that children understood other languages, and, by extension, other peoples better than American adults did, through an innate connection to others through the supposed universality of childhood. Many former service children confirm that they, and other children they knew, acquired varying degrees of fluency in foreign languages while stationed abroad. Some say that they learned only basic phrases such as greetings, expressions of courtesy, and those necessary for shopping, ordering in restaurants, or traveling. Jo Wilson Emerson, the daughter of an Army officer, said that she and the Japanese she encountered used a combination of Japanese and English to communicate. A former service teenager whose family lived in France described herself as “semi-fluent” in the language. She recounted that her father asked her to translate to help him sort out an incident involving a GI who had taken a sixteen-year-old French girl to Germany. Joyace Katz, whose family lived in Spain, spoke Spanish well and said that her younger sister at age four spoke German, French, and Spanish. John Walker, the son of an Army officer who learned German while living in Stuttgart between 1956 and 1959, stated in 1999 that “German is certainly a second language for me.” Walker learned German by studying it for two years at Stuttgart-Ludwigsburg American High School and practicing it in daily contacts with Germans. Upon returning to the United States, Walker enrolled in a college German class. The effect of the language on him has endured over the decades; he says that he still sometimes thinks and frequently dreams in German.17 Former military children recalled a wide range of contacts with residents of occupied and host nations. The variety of contacts suggests that children possibly encountered local peoples as much as, if not more than, military wives did. Sons and daughters in military families, especially those who lived off base, had frequent contacts with non-Americans—in shops and churches, with maids and neighbors, at school, in Girl Scout and Boy Scout activities, on public transportation, and on camping trips and other excursions. Many teenagers attended parties and dances with occupied and host national teenagers. Elizabeth Thomas, the daughter of an Army noncommissioned officer stationed in Würzburg between 1950 and 1954, said that she encountered Germans every day during her four years in Germany: they worked in her home as housekeepers; at Nürnberg American High School as teachers, secretaries, and cafeteria employees; and “everywhere” on base. Thomas also socialized with Germans in
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her Teen Club. Service children who initially lived off base (usually while their families awaited on-base housing) said that their contacts with local peoples decreased after they moved to the base, although they still encountered them on base, in their homes, and on occasional excursions off base.18 Relations with domestic employees in occupied and host nations were among the most common steady contacts between service children (who lived on or off base) and local peoples, and could provide opportunities for friendly, even intimate relations amid political tensions. Service wives and children often characterized such relations as affectionate, even in the context of occupation. Army wife Bernadine Lee wrote that before arriving in Tokyo to join her husband in 1946, “I had . . . vowed that no Japanese girl would lay hands on my own baby.” The competence of a Japanese woman hired to care for her son, and his affection for her, changed Lee’s mind.19 The son of an Army officer whose family was among the first to arrive in occupied Germany in 1946 said that he and his brother (both teenagers) enjoyed a warm relationship with the family’s housekeeper and cook. For his seventeenth birthday, the maid gave him a book awarded to her brother, a 1936 Olympic gold medalist killed in the war. Children often grew close to domestic employees and learned to converse with them in their language more easily than did the parents. Caretakers of American children could be casual and playful with their charges; yet the caretaker role also allowed them to behave as adults in their relations with American children, perhaps more so than with the American parents.20 Forest Ramsey, the son of an airman stationed in Okinawa between 1961 and 1963, remembered relations between the U.S. military community and Okinawans as tense, yet said that he and his brothers were very close with the family’s housekeeper, Yoshiko. Ramsey described the family’s elderly gardener as polite but aloof, in contrast to Yoshiko, “a big sister to the three boys in our household and a pal to my mother.”21 Though Americans often described relations between service children and domestic employees as affectionate, they worried that they could accentuate power imbalances between the military and occupied or host nations. Mothers and military literature expressed concerns that reliance on domestic employees might spoil children. They feared not only the cultivation of bad habits in children, but also that spoiled children would undermine American intentions to project equality and democracy abroad. In a discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of hiring household help overseas, Navy wife Cora Cheney noted that “Since ours is a society based on servantless houses, it is especially important that we not lose
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Bernadine Lee’s son and his Japanese caretaker.
sight of our democratic background.” Cheney observed that some service mothers preferred that their children shoulder their share of household tasks as an exercise in discipline and efficiency rather than leave them for servants.22 The Army pamphlet Information for Dependents warned parents that permitting servants to coddle children might result in spoiling them: “It is . . . important that your children retain their ability to look after themselves, even if they have a maid. Undesirable habits they pick up overseas, remember, will be yours to undo alone after you have returned home.”23 The image of children pampered by servants might also have uncomfortably connoted an imperialist-servant relationship that would have impaired attempts to portray the Americans as allies rather than exploiters of host nationals.
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American Children and Cold War Objectives Concerns about relations between service children and local peoples in and outside of military communities were interwoven with the advancement of U.S. Cold War goals. During World War II, children had aided the war effort by collecting scrap materials for defense industries, purchasing and selling savings stamps and bonds, making blankets for soldiers, and keeping an eye out for enemy aircraft. Subsequently, children were enlisted into the Cold War.24 Yet Cold War duties for service children abroad did not entail outspoken condemnations of communism or denunciations of the Soviet Union and other communist nations, but rather courteous behavior toward citizens of occupied and host nations, and the projection of a cooperative attitude. Many children, in particular teenagers, were aware of Cold War international politics and some clearly considered themselves representatives of their country’s proclaimed ideals of freedom and democracy.25 Like military wives, the job of children was to help make the armed forces seem less militaristic and more friendly by avoiding inconsiderate behavior and instead showing interest in and extending good will toward the residents of nations housing U.S. bases. In 1960, Eleanor Roosevelt articulated the presumed links between children’s acquisition of foreign languages and American Cold War efforts to promote international cooperation. In a speech to the Wives Club of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and a larger audience including spouses of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Roosevelt discussed competition between the United States and the Soviet Union for international influence. She noted that Soviet youth began learning foreign languages from a young age, and urged her audience to consider whether Americans were doing all they could to compete with their communist rivals: “Are we preparing our children to impart the ideas of democracy abroad? . . . Are we teaching them languages so they can spread our way of life in the same friendly way?”26 Roosevelt’s speech conveyed the assumption that the United States would win the Cold War not through military might alone, but also by convincing other nations of Americans’ commitment to international cooperation and persuading them of the superiority of American ideals and life over communism. Roosevelt, service mothers, educators, and the armed forces believed that children’s ability to communicate with host nationals in their languages served as a “friendly way” to achieve these goals. Service wives’ accounts about military life for children commonly depicted the experience of living in foreign countries as an opportunity for cultural and social enrichment, as well as excellent preparation for their future Cold War duties as citizens of the United States and the wider 208 Young Ambassadors
world. Marcia Matthews observed that in “the New World in which we have lived since 1945,” characterized by the emergence of the United States as a superpower, the onset of the Cold War, the entrenchment of U.S. military bases worldwide, and advances in communications and transportation, American children were more likely than ever before to encounter foreign peoples: “Instead of reading about French, Spanish or Japanese attitudes they observe them first-hand and their eyes are widened by the view.”27 Military personnel and their families were stationed overseas for up to three years at a time and so were living in, rather than simply touring, foreign countries. Like military wives who were advised to “be a part of the country,” children were encouraged to interact with nonAmericans outside of bases and experience living in host societies.28 Cold War Americans believed that their nation’s future depended on the cultivation of young citizens who could effectively promote American ideals abroad. Brigadier General James O. Guthrie’s speech for the graduation ceremony at Misawa High School in June 1958, in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s launching of the world’s first artificial satellite the previous fall, made explicit the military’s assumptions about the future role of service teenagers. “Your most urgent problem is the preservation of our American way of life,” General Guthrie informed his audience of military families. “Americans believe in freedom, opportunity, and security for all, and in a government that serves the people. Unless you can preserve these ideals, all the miracle inventions of the future are worthless.”29
Overseas Schools Americans associated with the military believed that the formal education of service children abroad could provide opportunities to learn about occupied and host nations, interact with local peoples, and foster good will that strengthened alliances between the United States and the nations housing its bases. Funding schools for American military children proved challenging from the beginning, however. The War Department, reportedly responding to postwar public pressure to minimize military expenses, declined to directly fund the first schools established overseas during the 1946–1947 academic year. Overseas military community planners, parents, and educators devised strategies to fund and staff schools for American children. In the European Theater, sales of “wines and spirits” generated profits for funding the schools, and parents paid tuition on a sliding scale. The lowest three grades of enlisted personnel paid no tuition for their children, the next four grades of enlisted personnel paid $36 per child annually, and officers and civilians paid $72 per child. Spouses and Young Ambassadors
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adult daughters of military and civilian personnel, teachers recruited from the United States, and occupied and host nation citizens staffed the American schools. As the number of family members overseas increased between the late 1940s and the early 1960s, so did enrollments and federal funding for dependents’ schools. According to a Department of Defense report, 160,000 children of Army, Air Force, and Navy personnel attended these schools in 1962.30 Early in the occupations of Japan and Germany, the idea developed that American children were to receive an education in dependents’ schools not only for their own benefit but also to help further occupation goals. At the American School for Dependents in Tokyo, children were expected to aid in the democratization of Japan by demonstrating “kindness and tolerance” toward Japanese teachers and student visitors who observed their classes. As in Japan, dependents’ schools in Germany also attempted to help achieve the occupation goal of democratizing the Germans. The decision to teach German to service children by 1947 reflected the official shift away from the emphasis on viewing Germans as enemies. According to an Army historical report, German language instruction and study of German “cultural and social problems” were contributions that educators and children made to the democratization of Germany. Presumably, educators and officials considered it an exercise in democracy for the children of the victors to learn German and study German culture and society because it demonstrated the American intention to understand and work alongside Germans rather than hold themselves apart from them and treat them as a hopelessly corrupted and unredeemable people.31 Besides aiding specific occupation goals such as democratization and convincing former enemies of American intentions to help them rebuild their societies, the education of service children was intended to guide them in projecting the desire for international cooperation by demonstrating understanding of local cultures and a willingness to participate in allied and occupied communities. According to a teacher at the American school in Tokyo, the experience of military life equipped service children with the skills necessary for adapting to foreign cultures: “[T]he Army child may be better adjusted [than civilian children] since he has learned to get along in many different environments. He learns first-hand, from the people around him, customs, habits, and ways of living radically different from his own. It is through this type of experience that the Army child has learned world citizenship.”32 Thus, overseas classrooms were conceived of as arenas for learning to “get along” with not only fellow American students but also other peoples of the world. “World citizenship” entailed participation in allied and occupied communities, and educators and military officials assumed that learning for210 Young Ambassadors
This Life magazine cover from 1947 features “children of occupation personnel” wearing traditional German leather pants (Lederhosen). The bobby socks and saddle shoes were fashionable attire for American teenage girls. Photo credit: Walter Sanders/Stringer/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
eign languages would encourage children’s involvement outside the American community. Language education for service children arose from a growing sense on the part of Americans since the late 1930s of the need for their nation’s greater global involvement to prevent and solve international conflicts. Service children’s participation outside U.S. military communities was considered beneficial to current international relations and to the future of the United States. An Army report on dependents’ schools in Europe bespoke the assumption that service children should be a part of occupied communities. According to the report, service children were Young Ambassadors
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to learn German not only to exemplify democracy, but also to “make a quicker and more adequate adjustment to life in the German community.” Children were to embody an internationalist attitude in allied countries as well as occupied nations. Most overseas schools for dependents in allied nations, including elementary schools, encouraged children’s ability to communicate with residents of host communities by offering classes in host nation languages, often taught by host nationals.33 Whereas most public elementary schools in the United States provided no foreign language education, all Air Force children attending elementary and junior high schools in Madrid spent thirty minutes a day learning Spanish grammar, conversation, and culture; high school students could study the language as an elective.34 In the mid-1960s, sixty-three percent of the students at Department of Defense high schools, the vast majority of which were abroad and enrolled mainly students from military families, were enrolled in foreign language classes, in contrast to twenty-two percent of public high school students in the United States.35 Although most service children attended American schools for military dependents, some enrolled in schools off base, either because there was no U.S. school in the area, or because parents preferred their children to attend host nation schools. The armed forces informed families arriving in Europe in 1946, when schools for American children were not yet well established, of the option of sending their children to Swiss boarding schools, though at the steep cost of $270 to $1,275 per year. Mothers portrayed children’s attendance at non-American schools as helpful to military goals and international relations. A U.S. Lady article about American children who attended Japanese parochial kindergartens described them as “miniature diplomats.” The children received a “Christian education” along with their Japanese classmates. Air Force Staff Sergeant Lewis Harris and his wife decided to send Nevelyn Harris, their ten-year-old daughter, to a Scottish elementary school rather than the school for American children at the base. Three years among the Scots had altered Nevelyn’s Georgia accent, giving it “a trace of Scottish brogue.” U.S. Lady reported that Nevelyn Harris had won the Ayrshire school system’s Robert Burns competition for her recital of the poet’s “Scots, Wha Hae” in eighteenthcentury Scottish dialect, beating out “tough native Scots contenders from all the Ayrshire schools.” A photograph that featured Nevelyn Harris holding her prize, a leather-bound edition of the poet’s complete works, and standing before a portrait of Burns captured the American ideal of children as intercultural, international representatives, who despite differences in national origin and race, could become immersed in host nation societies and demonstrate appreciation for host cultures.36 As of 1966, an estimated 9,600 American children from military fami212 Young Ambassadors
Nevelyn Harris in Scotland.
lies attended local schools, though they composed only about five percent of all service children abroad.37 And at some stations, for instance, in Turkey in the 1960s, no American children attended local schools.38 Service children regularly encountered local nationals in the American schools, which employed citizens of occupied and host nations to fill faculty and staff positions to compensate for inadequate numbers of American personnel for these jobs and satisfy demands that the U.S. military offer employment to host nation citizens. Citizens of occupied and host nations worked in American schools as teachers, librarians, secretaries, janitors, and cafeteria employees. When the 1952 – 1953 school year began at Heidelberg American Elementary School, roughly one teacher out of four was a German. The Army assessed the hiring of local nationals as more economical than recruiting and paying for the travel expenses of faculty from the United States. The French government negotiated with the U.S. Army to ensure the hiring of French faculty and staff. The Army complied, though it required French educators to speak fluent English. Young Ambassadors
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In the official view, occupied and host nation educators in Europe who taught American students about the countries in which they were stationed served as “the necessary link between the Americans and the German and French communities,” familiarizing children with local songs, dances, arts, crafts, and customs.39 American teachers worked with non-American educators on lessons to develop students’ understanding of France and Germany, and sought to establish friendly work relationships in informal gatherings with their colleagues. Wilma Ecker, who taught at American elementary schools in Okinawa, said that Okinawan teachers were frequent guests in her home. Teachers from German and American schools met with one another and inspected each other’s school buildings and educational styles. American teachers at Molesworth Air Force base and British teachers from an English school in Peterborough observed one another’s teaching styles and then exchanged teaching positions for two weeks.40 In addition to offering language instruction, educators tried to foster cultural understanding by teaching students about the culture and customs of the nations in which they were living. Dependents’ schools in Germany expanded language courses in 1947 to include the study of German literature, history, geography, social studies, art, and music. Teacher Gladys Zabilka compiled lessons to teach her students Japanese history and Okinawan history, folklore, customs, crafts, and music. In Japan, American elementary school children learned traditional songs and dances, which Ed Dooley said his sisters performed, in Japanese dress, for guests who visited the family. Florence Dmytryk, a fifth-grade teacher at the Army Overseas Dependents School in Paris during the 1953–1954 school year, provided a detailed account of the lessons and activities she and other teachers employed to help students “better understand the French people.” Her students studied French culture, customs, history, and geography. They read European literature (in English) for children; a few advanced students read Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In addition, students learned music appreciation by singing European folk songs and discussing musicals they had attended (probably with their parents). They compared American and French holidays, celebrated the national holidays of France, studied “the food habits of the French,” and prepared a multicourse French meal. In anticipation that students would socialize with the French, they learned about their “social mannerisms” so that they would “feel at home with their French friends.” The goal of promoting “understanding” for host nations in overseas schools survived into the early 1960s, as evidenced in a report by a committee of educators appointed by the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Education Division, to evaluate overseas dependents schools, which rec214 Young Ambassadors
ommended “that opportunities should be sought in all curricula to increase understanding of and appreciation of the host nation.”41 To teach what she termed “successful international living,” Florence Dmytryk incorporated into her curriculum activities that familiarized children with off-base communities and facilitated their social relations with local peoples. For the section on arithmetic, the children learned to change francs into dollars and dollars into francs, convert metric into English units and vice versa, and tell time in the European style (the twenty-four-hour mode). To give students practice in using French money, Dmytryk and a host national teacher took them on a Christmas shopping trip in French department stores. Because her students often took excursions with their families, Dmytryk created exercises to improve their understanding of the places they visited. Children who missed classes to take vacations with parents (a frequent occurrence) were expected to connect their vacation activities with the goals of the class. Dmytryk required vacationing children to keep a journal, send postcards to the class, and research in the encyclopedia the places they visited. When Dmytryk’s class received a postcard, the students researched the historical and cultural sites visited by their classmate.42 To cultivate to the fullest children’s appreciation of host nations and to demonstrate Americans’ interest in foreign countries, teachers took students on excursions into local communities. Sometimes the outings were simple, such as taking the Army Overseas Dependents School children in Paris out for recreation in the Bois de Boulogne on temperate days for forty-five minutes after lunch. Students also took many field trips, which, according to the job description for elementary school teachers at overseas schools, were among educators’ “major duties.” Fifth- and sixthgraders at the Army school in Paris took approximately two field trips a month. High school students made excursions to nearby countries that lasted for several days. The French encouraged cultural outings by allowing American children to enter museums and galleries without paying admission (a privilege also enjoyed by French children). On one field trip, the students “were given an opportunity to join the ranks of artists in Paris and spent a happy hour painting on the Left Bank.”43 Students from Heidelberg American Elementary School visited a variety of German sites: the zoo, the Geological Institute, a chicken hatchery, a newspaper printing plant, an observatory at the university, a weather station, and a textile mill.44 Teacher Marie Espinoza took her fourth-grade students at the General Hoyt S. Vandenberg School to see the bust of Nefertiti on exhibit at a museum in Wiesbaden, Germany; brought a small group of students to the Joan of Arc pageant in Orleans, France, where they waved at Premier Georges Pompidou in the parade; and escorted her sixth-grade class to the Young Ambassadors
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home of the French author George Sand. Gerard Akkerhuis, a teacher for schools at Air Force bases in North Africa and Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s, recalled “study trips” to Peterborough Cathedral in England and Leptis Magna Roman Ruins in Libya.45 Pupils at Army schools in Europe joined local students for visits to “historical landmarks, museums, and art galleries.”46 On excursions, students’ identification of historical connections between the United States and host nations was intended to instill a sense of “the interdependence of . . . nations” and encourage the youngsters to maintain alliances through future international friendship and cooperation. Students who visited Versailles learned that “our Benjamin Franklin” had also been there during the Revolutionary War to ask Louis XVI to aid the Americans. Students also visited the room where the Treaty of Versailles was signed after World War I, and the hotel where General Dwight Eisenhower made his headquarters during World War II.47 All these historical sites recalled U.S.-France alliances in wars that for Americans were largely about the protection of their national values. Visits to these sites perhaps imparted to children a sense of the historical significance of their own presence in France, as family members of military personnel stationed in NATO countries during the early years of the Cold War. To try to realize the ideal of international cooperation advocated in dependents’ schools, American and host nation educators created numerous opportunities for students to interact with local children and adults. The armed forces helped to coordinate “school-community projects” to bolster German-American and French-American relations. These projects included parties, dances, student and teacher exchanges, joint participation in observances of American and host nation holidays, festivals, fairs, charitable activities, and excursions to historical and cultural sites, musical activities, and athletic events. An Army report noted that in 1950 approximately 500 German teachers visited American dependents’ schools, and estimated that between 1946 and 1956 contacts between American and European teachers and students numbered “well into the thousands.” During the 1955–1956 school year, more than 100 “foreign students” paid tuition to attend Army dependents’ schools in Germany and France.48 German and American students frequently attended classes at one another’s schools, played together at recesses, gave presentations for their visitors, and exchanged addresses. Bill Phillips remembered his Heidelberg High School class visiting a Latin class at a nearby German school. “We were surprised to see that they were cheating on a test and acting very much like us,” he wrote. “They seemed to enjoy our presence.”49 In April 1953, students at the Bad Godesberg American School presented a program, entirely in German, for sixty German student visi216 Young Ambassadors
tors from the Plittersdorf school. During “World Friendship Week,” students brought German friends to class with them.50 Service children, like their mothers, were pulled by divergent demands. Although the children were to appreciate local cultures and customs and respect host nationals, they also were to “[uphold] American ideals” and project the superiority of American ways.51 According to Florence Dmytryk, most aspects of the Army educational program were intended to achieve “successful, cooperative living among the people of France and careful preservation of the child’s American heritage and democratic viewpoints.” American teachers conferred frequently with their French colleagues about American styles of conducting classes. Dmytryk thought that French teaching styles were too strict and placed too much emphasis on learning by rote, in contrast to what she considered the “more relaxed” American classroom atmosphere. The American teachers urged the French faculty members to consider each student as an individual, invite class participation, and use encouragement rather than the threat of failure or punishment to motivate students. American teachers regularly tried to persuade the French teachers to assign less homework. Dmytryk’s determination that her students respect the French yet retain their American identity, characterized by individuality and independence, manifested itself in her policy on students’ behavior on field trips. She did not want the students to upset French onlookers they encountered on excursions, yet she also believed that the children should behave as they normally would in public in the United States. She said that she allowed her students to “question the guides, to walk along in groups or alone, and to carry on soft discussions with their friends,” in “great contrast” to the hushed rows of French children encountered on outings. “Although it was felt that the French public might misinterpret the controlled freedom of the American children as laxity on the part of the teacher,” wrote Dmytryk, “it was also felt that our philosophies should not be sacrificed for the sake of appearance.”52 Educators believed that service parents’ own attitudes about relations with occupied and host nationals could help or hinder good relations between the military and local communities. Some service mothers supported American schools’ efforts to teach languages and establish good rapport with local peoples. For instance, service parents in the Heidelberg Parent-Teacher Association voted to accept a German language program for the Heidelberg Elementary School for the 1953–1954 school year. American mothers also worked in classrooms with German teachers. But educators worried that parents who disliked living in foreign countries discouraged their children from appreciating local cultures and ways of life.53 Young Ambassadors
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American teachers’ engagement in the kinds of activities believed to foster good American-host nation relations attests to their own sense of the importance of involvement in host communities, which they tried to convey in their classrooms. Many American educators, often with their families or other teachers, used the opportunity of living abroad to learn about host cultures, travel extensively, and make numerous acquaintanceships and sometimes lasting friendships with non-Americans. Teacher Wilma Ecker and her family exemplified American involvement in host nations: Ecker studied Okinawan history because she found it “extremely interesting”; her daughter took dance lessons from an Okinawan teacher; the family “went to every festival we heard of, and traveled all over the island and to every place we could reach”; and the Eckers hosted Japanese students and Okinawan teachers in their home. Another teacher, Marie Espinoza, left New Mexico in 1954 to teach in Morocco. Over the next decade she worked at several schools for American military children around the world, teaching in Morocco (again), Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Italy, France, and Libya. In Japan she participated in doll festivals and tea ceremonies upon the invitation of one of her students, Satomi Arrington, whose mother had worked as a secretary for Jean MacArthur, wife of General Douglas MacArthur, when he was the Supreme Commander in Japan. Teachers frequently visited countries neighboring the nations where they were stationed. While living in England and Libya, Gerard Akkerhuis’s family camped throughout Europe and at many sites in North Africa.54
Perceived Benefits to American Children of Living Abroad Expectations that service children contribute to international goals bolstered arguments put forth by those who defended the children’s numerous moves around the United States and the world. Cold War Americans placed a premium on home life and family stability, and so those associated with the military felt pressured to justify children’s frequent relocations and interruptions in education and friendships. Defenders of military life for children celebrated it as a means for children to develop an expansive worldview. “The horizons for service children are wide and wonderful,” declared Army wife Nan Carroll, whose family had lived in Korea and Germany. She argued that children gained a “global outlook” and a practical “sense of geography” that enhanced their experiences of childhood. Even her sons’ play reflected a sense of the wider world and international cooperation: the boys had acquired a collection of wooden dolls from Korea and an electric train from Germany, and with blocks 218 Young Ambassadors
they built replicas of United Nations buildings. She insisted that her kindergartner gained a “vast world” of geography, history, and education, in addition to self-assurance and “the priceless experience of living, playing and attending school with children who speak another language.” Carroll proudly declared that “the childhood world of my sons lies far beyond a picket fence.” Air Force wife Marilyn Wright wrote a letter to the editors of U.S. Lady expressing her appreciation for service life, which she credited for “help[ing] me to grow, to look further than my nose” and also for benefiting her children: “My children will be better adjusted, take more interest in government and different countries.” Liz Reeves, the daughter of an Army colonel, wrote that service life offered “education in life’s experiences, social graces and tolerance for my fellow men.” Dr. Thomas Staton, a child psychologist whose articles appeared in U.S. Lady magazine, named “a liberal education in [a child’s] knowledge of people, places, and customs” and the “richness” and “variety” of environments as the benefits of service life for children.55 Advocates of children as unofficial ambassadors considered exposure to other ways of life a means to acquire cosmopolitan sophistication that benefited the United States, as well as the children themselves, and believed that children who were at ease abroad could most effectively strengthen present and future Cold War alliances.56 A short story titled “Reorientation” illustrates military families’ hopes that living in a foreign country could prove an asset to teenagers, even those who did not yet appreciate it, and also encourage young Americans’ contributions to “understanding between nations.” After living in Tokyo for three years, Patty and her family moved to a Midwestern American town. Patty did not fit into the cliques at her new high school. Unlike her younger brothers, Patty had not enjoyed life in Japan. But she discovers that “I’m the only one in class that has actually been in a foreign country” and finds that her classmates are interested in what it was like to live in Japan. As she describes Japanese culture to her new friends, displays pictures and souvenirs, and tells about her participation in a Japanese tea ceremony, Patty becomes more lively and socially engaged with her peers. Her mother, the narrator of the story, states that “I was amazed at how much ‘culture’ she had absorbed in spite of herself.” Patty creates an exhibit on Japan for her high school’s United Nations Day fair, and wears her kimono as part of the display. Her main competition is an exhibit by a girl whose pilot father had brought her presents from his trips around the world, but Patty’s mother considers it “just an assortment of souvenirs to our ‘seasoned’ eyes,” unlike Patty’s focused presentation on Japanese culture. Patty wins first place because her exhibit “most clearly demonstrates the kind of understanding between nations that the U.N. strives for.” She Young Ambassadors
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is pleased by the prize, and by the attention of an attractive boy who now considers her more “sophisticated” than any other girl he had known.57 Patty’s absorption of Japanese culture is presented in this story as a phenomenon that occurred naturally and unconsciously, and did not manifest itself until sometime after her return to the United States. Thus, the story presents children—even blasé teenagers—as natural liaisons between the United States and other nations, and the experience of living abroad as the crucible for creating new cosmopolitan Americans—the kind of citizens needed for a country extensively engaged in international relations. Although some educators, like service parents, worried that residing in foreign countries might weaken children’s sense of American identity, living overseas was also regarded as an opportunity for Americans from diverse regions and backgrounds to come together under the aegis of the military. Some children traveled so much that they did not remember living in the United States. In June 1953, twenty-six students finished the eighth grade at the Army Overseas Dependents Schools in Paris. All had attended at least six different schools on two continents; six had attended twelve schools on three continents, and two had attended sixteen schools on four continents. Some of the children had no familiarity with American money because they had known only military scrip or French francs. Yet educators, and the Army, judged that classrooms were not only venues for teaching about the world outside the United States, but also for strengthening children’s knowledge of their own country. According to a 1958 Army report, schools for dependents created an environment in which American children and teachers from different regions in the United States became more familiar with one another: “Both staff and student body were composed of persons from all 48 states, and the territories, as well. People from all walks of life, all races and creeds, and representing the full range of sectional backgrounds and interests, met in the classrooms, bringing with them the uniqueness that was theirs and taking away, certainly, a fuller knowledge and deeper understanding of the totality that is the American people.” This report thus extolled the overseas classroom as a vehicle for reinforcing the solidarity of Americans from all states, a unity believed essential for winning the Cold War. Ed Dooley recalled that his classmates at the Air Force high school in Japan hailed from all regions of the United States, although the students were not racially diverse.58 Besides reasoning that overseas life cultivated children’s understanding of other nations, service wives deployed the argument that living abroad strengthened rather than weakened children’s commitment to the United States and appreciation of their country in relation to other nations. Cora Cheney stated that “Our job [as mothers] is to keep a perspective that 220 Young Ambassadors
helps us bring up good Americans. The service junior is going to profit from the overseas tour in proportion to his involvement in the new culture without losing his identity.” She pointed out that living on a military base would maintain children’s connections with the United States, but recommended that children who attended American schools interact with local children through music, dance, or sports instruction. Cheney also suggested that children could attend host nation churches or join the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts to develop “international understanding.”59 Service mothers maintained that living abroad helped children become adept at noticing transnational exchanges (for instance, immigration) and promoted understanding of the United States, even its small neighborhoods, in an international context. According to Ann Chase, her children associated the Neapolitan grocer in their grandmother’s New York neighborhood with the people they met in Italy.60 This association implied a parallel between the Chase family’s presence in Italy and the Neapolitan’s presence in the United States, conceiving of their residence in one another’s country of origin as a natural, benign phenomenon. Yet likening the presence of a Neapolitan grocer in a New York immigrant neighborhood to an American military family’s presence in the country of a NATO ally obscured the fact that the Italian grocer and the service family lived in one another’s countries under vastly different circumstances.
More than Child’s Play Although service mothers’ published accounts usually depicted non-Americans as friendly toward American children, the children did not in fact always win the affection of local people. A former military policeman stationed in Orleans in the late 1950s recalled that French people threw garbage at American children en route to school, and that the children picked up the garbage and threw it back at them. The animosity of the French toward the American youngsters probably originated in opposition to U.S. military bases in their country, and foreshadowed by nearly a decade President Charles de Gaulle’s 1966 demand for the removal of the bases. Ann Chase, who for the most part portrayed her children’s encounters with Italians as warm, acknowledged that some host nationals had exhibited hostility toward her children. Her family, she said, had constructed a “battery of good will” toward Italians that offset the “occasional evidences of dislike that are inevitable,” as when an Italian called her sixyear-old daughter a “stupid American.”61 Likewise, American service children were not necessarily interested in making friends with non-Americans. In Bill Phillips’s experience, it was Young Ambassadors
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unusual for American teenagers to befriend German teens in the early 1950s. He said he knew of no one who dated a German. Phillips remembered that Americans and Germans alike worried about how Boy Scouts of both nationalities would get along in their first joint meetings. At a Scout weekend campout, Americans, Germans, and displaced persons (Phillips thought they were mostly Russians) initially regarded one another with suspicion, but then eventually joined together in song. Generally, though, “Americans tended to stick with other Americans,” according to Phillips. “To step out of this peer group was still a very bold [move].” Phillips thought that lingering anti-fraternization sentiment from earlier in the occupation, as well as the American teenagers’ numerous social activities—football games, dating, the prom—hindered friendships with Germans.62 A sociological study of Americans living in a military community in Ankara, Turkey, in the 1960s reported that American children and teenagers lacked interest in their host nation, and were hostile to Turkish youth. The study’s author attributed this to the “language barrier,” and to overprotective restraints that kept American youth from venturing outside the military community. The American teenagers also felt that they were missing out on the high school activities enjoyed by their peers in the United States, and thus strongly resented living in Turkey, rather than seeing it as a unique opportunity to learn about their host nation. Evidently, the resentment was mutual: in 1966, “American Air Police had to ride American buses in one section of town, because Turkish juvenile gangs waited at the bus stops for the American children to get off so that they could beat them with bicycle chains.”63 Ed Dooley, who grew up in a military family during the 1940s and 1950s, considered living in Japan a positive experience, though not all his peers felt the same. The Dooley family arrived in Japan in October 1957. Ed Dooley, who had missed the first month of the tenth grade to make the ocean voyage to Japan, enrolled as a sophomore at the Misawa Dependent School. To him, living in Japan was a “happy and stimulating experience,” even though his parents separated during the family’s second year there, and his mother returned to the states early with the children. Though some of Dooley’s friends enjoyed life in Misawa, other teenagers did not: some yearned to return to the United States; others were vexed that their families were stationed in Japan rather than Germany, Italy, France, or England, where they believed “the living was easier, the food was safe to eat, and the culture was more familiar.” Departing for the United States early saddened Dooley, who had looked forward to spending the entire three-year tour of duty in Japan.64 Yet for many of his American peers, their sense of racial and cultural “otherness” of the Japanese proved an obstacle to interacting with local people. 222 Young Ambassadors
Occupied or host nationals’ unfriendliness toward American children possibly stemmed from resentment of the foreign military presence or an individual’s dislike of Americans in general; children’s misconduct no doubt fueled existing antagonisms. Despite the efforts of parents, educators, and military officials to encourage children’s model behavior, children did not invariably act as ideal ambassadors. Former service children’s and educators’ recollections of children’s undesirable behavior paint a more conflicted picture of “young ambassadors” than that offered by service mothers in their published writings from the era. Some who recalled misconduct by members of the military community thought that for the most part American children behaved well, and that their offenses were overshadowed by servicemen’s crimes—drunkenness, robbery, rape, and murder. Yet children’s bad behavior, like their good behavior, could take on a larger significance in the context of military occupation, or, as in the case of Okinawa, local nationals’ widespread resentment of the U.S. military presence. What might have been considered minor acts of mischief typical of American children and teenagers in the United States could exacerbate already tense relations between the armed forces and occupied or host communities, and undermine the image of friendship and respect that Americans hoped to project. A former service teenager who lived in Germany between 1946 and 1948 recalled only one incident of American children’s bad behavior: two young children tied cigarette butts to threads, which they yanked when German passersby who wanted to collect the leftover tobacco (a precious commodity in postwar Europe) tried to pick them up. Though the children probably did not fully comprehend the wider significance of their trick, it likely represented to Germans, as well as Americans who hoped to improve German-American relations, a disgraceful display of American insensitivity to those still trying to recover economically from the war. The narrator of this anecdote says that he and his friend helped to counter the negative impression of Americans generated by the youngsters: they chastised the children for their prank, and German onlookers expressed appreciation for the teenagers’ intervention.65 Some misdeeds were more serious. Drinking and shoplifting were among the most frequent bad behaviors. Bill Phillips said that in 1952 American Boy Scouts from West Berlin threw cherry bombs out of a train window as they passed through East Germany. According to Phillips, the incident caused consternation among high-level U.S. military officials in the European Command, and resulted in the Scouts being questioned by armed forces authorities and writing affidavits of explanation. Incidents of what Forest Ramsey described as “typically stupid juvenile American behavior” probably seemed especially troubling to local peoples who Young Ambassadors
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strongly opposed the foreign military presence. Ramsey remembered that members of his high school track team, on the bus en route to practice, sometimes sprayed Okinawan bicycle riders with a fire extinguisher. According to Ramsey, the American students usually missed their targets, and he did not think that anyone was physically harmed. Yet this kind of behavior likely reinforced Okinawans’ sense that the U.S. military held them in low regard and victimized them.66 Young Americans’ attitudes of national superiority emerged in conflicts they provoked involving national flags. At a Boy Scout Jamboree in Scotland in 1953, American Scouts offended German Scouts by raising the Texas flag over the German flag. In Germany, two third-grade boys stirred up trouble when they took down the German flag at the headquarters in Fürstenfeldbruck in 1959. U.S. military representatives, the school administrator, and the boys’ parents apologized profusely to the German community, and also required the boys to write letters of apology.67 The most infamous conflict over flags erupted in the Panama Canal Zone in 1964. In 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower had ordered that wherever the U.S. flag appeared in the Canal Zone, the Panamanian flag must be raised alongside it as an acknowledgment of Panama’s “titular sovereignty.” The Canal Zone governor determined that neither flag would fly at Balboa High School, where U.S. military and civilian teenagers were students. In early January 1964, a group of Balboa High School teenagers violated the order for joint display of the flags by raising the Stars and Stripes and also marching around the school with their nation’s flag. In response, Panamanian students carrying their national flag confronted them at the school. In the ensuing riots, Panamanians attacked U.S. properties and citizens in and outside the Canal Zone (although other Panamanians helped to protect people from the United States). Clashes between rioters and U.S. soldiers resulted in the deaths of four American servicemen and at least thirteen Panamanians. American news reports blamed the violence on anti-U.S. sentiment ignited by Fidel Castro, the communist leader of Cuba, although fundamentally it was Panamanian nationalists’ long-standing resentment of U.S. control of the zone and Americans’ racism, and the U.S. teenagers’ provocations, that sparked this clash.68 American children, whether third-graders or high school students, defied the internationalist teachings of military orientation programs and prescriptive literature, parents, and educators when they engaged in flag rivalry. These contests were so embarrassing, and potentially volatile, because they exposed assumptions about the superiority of the United States usually veiled in a rhetoric of friendly cultural and social persuasion.
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Conclusion Americans affiliated with the armed forces regarded service children as natural internationalists whose supposed artlessness and openness to nonAmerican cultures and peoples promised to persuade residents of occupied and host nations of American good will and alliance, first in the occupations of Germany and Japan, then in the Cold War. Because children wielded the least social power of all Americans, they were presumed to be less intimidating to occupied and host nationals than servicemen and service wives. But children were also less amenable than adults to the disciplining of their actions. American military children’s presumed lack of guile, which military officials, parents, and educators considered an asset in foreign relations, also could prove a liability. Some young people, like some adults, found it difficult to balance the ambassadorial ideal of respect for other peoples with the patriotic ideal of national superiority. Less adept than adults at smoothing over ideological contradictions, children occasionally let fall the mask of international equality to reveal the power imbalances which lurked below the surface. Like those of their mothers and fathers, service children’s encounters with local peoples were fraught with possibilities. Contacts with residents of occupied and host nations contained the potential for improving American international relations but were always beset by difficulties and contradictions inherent in American Cold War ideology.
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Conclusion
As a family’s tour of duty drew to a close, the household prepared for the journey to the next station. On rare occasions, family members left for the United States before the sponsor’s tour of duty ended, for instance, when a child finished high school and wished to return to the United States to attend college, a medical condition necessitated the return of a spouse, or a marriage ended in divorce.1 The U.S. military evacuated families from foreign posts during international crises: the outbreak of the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the beginning of the Vietnam War. On June 26, 1950, Dorothy House Vieman wrote to her family that on the previous day North Korean airplanes strafed the U.S. military housing compound where she lived outside Seoul, and that she and another wife and their two dogs waited with their houseboys in a trench dug by the domestic servants for the orders to evacuate. The American wives left almost everything behind, including furniture and pets. Vieman left South Korea and its people with a heavy heart. “This war isn’t the North Koreans against the South Koreans. This war is Communism against Americanism, and the pitiful Koreans are pawns in a war which happened to fall within their borders,” she wrote, and defended the U.S. participation in it as “a moral obligation” to defend the South Korean people against the attempted communist takeover.2 The week before the crisis began over nuclear missiles in Cuba in October 1962, U.S. News and World Report reported that although life appeared to go on as usual for American military families at Guantanamo Bay, wives had packed suitcases and studied evacuation plans. On October 22, President Kennedy informed the nation that he had ordered the evacuation of American families from the base.3 Early returns occurred infrequently, though, and most families remained at their posts for the duration of the sponsor’s assignment. As the time to leave approached, they packed their household goods and souvenirs, made arrangements to ship pets to their next home, and said goodbye to their American friends as well as the local people whom they had come to know. Marian Merritt described the weeks preceding her family’s 226
voyage back to the United States as “a mad scramble of sorting, packing, farewell parties, immunizations, passport and visa arrangements, buying of Okinawan things we thought we couldn’t live without, and dashing madly to see places we had heard about but never gotten around to visiting until the last minute.”4 Impending departures aroused sadness, anticipation, or a mixture of feelings in family members. “The whole thing has been painful,” wrote Marian Merritt of her family’s leave-taking, “for we truly love Okinawa and, while we love our homeland and know that we will quickly and happily adjust to life in America again, we still hated to leave.” As the Merritts’ ship left port, Okinawan maids stood on the dock waving to their former employers at the ship’s railing. According to Merritt, the Okinawan and American women cried openly. When David Klinger’s family left Germany in 1947, they traveled across the ocean with many of Klinger’s friends who were returning to the United States to attend college. Upon arriving in Fort Hamilton, New York, the teenagers walked to the nearest drug store soda fountain for banana splits, which signified to Klinger that “We were home at last.”5 As part of their nation’s overseas military presence, American families bolstered U.S. global power. To conceive of the postwar U.S. armed forces around the world as embodied by soldiers, military vehicles, and weapons while ignoring the families who helped to sustain them is to overlook a crucial dimension of U.S. power. Government officials and military planners believed that allowing families to join servicemen abroad made foreign tours more tolerable to armed forces personnel, and aided recruitment and retention, although critics argued that the costs to taxpayers and the alleged impediments to military operations caused by the presence of families outweighed any benefits. But advocates of keeping families abroad—whether military officials or family members themselves, particularly wives—regarded them as contributing more than moral support to husbands and fathers. Families, in their view, could exercise international influence and advance diplomatic aims by representing a nonmilitaristic facet of the United States. Wives, children, and servicemen in their domestic roles as husbands and fathers could exert soft-power influence that both complemented and tempered the United States’ hard-power martial presence. Some family members took more initiative than others in striving to further their country’s foreign relation goals by making friends with local peoples, learning about and showing respect for their histories, cultures, and customs, and displaying American ideals and ways. Even those who doubted the diplomatic value of families abroad could not deny that when Americans affiliated with the armed forces, including family members, offended occupied and host nation peoples, they risked undermining Conclusion 227
local support for U.S. military bases and diplomatic objectives. For good or ill, the presence of thousands of families abroad helped shape how people around the world viewed U.S. Cold War policies and American culture and society. Imagining families in military communities abroad as living in hermetic “little Americas” or “golden ghettoes” denies the impact, whether positive or negative, of their presence in host countries. Even supposedly self-contained military communities were not sealed off from local peoples: American family members encountered host nationals on and off base; gave impressions of American home life, gender relations, and race relations, even in seemingly superficial contacts; used local resources; and ultimately functioned to maintain U.S. ascendancy abroad. The study of military family members’ activities and writings expands our understanding of early Cold War military history, foreign relations, and the history of American families, women, children, gender roles, and race relations in the two decades following the end of World War II. Ordinary women, children, and men were considered participants in the ideological war against the spread of communism, not only in the United States but also internationally. In assuming the role of “unofficial ambassadors” for the United States, American military wives were multidimensional domestic, political, and international figures. Whether or not they thought of themselves as young ambassadors, American children and teenagers also played a role in the international story, in their attitudes, their comportment, and their interactions with occupied and host nation peoples. In their domestic roles, American servicemen such as Joseph Boyle in Germany and Robert Merritt in Okinawa displayed a softer, less militaristic side of American masculinity. Americans abroad also brought with them racial attitudes, revealed in their interactions with fellow Americans and with occupied and host nation peoples. Assumptions about commonalities among white peoples, as in West Germany, and the inferiority of Asians, as in Okinawa, shaped not only interpersonal but also international relations and, to Americans, helped to justify the presence of their military. The 1950s and early 1960s represented the heyday of the unofficial ambassador ideal, which lost much of its symbolic potency during the 1960s. As U.S. military involvement in Vietnam escalated in early 1965, National Security Council staff officer Chester Cooper noted in a secret memorandum that “the evacuation of U.S. dependents can signal determination or weakness,” and thought that it would be better to withdraw American families from the country because “We have more use for MPs [military policemen] than to ride school buses; the presence of so many women and children is an inhibition, conscious or subconscious, on action.”6 Thus, as the conflict between the communists and anti-commu228 Conclusion
nists intensified in Vietnam, the presence of American families came to be seen more as an impediment than an asset to U.S. policymakers. Still, President Johnson’s advisers worried about the “psychological impact” on the people of Saigon should the United States evacuate American families. The evacuation of dependents might sow “seeds of panic” in Saigon; sending in more U.S. forces as American families left would help to reduce but not eliminate the expected “psychological damage” to the South Vietnamese people.7 But President Johnson ultimately decided to order the evacuation of families of U.S. military and civilian personnel from South Vietnam in February 1965. According to Newsweek, many of the wives and children departed reluctantly (including the teenage daughter of U.S. commander General William Westmoreland), and Vietnamese nannies “sniffled into handkerchiefs” as they watched them go. Hundreds of family members reentered the United States at Travis Air Base in northern California, where the coffins of U.S. servicemen recently killed at a barracks in Pleiku by South Vietnamese communists lay in temporary storage. The United States launched Operation Rolling Thunder against North Vietnam in mid-February, U.S. combat troops began arriving in South Vietnam in March, and the Vietnam War went on for a decade.8 By the early 1960s, McCarthyism was well behind Americans and the zealously anti-communist Cold War culture of the 1950s had begun to give way to critiques of simplistic good-versus-evil depictions of the conflict between the communist and anti-communist worlds.9 Opposition to the foreign policy and global military presence of the United States burgeoned during the Vietnam era, coming not only from international foes but also from allies. Shigeharu Matsumoto, the founder of the International House of Japan, which hosted policymakers and scholars to foster discussions on international issues, expressed deep concern in 1965 that the use of Okinawa as a staging area for U.S. operations in Vietnam would exacerbate the Japanese people’s resentment of U.S. bases in their country. Other Asians—and not just leftists, according to writer Chanchal Sarkar—saw the United States as a “warmonger” and associated the U.S. military presence in their countries with violence against fellow Asians in Vietnam. Asians also resented the bars and brothels that served American soldiers and businessmen. West Germans, among the strongest of the United States’ anti-communist allies, increasingly opposed the Vietnam War between the late 1960s and early 1970s.10 Even citizens of the United States, especially youth, no longer unquestioningly accepted the view of their country as a righteous hero in the global battle for freedom. Although in general Americans associated with the armed forces (though draftees less so than volunteer and career military personnel) continued to support their country’s foreign policy and military stances, the internaConclusion 229
tional climate of opposition to U.S. dominance in world affairs rendered the “unofficial ambassador” persona, purported to represent the altruistic and friendly intentions of the United States, less credible. More overtly expressed resentment from abroad coincided with the entrenchment of military communities, a reduced number of family members in host nations overall, and an increase in U.S. armed forces personnel. By the mid-1960s, many overseas U.S. military communities had existed for two decades. The construction of more on-base housing for families, the decline of the dollar abroad, pressure on military personnel and families to buy American products in order to reduce the outflow of gold, and the growing hostility of local peoples toward Americans discouraged contacts between Americans and residents of host nations.11 Between 1960 and 1970, as U.S. military involvement and expenditures in Vietnam increased and U.S. foreign policy grew ever-more unpopular, the number of service family members abroad worldwide declined from over 462,000 to approximately 318,000, a decrease of about thirty-one percent.12 A smaller population of families abroad likely would have resulted in fewer opportunities for informal interactions between military wives and children and residents of host nations. While the population of families contracted, the presence of armed forces personnel outside of the United States climbed from 685,582 in 1960 to over one million in 1968, the year that the number of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen in Vietnam peaked.13 Thus, family members became less numerous as the hard-power facet of the U.S. military became more prominent abroad, especially in Asia. Moreover, the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s affected many members of military families and how they viewed the United States in relation to the rest of the world. Youth from military families were of a generation that challenged the nation’s international policies and actions. Many children of the 1950s who had been socialized to oppose communism became the young adults of the 1960s who protested what they considered abuses of U.S. power abroad. Some children who had grown up with the military supported the Vietnam War while others opposed it, even when doing so caused familial strife.14 Military wives, like their children, experienced social and cultural transformations that altered their attitudes toward the U.S. military and their conceptions of their role in it. While many military wives supported the Vietnam War, some questioned U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, while others opposed it outright. The resurgent feminist movement influenced many women. In her study of wives of military personnel who served in the Vietnam War, historian Elizabeth Brown finds that many in the younger generation were more inclined than previous wives to work for 230 Conclusion
pay outside the home and pursue personal ambitions rather than perform unpaid service to the military. According to Brown, these women “recognized the gendered script for service spouses and did not accept it as part of their identities as women.”15 As was the case for women in the civilian population, military wives increasingly entered the paid labor force in the 1970s.16 Paid employment outside the home would have reduced the time that otherwise might have been spent on volunteer work and women’s club activities. Despite the substantial changes of the 1960s and 1970s, however, contacts between Americans and local peoples never disappeared, and whether “superficial” or involved, one must not dismiss such interactions as insignificant and unworthy of study. Since the 1940s, those who advocated maintaining service families abroad had defended their position against critics who bemoaned the expense to American taxpayers, the perceived dangers to American women and children in foreign countries, and the alleged drag on military readiness. In 2004, well over a decade after the end of the Cold War and the subsequent closure of numerous overseas bases, just over 200,000 spouses, children, and other relatives of servicemen and servicewomen resided abroad.17 Each year between 1989 and 1993, the U.S. Congress approved joint resolutions to designate a “National Military Families Recognition Day” which stated the benefits to the armed forces, and the nation as a whole, of maintaining military families abroad. Assumptions that “the emotional and mental readiness of the United States military personnel around the world is tied to the well-being and satisfaction of their families,” and that military families “have supported the role of the United States as the military leader and protector of the Free World,” had influenced official decisions to continue maintaining families abroad in the first decades of the Cold War.18 In August 2004, however, President George W. Bush announced in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars preliminary plans for “a new global posture” that would reduce the number of military personnel stationed abroad by up to 70,000, and “family members and civilian employees” by approximately 100,000. Besides creating a “more agile and flexible force,” Bush said, the realignment would result in savings to taxpayers, and also “greater stability” for military families because service personnel would spend more time in the United States and family members would move and change jobs less frequently.19 In promoting the new policy as beneficial to military families, the Bush administration assumed that maintaining them in the United States was preferable to life abroad, in contrast to early Cold War era military wives’ arguments that living overseas enhanced their children’s upbringing and also offered unparalleled opportunities for Americans as family members to strengthen relations between the United States and the peoples of other Conclusion 231
nations. Of course, government officials’ views of how to best conduct military missions and promote readiness always prevailed over the preferences of families. Between the late 1940s and 1960s, when the Soviet Union was the United States’ chief rival, military family members and officials could make a strong (if contested) case for sending hundreds of thousands of family members abroad to join service personnel at strategic locations to counter perceived communist threats from nation-states. But to those making policy in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, having fewer families abroad was more advantageous to military readiness and the national interest than in earlier decades. The needs of military families now received more attention from government officials (but still were not adequately addressed, according to scholars and advocates of the families), although the idea of military families as useful for diplomatic aims had declined from its mid-twentieth-century high point. The armed forces still, however, expected volunteer work from wives, even though more held jobs outside the home than in earlier decades. A study of Army officers’ wives volunteerism found that at Fort Stewart, Georgia, their unpaid labor for fiscal year 1997 was valued at more than four million dollars.20 Did American military families in the first two decades of the Cold War succeed in projecting good will and understanding, and in forging friendships with people of other nations? Those who made the effort generally did succeed. Does it follow that American families helped persuade local people to support the U.S. military presence and U.S. Cold War goals? This is harder to demonstrate; it appears that while some local people enjoyed interacting with American military family members, or took advantage of employment opportunities, they did not necessarily accept the military bases that brought American families to their homeland, nor did they uncritically accept U.S. foreign relations aims. Some residents of countries that housed U.S. bases no doubt appreciated certain aspects of American families’ presence: charity, employment in U.S. schools and in American homes, income from shopping and family tourism, cultural exchange, friendship. Others resented what they perceived as Americans’ ostentation, insensitivity, immorality, or imperialism.21 The broadest generalization that can be made in response to these questions is that reactions to the presence of American military families overseas often were complex, and depended on local social, economic, and political conditions, as well as the larger international context. For example, West Germans tended to have a much more (though not always) positive view of U.S. bases and military families than did Okinawans, for a number of reasons. Germans and Americans found more cultural commonality than did Americans and Okinawans, and Americans were far 232 Conclusion
more likely to treat Okinawans as inferior “others.” West Germans’ proximity to Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe no doubt made them acutely aware of the possibility of communist expansion, and therefore at least somewhat appreciative of the U.S. military presence on guard to prevent that. Okinawans, on the other hand, seemed less concerned about communist encroachment, and felt betrayed by mainland Japan and exploited and maltreated by the U.S. government which looked upon Okinawa as first and foremost a strategic Cold War island. Still, even Junko Isa, the Okinawan woman we met in chapter 5 who opposed the U.S. military presence, said that “It’s hard to be 100 percent for or against anything here. Maybe that’s difficult for outsiders to understand, but that’s the reality in Okinawa.”22 In our attentiveness to the complexity of responses to U.S. military bases and families, we should neither unquestioningly accept American accounts that portray relations with local peoples in an overwhelmingly positive light; nor should we go to the other extreme and assume that all residents of occupied and host nations resented and even despised the U.S. military presence, including its American families. In any case, interpersonal encounters were always conditioned by geopolitical contexts which created fundamental power imbalances between Americans and nonAmericans. Such encounters could bolster or mitigate U.S. dominance, but could never exist apart from it.
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Notes
another approach, the study of women in international development, to more fully comprehend global production and relations 1. Several examples include and women’s roles in these (121– Frank Costigliola, “‘Unceasing Pressure for Penetration’: Gender, 123). 4. Joanne Meyerowitz, “BePathology, and Emotion in yond the Feminine Mystique: A George Kennan’s Formation of Reassessment of Postwar Mass the Cold War,” The Journal of Culture, 1946–1958,” in Not American History 83 (March June Cleaver: Women and Gen1997): 1309–1339; Robert D. der in Postwar America, 1945– Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: 1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz Gender and the Making of Cold (Philadelphia: The University War Foreign Policy (Amherst: Press, 1994), 241. University of Massachusetts 5. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Press, 2001); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Mak- Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Publiing Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley: Univer- cAffairs, 2004), 5–9; see also Bound to Lead: The Changing sity of California Press, 1989), Nature of American Power (n.p.: and Maneuvers: The InternaBasicBooks, 1990), and The tional Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berkeley: Univer- Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Supersity of California Press, 2000); power Can’t Go It Alone (OxKristin Hoganson, Fighting for ford: Oxford University Press, American Manhood: How Gen2002). der Politics Provoked the Span6. Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War ish-American and PhilippineCivil Rights: Race and the Image American Wars (New Haven, of American Democracy (PrinceConn.: Yale University Press, ton, N.J.: Princeton University 1998); Andrew J. Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States Press, 2000); Yukiko Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms and the and India, 1947–1964 (Ithaca, U.S. Occupation of Japan (New N.Y.: Cornell University Press, York: Columbia University Press, 2000); and Molly M. Wood, 1999); Brenda Gayle Plummer, “Diplomatic Wives: The Politics “Brown Babies: Race, Gender, of Domesticity and the ‘Social and Policy after World War II,” Game’ in the U.S. Foreign Serin Window on Freedom: Race, vice, 1905–1941,” Journal of Women’s History 17, no. 2 (Sum- Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945–1988 (Chapel Hill: The mer 2005): 142–165. 2. Joan Wallach Scott, Gender University of North Carolina and the Politics of History (New Press, 2003); Heide Fehrenbach, York: Columbia University Press, Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Postwar Ger1988), 2, 11, 32, 48. many and America (Princeton, 3. Emily S. Rosenberg, “GenN.J.: Princeton University Press, der,” The Journal of American 2005). History (June 1990): 116, 118– 7. Charlotte Wolf, Garrison 119. Rosenberg encourages still notes to the introduction
Community: A Study of an Overseas American Military Colony (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1969). 8. Martha Gravois, “Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Wiener Schnitzel: Army Families in Germany (1946–1986)” (M.A. thesis, Shippensburg University, 1986); and “Military Families in Germany, 1946–1986: Why They Came and Why They Stay,” Parameters 16, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 58. 9. These include John Gimbel, A German Community under American Occupation: Marburg, 1945–52 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961); Johannes Kleinschmidt, Do Not Fraternize: die schwierigen Anfänge deutsch-amerikanischer Freundschaft, 1944–1949 (Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1997); Dewey A. Browder, Americans in Post-World War II Germany: Teachers, Tinkers, Neighbors and Nuisances (Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1998); John Willoughby, Remaking the Conquering Heroes: The Social and Geopolitical Impact of the Post-War American Occupation of Germany (New York: Palgrave, 2001); Maria Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins: The GermanAmerican Encounter in 1950s West Germany (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002); and John P. Hawkins, Army of Hope, Army of Alienation: Culture and Contradiction in the American Army Communities of Cold War Germany (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001). 10. Petra Goedde, GIs and Germans: Culture, Gender, and Foreign Relations, 1945–1949
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(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins. 11. Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, revised and updated edition (n.p.: Basic Books, 1988, 1999). 12. Anni P. Baker, American Soldiers Overseas: The Global Military Presence (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004), 58–60. 13. Erving Goffman, “The Nature of Deference and Demeanor,” American Anthropologist, n.s., 58, no. 3 (June 1956): 497. 14. The following figures appeared in a discussion of Defense Department policy proposed in December 1960: the Army had 248,788 dependents overseas; the Air Force had 197,438; and the Navy had 37,837. Fred Lardner, Capital Command Post, “What about Life without Father,” U.S. Lady, January 1961, 12.
7. Diggins, The Proud Decades, 23, 45; Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 43, 51; John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 295–299. 8. John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 47–49. 9. Diggins, The Proud Decades, 61. 10. Edwin M. Martin, The Allied Occupation of Japan (New York: American Book-Stratford Press, 1948), 5; Harold Zink (Former Chief Historian, US High Commissioner for Germany), The United States in Germany, 1944–1955 (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1957), 6. 11. US Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, American Military History, ed. Maurice Matloff (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1969), 533–535; Dower, Embracing Defeat, 73–80. notes to chapter 1 12. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 1. Rose McClain to Charles 76, 529; John Gimbel, The McClain, 14 August 1945, in American Occupation of GerSince You Went Away: World many: Politics and the Military, War II Letters from American 1945–1949 (Stanford, Calif.: Women on the Home Front, eds. Stanford University Press, Judy Barrett Litoff & David C. 1968), 13. Smith (New York: Oxford Uni13. Dower, Embracing Defeat, versity Press, 1991), 272–273. 21; US Army, Office of the Chief 2. Betty Maue to Ario Pacelli, of Military History, American 15 August 1945, in Litoff & Military History, 535. Smith, Since You Went Away, 14. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 270. 48–58; Lucius D. Clay, Decision 3. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Volume One: Year of Decisions Doubleday & Co., 1950), 15– (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday 16, 25, 100, 231–235. & Co., 1955), 509. 15. Zink, The United States in 4. John Patrick Diggins, The Germany, 352–353. Proud Decades: America in War 16. Captain [name withheld], and in Peace, 1941–1960 (New 660th FA Bn., letter, “OccupaYork: W. W. Norton, 1989), 48, tion Neurosis,” The B Bag, Stars 51, 52; Eric Hobsbawm, The Age and Stripes, 20 November 1945, of Extremes: A History of the Germany ed., p. 2. This newspaWorld, 1914–1991 (New York: per declared itself the “Unofficial Vintage Books, 1994), 24. Paper of U.S. Armed Forces in 5. Ben J. Wattenberg, The Sta- the European Theater.” tistical History of the United 17. In 1949, an allied “civilStates: From Colonial Times to ianized” High Commission govthe Present (New York: Basic ernment, operating according to Books, 1976), 1140, Series Y an “Occupation Statute” (in 856–903, “Selected Characteris- place until 1952), replaced the tics of the Armed Forces, by military occupation government. War.” Although citizens of the newly 6. Wattenberg, Statistical His- created Federal Republic of Gertory, 1140, Series Y 856–903. many (West Germany) achieved
236 Notes to the Introduction
greater self-government over the next few years, West Germany did not achieve full sovereignty until 1955. Frank A. Ninkovich, Germany and the United States: The Transformation of the German Question since 1945, updated edition (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 72, 92, 186, 188; also see Daniel J. Nelson, A History of U.S. Military Forces in Germany (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987), 53. 18. “State Dept. in Dark On M’Arthur Plan to Cut Japan Force,” Stars and Stripes, 19 September 1945, Germany ed., pp. 1, 8; D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, Volume 3: Triumph and Disaster, 1945– 1964 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), 18–21. 19. “If East Force Can Be Cut, So May Army in ETO, According to Truman,” Stars and Stripes, 20 September 1945, Germany ed., p. 1; “‘U.S. to Keep Enough Men for Critical Commitments, That’s All,,’ President Says,” Stars and Stripes, 21 September 1945, Germany ed., p. 5; Truman, Memoirs, 520; James, The Years of MacArthur, 18. 20. William M. Tuttle, Jr., “Daddy’s Gone to War”: The Second World War in the Lives of America’s Children (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 20; Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, revised and updated edition (n.p.: Basic Books, 1988, 1999), 33. 21. May, Homeward Bound, 50. 22. Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” 18, 20, 21, 25–26, 31; May, Homeward Bound, 50. 23. Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” 20–21, 31. 24. Thelma Thurston Gorham, “Negro Army Wives,” The Crisis, January 1943, 21; Betty Sowers Alt and Bonnie Domrose Stone, Campfollowing: A History of the Military Wife (New York: Praeger, 1991), 98–103; Barbara Klaw, Camp Followers: The Story of a Soldier’s Wife (New York: Random House, 1944); Betty Utley St. John, Excess Baggage: Letters of an Army Wife (New York: Hastings House Publishers, 1943).
25. James R. Blaker, United States Overseas Basing: An Anatomy of the Dilemma (New York: Praeger, 1990), 9–20, 29– 34, 43. 26. Wattenberg, Statistical History, 1140, Series Y 856–903. 27. John Morton Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 102–103, 200; Felix M. Gentile, “The Effects of War upon the Family and Its Members,” Psychiatry 6 (1943): 39–40; Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” 19; Doris Weatherford, American Women and World War II (New York: Facts on File, 1990), 277–279. 28. Catherine Redmond, Handbook for Army Wives & Mothers, and for Daughters, Sisters, Sweethearts, Grandmothers and All American Women Who Have a Soldier away at War (Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal/Penguin Books, 1944), 82–87. 29. Charles P. Krick, Personal Problems of Servicemen and Servicewomen and Dependents in Marriage, Divorce and Their Allotments (Philadelphia: George T. Bisel Co., 1943), 50–53; Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” 70. 30. May, Homeward Bound, 50. 31. Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” 71. 32. Redmond, Handbook for Army Wives and Mothers, 81– 85, 87, 88, 90. 33. Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” 69–72; Hoover quoted in Tuttle, 70; May, Homeward Bound, 64–65. 34. Blum, V Was for Victory, 100–102. 35. May, Homeward Bound, 49–50. 36. May, Homeward Bound, 59, 65–66; Sherna Berger Gluck, Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War and Social Change (New York: Meridian, 1988), 16–17. 37. Truman, Memoirs, 506; Louise [Mrs. Alf] Heiberg to President Harry Truman, 12 November 1945, White House Central Files: Official File 190-N, Truman Papers, Truman Library (TL).
38. “Dependency Office Gets Pleas for GI Releases,” Stars and Stripes, 26 September 1945, Germany ed., p. 5. 39. “‘Idle, Single Men’ Will Not Hurry to Join, Ladies,” Stars and Stripes, 13 November 1945, Germany ed., p. 5. 40. “Babies’ Yowls Quieted as Dads Stay Home,” Stars and Stripes, 23 December 1945, Germany ed., p. 5. Also see Martha Gravois, “Military Families in Germany, 1946–1986: Why They Came and Why They Stay,” Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College 16 (Winter 1986): 57–67. 41. Captain R. Hope, letter, “Would-Be Pops Unite,” The B Bag, Stars and Stripes, 12 December 1945, Germany ed., p. 2. 42. “Ike Cites Need for ETO Army,” Stars and Stripes, 15 November 1945, Germany ed., p. 5. 43. “Dad Draft Halted; 100,000 EM Eligible for Jan. 1 Discharge on Points, Service,” Stars and Stripes, 21 December 1945, Germany ed., p. 1. 44. “Release of Fathers, Stepping up of Draft Urged by June 30,” Stars and Stripes, 26 January 1946, Germany ed., pp. 1, 8. 45. “Wives Corner Ike in Capital, Demand Husbands’ Release,” Stars and Stripes, 24 January 1946, Germany ed., p. 5. 46. “Release of Fathers,” Stars and Stripes, 26 January 1946, Germany ed., pp. 1, 8. The War Department announced later that it would not be possible to release all fathers by 1 July 1946, and estimated that by that date approximately 120,000 fathers would continue to serve in the Army. “July 1 Releases of Drafted Dads Rejected by WD,” Stars and Stripes, 9 February 1946, Germany ed., pp. 1, 8. 47. Dwight Eisenhower to Mamie Eisenhower, 12 May 1945, Letters to Mamie, ed. John S. D. Eisenhower (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1978), 253. 48. Dwight Eisenhower to George Catlett Marshall, 4 June 1945, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 6, Occupation, 1945, eds. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Louis Galambos, Stephen E. Ambrose, et al. (Balti-
more: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), document no. 126, 134–135. 49. Mary L. Haynes, “Why Are Army Dependents Overseas?” Staff Support Study, US Army Center of Military History (1988), 2; US Department of Defense, “Dependents Overseas: Report to Congress” (1988), 1. 50. Eisenhower to Marshall, 4 June 1945, Eisenhower Papers, 134–135. 51. Eisenhower Papers, 135, n. 1; D. Eisenhower to G. Marshall, 9 June 1945, Eisenhower Papers, document no. 139, 150. 52. D. Eisenhower to M. Eisenhower, 9 June 1945, Letters to Mamie, 258–259. 53. The following documents are in Statements and Speeches, vol. 3 (79th Congress, 1945– 1946), Margaret Chase Smith Library: Margaret Chase Smith, M.C., to Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War, 29 May 1945, 414; Transcript of WMAL broadcast, Margaret Chase Smith & Mrs. Dolores Morgan, 1 July 1945, “The Washington Story,” 433–434; Transcript of WMAL broadcast, Ruth Crane & Margaret Chase Smith, 5 July 1945, 451–452 (here Smith mentions that she initially asked Secretary of War Stimson “four months ago” [ca. March 1945] to consider sending wives and fiancées abroad after the war). See also US Air Forces in Europe, Headquarters, Historical Division, Problems of USAFE Dependents 1946–1951 (Wiesbaden, Germany, 1953), 1 (formerly classified as a “secret” report). 54. Clarence R. Comfort, Jr., Chaplain, Captain, AAF to Colonel Harry Vaugh[a]n, 1 August 1945, White House Central Files, Official File 190-Y, Truman Papers, TL. 55. European Command [EUCOM], Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, 1947), 2–3. 56. EUCOM, Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy, 28–29. 57. Eisenhower Papers, 150, n. 2; also see Harry H. Vaughan, Brigadier General, U.S. Army, to Captain Clarence R. Comfort, Jr.,
Notes to Chapter 1 237
1 September 1945, White House Central Files: Official File 190-Y, Truman Papers, TL. 58. USAFE, Headquarters, Historical Division, Problems of USAFE Dependents, 2. 59. United States Army Forces, Pacific, General Headquarters, Public Relations Office, “Identity of Condemned Soldier Revealed,” 14 January 1946, and “Hicswa’s Mother Appeals to Gen MacArthur for Clemency,” 30 January 1946, RG 331, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers [SCAP], Allied Council for Japan, Public Information Section, box 24, folder “1946 Court Martials,” National Archives College Park [NACP]. 60. Cornelius DeForest to Julia DeForest, 14 Dec 1945 & 31 Dec 1945, Cornelius DeForest Papers, US Army Military History Institute Archives [USAMHI]. 61. US Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, American Military History, 530. 62. Truman, Memoirs, 509. 63. Oliver J. Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of Germany, 1945–1953 (United States Army, Europe, Headquarters, Historical Division, 1953), 51. 64. Wattenberg, Statistical History, 1141, Series Y 904–916, “Military Personnel on Active Duty: 1789 to 1970”; US Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, American Military History, 530. 65. D. Eisenhower to Geoffrey Keyes, 24 October 1945, Eisenhower Papers, document no. 424, 475–476. 66. Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of Germany, 46–52, 99–110, 185–186. 67. Zink, The United States in Germany, 116, 136, 138–140; US Army, European Command [EUCOM], Historical Division, Morale and Discipline in the European Command, 1945–1949 (Karlsruhe, Germany: 1951), i, 1, 3–6, 62 (formerly classified as a “secret” document). 68. Franklin M. Davis, Jr., Come As a Conqueror: The United States Army’s Occupation of Germany, 1945–1949 (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1967), 114, 171.
238 Notes to Chapter 1
69. US Army, EUCOM, Historical Division, Morale and Discipline, 6; also see Petra Goedde, GIs and Germans: Culture, Gender, and Foreign Relations, 1945–1949 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 84–85. 70. Arnold G. Fisch, Jr., Military Government in the Ryukyu Islands, 1945–1950 (Washington, D.C.: US Army Center of Military History, 1988), 82. 71. “Okinawa Junk Heap,” Life, 19 Dec 1949, 23. 72. M. D. [Morton] Morris, Okinawa: A Tiger by the Tail (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1968), 60. 73. Postwar same-sex relations between service personnel and residents of foreign countries surely existed, though I have found no mention of this in the primary sources used here. Allan Berube discusses same-sex encounters between American servicemen overseas and locals during World War II in various cities (Manila, Cairo, Algiers, Naples, Paris, and London), in Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two (New York: The Free Press, 1990), 192. 74. US Army, 320th Hq. Intelligence Detachment Hqs. 9th Inf. Div. Consolidated Intelligence Report, 23 November 1945, “General Survey: General Attitude of Civilians toward US Troops and Occupation Forces” (4 December 1945), 3, Miscellaneous Files, “Germany-Occupation,” USAMHI. 75. Zink, The United States in Germany, 143. 76. US Army, Military Intelligence Report, Team No. 395, Kreises Muehldorf & Altoetting, 21 November 1945, “General Survey,” 5, USAMHI. 77. Goedde, GIs and Germans, 91. 78. US Army, EUCOM, Historical Division, Morale and Discipline, 78–79. 79. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 123–130. 80. Morris, Okinawa, 102. 81. Morris, Okinawa, 60–61; Dower, Embracing Defeat, 130; US Army, EUCOM, Historical Division, Morale and Discipline, 76–78. According to Franklin
Davis, in July 1946 “the [European] theater rate [of venereal disease among US military personnel] was 191 per thousand per year, and while vigorous command efforts, the tracking down of contacts, and improved soldier orientation helped to reduce this rising trend, venereal disease was a debilitating occupation problem, the incidence among some outfits running over one thousand per one thousand men per year” (Come as a Conqueror, 171). 82. Davis, Come as a Conqueror, 117; Goedde, GIs and Germans, 94. Harold Zink quotes a 1956 New York Times article which gave the figure of children left behind by American soldiers as approximately 37,000, and notes that higher estimates existed. Zink, The United States in Germany, 1944–1955, 138. 83. Elizabeth Anne Hemphill, The Least of These: Miki Sawada and Her Children (New York: John Weatherhill, 1980), 80–89; Helga Emde, “An ‘Occupation Baby’ in Postwar Germany, in Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, eds. May Opitz, Katharina Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schultz (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1992 [originally published in German in 1986]), 101–102. Also see Heide Fehrenbach, Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005) on German and American responses to Afro-German children. 84. “War Babies of Japan,” Ebony, September 1951, 17. 85. EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 2; Clay, Decision in Germany, 71. 86. EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 2; US Air Forces in Europe, Problems of USAFE Dependents, xvi–xvii. 87. Davis, Come as a Conqueror, 191; Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of Germany, 111. 88. EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 1–2; Krick, Personal Problems of Servicemen and Servicewomen, 7–8. On the relationship between families and the morale
of servicemen in Europe in later years, see D. J. Hickman, United States Army, Europe [USAEUR], Headquarters, Operations Division, Historical Section, The United States Army in Europe, 1953–1963 (1964): “Since having dependents in Europe probably boosted the morale of married personnel more than anything, USAEUR sought to keep family separations to a minimum” (100); and “The basic argument for bringing the wives and children of US Army personnel to Europe, advanced shortly after the end of WWII, was that their presence would have a favorable impact upon troop morale” (208). 89. EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 4–6. 90. Charles G. Heitzeberg, War Department, Office of the Chief of Staff, Memorandum for General Vaughan, 21 November 1945, White House Central Files: Official File 190-N, Truman Papers, TL. 91. US Army Forces, Pacific, General Headquarters, subject “Movement of Dependents to Japan,” 10 February 1946, RG 331, SCAP Civil Historical Section, Administrative Division, box 3277, NACP. 92. “Shipment to ETO of GIs Families to Start in April,” Stars and Stripes, 1 February 1946, Germany ed., p. 1. News coverage of discussions and plans to send families abroad had appeared in Stars and Stripes, Germany ed., well before the initiation of the application process. See “Ike Seeks Plan on GI Wives,” 2 October 1945, p. 1; “Wives to Japan?” 15 November 1945, p. 8; “Ike Favors Wives Coming to ETO,” 22 November 1945, p. 1; “Some GI Wives May See Japan,” 25 December 1945, p. 5. 93. War Department, Circular No. 98, “Overseas Movement of Dependents,” 30 March 1946, RG 331, SCAP Civil Historical Section, Administrative Division, box 3277, NACP; EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 32–34; Headquarters, US Forces European Theater, Circular 17, “Procedure Given for Asking Transportation of Dependents,” Official Bulletin,
in Stars and Stripes, 9 February 1946, Germany ed., p. 2; R. B. Marlin, War Department, Office of the Chief of Staff, Memorandum for General Vaughan, 7 June 1946, White House Central Files: Official File 190-Y, Truman Papers, TL; Davis, Come as a Conqueror, 190–191; Elizabeth Land & Carroll Glines, Jr., The Complete Guide for the Serviceman’s Wife (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956), 182. The 1 February 1946 article in Stars and Stripes on sending families overseas stated that “only dependents of officers, the first three grades of enlisted men and certain civilians will be eligible” (“Shipment to ETO,” p. 1). Over the next few months, however, policymakers discussed and altered the priority system so that rank was not a direct factor. See EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 23–28, 32–34; for an earlier discussion of rank and sending families abroad, see D. Eisenhower to G. Marshall, 24 October 1945, Eisenhower Papers, document 423, 474–475. 94. EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 20–23, 39–42, 61–65; Davis, Come as a Conqueror, 188–189; and the following documents in RG 331, SCAP, Allied Council for Japan, Public Information Section, box 24, folder “Dependents 1946,” NACP: US Army Forces, Pacific, General Headquarters, “Movement of Dependents to Japan”; and US Army Forces, Pacific, General Headquarters, Public Relations Office, “Work Begun on First Housing Project for US Dependents,” 21 March 1946. 95. “Uniting Families Abroad,” US News & World Report, 15 February 1946, 24. 96. EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 39–42; Davis, Come as a Conqueror, 191–193; and the following documents in RG 331, SCAP, Allied Council for Japan, Public Information Section, box 24, folder “Dependents 1946,” NACP: “Department Stores to Be Opened for GIs, Civilians,” 9 April 1946; SCAP General Headquarters to Imperial Japanese Government, memorandum, subject “Housing Program for Occupation Forces and Their Depen-
dents,” 6 March 1946; “200 Refrigerators Delivered at Yokohama from Philippines,” 1 June 1946; “Baby Foods to Be Brought Here for Army Families,” 17 June 1946. 97. US Army Forces, Pacific, SCAP General Headquarters to Applicants for Dependent Housing in Tokyo Area, memorandum, subject “Information Regarding Movement of Dependents to the Tokyo Area,” 6 April 1946, RG 331, SCAP Civil Historical Section, Administrative, box 3277, NACP; EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 69–71; US Army Europe [USAEUR], Headquarters, Historical Division, The Dependents’ School Program of the US Army, Europe (1958), 4– 5, RG 407, Adjutant General’s Office, NACP. 98. Transportation Section, Headquarters Military District of Washington, What Is Your Destination? (Washington, D.C., ca. 1946); “Movement of Dependents to Tokyo”; US Army Forces, Pacific, General Headquarters, Headquarters and Service Group, Memorandum No. 8, 3 July 1946, RG 331, SCAP Economic and Scientific Section, Industry Division, box 7306, folder “Movement of Dependents and Dependent Housing, 1945– 1950,” NACP. 99. War Department Circular No. 98; Transportation Section, What Is Your Destination? 1, 15–32. 100. Mrs. Cecil B. [Bernadine] Lee, “Army Wife in Japan,” 1–2, RG 331, SCAP, Allied Council for Japan, Public Information Section, box 24, folder “Dependents 1946,” NACP. A published version of this document, with photographs, appeared in Army Information Digest, December 1946. 101. Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 437; C. DeForest to J. DeForest, 14 July 1946, DeForest Papers. 102. Davis, Come as a Conqueror, 193; EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 79–81. 103. The following documents are in RG 331, SCAP, Allied Council for Japan, Public Infor-
Notes to Chapter 1 239
mation Section, box 24, folder “Dependents 1946,” NACP: “USS Charles Carroll Arrives at Yokosuka with 22 Navy Dependents,” 21 June 1946; “Planes to Welcome Oncoming Dependents Far at Sea,” 22 June 1946; “180 Families Reunited as USAT Ainsworth Brings Dependents,” 24 June 1946; Lee, “Army Wife in Japan,” 2–3. 104. EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 92–94; Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of Germany, 166; Davis, Come as a Conqueror, 194; US Air Forces in Europe, Headquarters, Historical Division, Problems of USAFE Dependents, 39– 43, 74; Mark W. Falzini, Letters Home: The Story of an American Military Family in Occupied Germany 1946–1949 (New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2004), 9–10. 105. Lee, “Army Wife in Japan,” 3–4; Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 437–440. 106. “U.S. Officers on Okinawa Make Own Huts out of Packing Cases,” US News & World Report, 9 December 1949, 32; “Okinawa Junk Heap,” 19, 23. 107. EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 39–42; “Okinawa— Levittown on the Pacific,” Time, 15 August 1955, 18–20; Hickman, The United States Army in Europe, 222; Zink, The United States in Germany, 140–143. 108. USAFE, Problems of USAFE Dependents, 1946–1951, 145–149; Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of Germany, 166, 169; Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers [SCAP] and Far East Command, General Headquarters, Selected Data on the Occupation of Japan (n.p., 1950), 107; and the following documents in RG 331, SCAP, Allied Council for Japan, Public Information Section, box 24, folder “Dependents 1946,” NACP: SCAP General Headquarters to Imperial Japanese Government, memorandum, subject “Housing Program for Occupation Forces and Their Dependents,” 6 March 1946; “Chief Engineer GHQ Announces Progress of Housing Program,” 19 June 1946; US Army Forces, Pacific, General Headquarters,
240 Notes to Chapter 1
subj. “Press Release—Dependent Housing,” 2 August 1946; “Large Dependency Housing Project Soon to Get First Occupants,” 6 August 1946; USAFE, Problems of USAFE Dependents, 157–158; SCAP, Selected Data, 107. 109. US Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information on the Philippines (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1956), 5; US Department of the Air Force, Information on France for Air Force Personnel and Their Families (Washington, D.C.: [US GPO?], 1960), 6; US Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information: United Kingdom (Washington, D.C.: [US GPO?], 1954), 3– 4; US Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information on Spain (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1955), 2, 8. 110. US Bureau of the Census, US Census of Population: 1960, Selected Area Reports, Americans Overseas (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1964), VII, table A; & VIII, table B. For a detailed discussion of this figure, see chapter 2. 111. Vivienne Bodeau, “G.I. Economist ‘On the Economy,’” U.S. Lady, Early Summer 1957, 10–11; US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance (1953), 16; Hickman, The United States Army in Europe, 208– 209. 112. Florence Ridgely Johnson, Welcome Aboard: An Informal Guide for the Naval Officer’s Wife, 6th ed. (Annapolis, Md.: United States Naval Institute, 1964), 214.
3. USFET, Orientation Program, 18; EUCOM, Domestic Economy, 89–91. 4. George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935– 1971, vol. 1, 1935–1948 (New York: Random House, 1972), 184, 189. 5. Gallup, The Gallup Poll, 534, 562, 570. 6. Daniela Rossini, “Isolationism and Internationalism in Perspective: Myths and Reality in American Foreign Policy,” in From Theodore Roosevelt to FDR: Internationalism and Isolationism in American Foreign Policy, ed. Daniela Rossini (Staffordshire, Eng.: Ryburn Publishing, 1995), 11, 13, 16. 7. Sigrid Arne, United Nations Primer (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945), 131–132. 8. Lucius D. Clay, Decision in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1950), 263. 9. John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 93–94, 529. 10. “Marshall’s Commencement Address at Harvard University, June 5, 1947,” in The Cold War: A History through Documents, eds. Edward H. Judge and John W. Langdon (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999), 26–28. 11. George Marshall and the American Century, prod. by Daniel B. Polin and Kenneth Mandel, Great Projects Film Co., in association with the South Carolina Educational Television Network, 1994, videocassette. 12. M. J. Heale, American Anticommunism: Combating the Enemy Within, 1830–1970 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Uninotes to chapter 2 versity Press, 1990), 9, 61. 1. US Forces European Theater 13. United States Department [USFET], Information and Eduof State, Foreign Relations of the cation Service, Orientation ProUnited States: 1946, volume 6: gram for Dependents (1946), 17; Eastern Europe; The Soviet European Command [EUCOM], Union (Washington, D.C.: US Office of the Chief Historian, GPO, 1969), 708–709. Domestic Economy (Frankfurt14. John Lewis Gaddis, The am-Main, Germany, 1947), 89– United States and the Origins of 91. the Cold War (New York: Co2. US Department of the Army, lumbia University Press, 1972), Headquarters, I Corps, Depen284 (quoted), 308; Daniel Yerdents’ Housing Board, introduc- gin, Shattered Peace: The Origins tion to A Guide for Dependents of the Cold War and the Nain Kyoto (Kyoto, Japan: 1946). tional Security State (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1977), 84. 15. Warren I. Cohen, America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945–1991, vol. 4 of The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 30–31. 16. H. Schuyler Foster, Activism Replaces Isolationism: US Public Attitudes, 1940–1975 (Washington, D.C.: Foxhall Press, 1983), 41–42, 48; Yergin, Shattered Peace, 324. 17. “The Treaty of Washington (North Atlantic Treaty), April 4, 1949,” in Judge and Langdon, The Cold War, 49–52. 18. Melvyn P. Leffler, The Specter of Communism: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917–1953 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994), 85, 87, 92. 19. Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945– 2000, 9th ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002), 98. 20. Cohen, America, 63–66, 68–78; John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 71–74. 21. Yergin, Shattered Peace, 357–358, 360. 22. Yergin, Shattered Peace, 400–403, 407; “Excerpts from NSC-68 (Report to the President, April 7, 1950), in Judge and Langdon, The Cold War, 66, 68. 23. Yergin, Shattered Peace, 401, 408. 24. Ben J. Wattenberg, “Military Personnel on Active Duty: 1789 to 1970,” The Statistical History of the United States: From Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 1141, Series Y 904–916. 25. James R. Blaker, United States Overseas Basing: An Anatomy of the Dilemma (New York: Praeger, 1990), 9–20, 29– 34, 43; Melvyn P. Leffler, “AHR Forum: The American Conception of National Security and the Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945–1948,” American Historical Review 89 (April 1984): 372, 379. 26. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960 Census of Population, Vol. 1, Characteristics of the Popula-
tion, Pt. 1, United States Summary (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1961), 1–3, table 1; U.S. Bureau of the Census, US Census of Population: 1960, Selected Area Reports, Americans Overseas (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1964), VIII, table B. 27. “Our Military Forces Are Far-Flung,” Army Information Digest, May 1949, 23. 28. Colonel R. G. Stanton, “Only the Finest,” Army Information Digest, November 1947, 17–19. 29. Petra Goedde, GIs and Germans: Culture, Gender, and Foreign Relations, 1945–1949 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 50–51. 30. Jacob L. Devers, Lieutenant General, Headquarters, Sixth Army Group, Office of the Commanding General, Special Orders for German-American Relations (Europe, 1945), no page numbers. 31. [US Army], 12th Army Group, Don’t Be a Sucker in Germany! ([France?]: Imprimerie Nationale, 1945), 2. 32. Goedde, GIs and Germans, 71–77. 33. Franklin M. Davis, Jr., Come as a Conqueror: The United States Army’s Occupation of Germany, 1945–1949 (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1967), 145–146. 34. Goedde, GIs and Germans, 96. 35. Major T. P. Headen, “What Shall He Tell the Germans?” Army Information Digest, July 1946, 17–20. 36. Lieutenant Colonel Robert C. Hall, Chief, Army Assistance to GYA, Hq EUCOM, “The Army’s Role in GYA,” in The Three R’s of Occupied Germany: Rebuilding a Peaceful Industry, Rehabilitating a Peaceful Economy, Re-educating a Defeated Enemy (Washington, D.C.: Public Information Division, Department of the Army, 1948), 38. General Lucius Clay is quoted in this document. 37. Technician Fifth Grade George E. Mayo, “A Corporal in Germany,” Army Information Digest, March 1947, 9. 38. Oliver J. Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of
Germany, 1945–1953 (US Army, Europe, Headquarters, Historical Division, 1953), 135–136. 39. Georgia Lightfoot, “Teaching German Youth to Take Hold,” Army Information Digest, April 1947, 25. The author states that a newspaper notice seeking ten American soldiers to organize this club received 7,000 responses (24). 40. Captain William B. Koons, “A Soldier in Kyushu,” Army Information Digest, October 1947, 16, 18–19. 41. “GIs Help Girls Make, Collect, Scrounge Gifts,” “Bremen Yanks to Play Santa,” “Wiesbaden Wacs Plan Yule Party,” and “1945 French Santa Claus Wears ODs,” Stars and Stripes, 23 December 1945, Germany ed., 3. 42. Frederiksen, American Military Occupation of Germany, 135. 43. Suzanne Shea, “Frohliche Weihnachten,“ U.S. Lady, December 1955, 22. 44. US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, Programs and Statistics Section, The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance (1953), 63. 45. D. J. Hickman, US Army, Europe, Headquarters, Operations Division, Historical Section, The United States Army in Europe, 1953–1963 (1964), 215. 46. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), 5–9. 47. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Armed Forces Information and Education Division, A Pocket Guide to Korea (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1950), 34–36; Office of the Secretary of Defense, Armed Forces Information and Education Division, A Pocket Guide to France (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1951), 34–37, 49; Office of the Secretary of Defense, Armed Forces Information and Education Division, A Pocket Guide to the Philippines (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1955), 69–71; Office of the Secretary of Defense, Armed Forces Information and Education Division, A Pocket Guide to Germany (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1951), 63–64.
Notes to Chapter 2 241
48. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to Germany, 63– 64. 49. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to France, 44. 50. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to the Philippines, 20; Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to France, 38. 51. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960, Americans Overseas, VIII, table B. 52. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to France, 41. 53. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to Korea, 34. 54. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to the Philippines, 23, 70. 55. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to Korea, 37–48; Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to France, 52–64; Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to the Philippines, 74–75; Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to Germany, 66–71. 56. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to France, 1, 10– 11. 57. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to Korea, 21–22. 58. Secretary of Defense, Pocket Guide to the Philippines, 34–38. 59. John Hersey, A Bell for Adano (New York: Random House, 1988), VI–VII. 60. Vern Sneider, The Teahouse of the August Moon (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951), 25–26, 168. Army officer M. D. Morris wrote that The Teahouse of the August Moon “concerns American efforts to impose Western ways on the simple village life of the Okinawans at the end of World War II. Although the story appears to lampoon the MG [the US Military Government of the Ryukyus] specifically and the officer class in general, it is reasonably well based on fact. The author, Vern J. Sneider, served with the Army in MG on Okinawa during the epoch of which he wrote.” A Tiger by the Tail (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1968), 49. 61. Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 140– 141; Christina Klein, Cold War
242 Notes to Chapter 2
Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945–1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 62. Sneider, Teahouse, 66. 63. Iriye, Cultural Internationalism, 151–152. 64. Michael Sherry, In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 125–126, 499. 65. Captain Jack Lewis, “Son of 37 Fathers,” U.S. Lady, May 1956, 10–11, 55–56. A blurb on the first page declares that “This Reads Like Fiction, But It Really Happened To A Spunky Korean Boy.” 66. “The Adopted Daughter of the USS Capricornus,“ U.S. Lady, October 1957, 18. 67. Global Whirl-A-Round, U.S. Lady, July-August 1959, 37. 68. US News and World Report, however, ran a story that focused on the social problems resulting from mixed marriages. According to this article, twentyfour states prohibited “mixed marriages” between whites and blacks and often also between whites and Asians. “When Negro Servicemen Bring Home White Brides,” US News & World Report, 11 October 1957, 110– 112. 69. Lieutenant Irene S. Taylor, “Army Wives Afloat,” Army Information Digest, May 1947, 15. 70. Goedde, GIs and Germans, 101. 71. “The Truth about Japanese War Brides,” Ebony, March 1952, 17–20, 23–25. 72. Private First-Class Gilbert G. Tauber, “In Fair Verona,” U.S. Lady, February 1958, 10–11. 73. Ted Kurashige, “Wanted: A Japanese Wife,” U.S. Lady, October 1961, 8. 74. Brenda Gayle Plummer, “Brown Babies: Race, Gender, and Policy after World War II,” in Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945–1988, ed. Brenda Gayle Plummer (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 68, 75. 75. Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, rev. ed. (n.p.: Basic Books, 1988, 1999),
ix–xiv, xviii, xx–xxii, xxiii, xxiv–xxv, 17–18. 76. Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946–1958,” in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945– 1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz (Philadelphia: The University Press, 1994), 230–231, 232, 240–241. 77. Betty Sowers Alt and Bonnie Domrose Stone, Campfollowing: A History of the Military Wife (New York: Praeger, 1991). 78. Sondra Albano, “Military Recognition of Family Concerns: Revolutionary War to 1993,” Armed Forces & Society 20 (Winter 1994): 287; Eric K. Shinseki, United States Army, Chief of Staff, The Army Family: A White Paper ([Washington, D.C.?], 2003), 1–3. 79. Shauna Whitworth, “Historical Antecedents and Philosophical Foundations of Army Family Policy” (unpublished research paper, Military Family Resource Center Research Department, Springfield, Virginia, 1983), 9. 80. US Department of Defense, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, Statistical Analysis Division, “Estimated Dependents and Marital Status of Active Duty Military Personnel Worldwide—As of 31 July 1955.” 81. Alvadee Adams and John Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, November-December 1956, 4. 82. US Department of Defense, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, Statistical Analysis Division, “Active Duty Military Personnel and Their Dependents Worldwide—As of 30 September 1961.” 83. See Albano, “Military Recognition,” 289; and US Army, The Chief of Staff, “The Army Family,” White Paper, 1983. 84. Cynthia Enloe, Does Khaki Become You? The Militarization of Women’s Lives (Boston: South End Press, 1983), 48. 85. Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 2000), 35–38. 86. Shinseki, The Army Family, 1; Enloe, Maneuvers, 37. 87. Admiral Arleigh Burke, “The Navy Pitch: The Wife Anchors the Navy,” U.S. Lady, December 1955, 8. 88. Adams and Adams, The Editorial We, 4. 89. General Maxwell D. Taylor, “The Army Wife,” U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1956, 2. 90. General Nathan F. Twining, “Twentieth Century Pioneers,” U.S. Lady, April 1956, 11. 91. Enloe, Maneuvers, 37. 92. US Air Force, advertisement, “Dear Lady: The family is the real heart of the U.S. Air Force,” U.S. Lady, April 1956, 3. 93. US Air Force, advertisement, “Dear Lady: Mainstay of our freedom,” U.S. Lady, July 1958, 5. 94. US Air Force, advertisement, “Dear Lady—The Faith of your choice,” U.S. Lady, December 1958, 3. 95. USFET, Orientation Program, 18. 96. Clay, Decision in Germany, 71–72. 97. Department of the Army, introduction to A Guide for Dependents in Kyoto. 98. Arnold G. Fisch, Jr., Military Government in the Ryukyu Islands (Washington, D.C.: US Army Center of Military History, 1988), 5. 99. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 26–27. 100. US Army, Public Relations Office, Bad Nauheim: A Guide for Dependents (Bad Nauheim, Germany: Headquarters, Continental Base Section, 1947), 48. 101. For a discussion of military-sponsored activities for German youth and the 1946 creation of the German Youth Activities program, see Frederiksen, American Military Occupation of Germany, 134–135. 102. Jean Edward Smith, ed., Document 349, “Evacuation of Dependents,” 17 March 1948, Telecon TT-9218, in The Papers of General Lucius D. Clay: Germany, 1945–1949 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974),
vol. 2, book 4 (1948): 579–581. Clay recounts these communications in Decision in Germany, but gives the date of this teleconference as March 30, 1948 (358); Frederiksen, American Military Occupation of Germany, 196– 197. 103. Taylor, “Army Wife,” 2. 104. Lt. Col. Walter A. Luszki, “As Others See Us,” U.S. Lady, January 1959, 19, 44. 105. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1960 Volume I, Characteristics of the Population, Part A, Number of Inhabitants, 1–3, table 1; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960, Americans Overseas, VII, table A; and VIII, table B. 106. US Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information: United Kingdom (Washington, D.C.: [US GPO?], 1954), 3–4; US Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information on the Philippines (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1956), 3, 5; US Department of the Air Force, Information on France for Air Force Personnel and Their Families (Washington, D.C.: [US GPO?], 1960), 4–5; US Department of the Army, Information for Dependents Traveling to Overseas Areas (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1959), 35. 107. Department of the Army, Information for Dependents, 35. 108. Department of the Air Force, United Kingdom, 2–5; Department of the Air Force, France, 4–5. 109. Department of the Air Force, United Kingdom, 4. 110. Department of the Army, Information for Dependents, 35– 36, 41, 43. 111. Department of the Air Force, United Kingdom, 5; Department of the Army, Information for Dependents, 41. 112. Department of the Air Force, United Kingdom, 3, 4, 11; Department of the Air Force, France, 5; Department of the Army, Information for Dependents, 41. 113. Department of the Air Force, United Kingdom, 3, 9. 114. Department of the Air Force, Philippines, 8. 115. US Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information
on Spain (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1955), 7–8. 116. Department of the Air Force, France, 5–6, 10–11. 117. Department of the Air Force, United Kingdom, 4. 118. Department of the Air Force, Philippines, 11; Department of the Air Force, Spain, 11; Department of the Air Force, France, 5. 119. Department of the Army, Information for Dependents, 37– 38, 40. 120. Department of the Air Force, United Kingdom, 4–5. 121. John F. Kasson, Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990), 3. notes to chapter 3 1. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 40–41. 2. Hoffman, All You Need Is Love, 2–4. 3. Alvadee Adams and John Adams, The Editorial We, “A Fresh Breeze Along the Potomac,” U.S. Lady, February 1961, 4. 4. Mrs. Bob M. Pennington, Mail Call, “Dependents Vital Ambassadors,” U.S. Lady, October 1961, 50; Marie F. Nasch, Mail Call, “A Peace Corps by Any other Name,” U.S. Lady, July-August 1961, 1. 5. Hoffman, All You Need Is Love, 5. 6. Mrs. Bob M. Pennington, Mail Call, “Wives in the Peace Corps,” U.S. Lady, October 1961, 50. It looks like the editors mistakenly cited “Mrs. Bob M. Pennington” as the author of two different letters that appear in this issue’s U.S. Lady Mail Call. For one Mrs. Pennington, Renton, Washington is the location given; for the other, Riverside, California. 7. Routh Trowbridge Wilby, Mail Call, “Dependents, We Have a Challenge,” U.S. Lady, December 1959, 5. 8. Hoffman, All You Need Is Love, 1–7. 9. Major General Jeanne
Notes to Chapter 3 243
Holm, USAF (Retired), Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1982), 100, 162– 163, 289–304. 10. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1960, Selected Area Reports, Americans Overseas (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1964), Table B, p. XIII. 11. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960, Americans Overseas, Table B, p. XIII. 12. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960, Americans Overseas, Table 9, p. 51. 13. Department of the Army, “Total Army Command Negro Strength, by Command and Type of Personnel,” 16, and “Army Command Strength—Current Month” (30 November 1955), 9; Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 207–208. 14. Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1981), 568, Table 24, “Black Percentages, 1962–1968.” While the percentage of African-American enlisted personnel in the Army roughly corresponded to, or exceeded, the percentage of African Americans in the general American population (about eleven percent), black enlisted personnel, like officers, were underrepresented in the other services into the 1960s although their percentages increased overall between 1949 and 1962. In July 1949, black men and women accounted for 4.7 percent of Navy, 5.1 percent of Air Force, and 2.1 percent of Marine Corps enlisted members; in 1956, for 6.3 percent of Navy, 10.4 percent of Air Force, and 6.5 percent of Marine enlisted members; and in 1962, for 5.2 percent of Navy, 7.6 percent of Marine Corps, and 9.2 percent of Air Force enlisted members. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 395, Table 3, “Percentage of Black Men and Women,” and 568, Table 24. 15. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 385–389.
244 Notes to Chapter 3
16. War Department, Circular No. 98, “Overseas Movement of Dependents,” 30 March 1946, RG 331, SCAP Civil Historical Section, Administrative Division, box 3277, NACP; Departments of the Army and Air Force, “Finance and Fiscal Reimbursement for Transportation of Dependents,” Army Regulations No. 35–4880, Air Force Regulation No. 173–7 (December 1948), I1, I-12; US Air Forces in Europe, Dependent Travel Guide (1955), 1–2, 33; Elizabeth Land and Lt. Col. Carroll V. Glines Jr., The Complete Guide for the Serviceman’s Wife (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956), 182; John Whiteclay Chambers II, To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America (New York: The Free Press, 1987), 256, 273; Vivienne Bodeau, “G.I. Economist ‘On the Economy,’” U.S. Lady, Early Summer 1957, 11; Charles C. Moskos, Jr., The American Enlisted Man: The Rank and File in Today’s Military (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1970), 38–39, and 188– 189, Appendix 1, “Military Pay Grades and Rank Titles”; Maxwell M. Rabb to Beverly S. Lindenbaum, 4 February 1955, White House Central Files [WHCF], General Files 11-H-8, box 231, folder “Dependents of Members of the Armed Forces,” Eisenhower Library [EL]; Stephen Ailes, Under Secretary of the Army, to the Secretary of Defense, memorandum, 1 September 1961, subj. “Facts for Use in Replying to Senator Robertson’s Letter re Dependents’ Travel Overseas,” Miscellaneous Files, US Army Military History Institute [USAMHI]. 17. Fred Lardner, Capital Command Post, “What about Life without Father?” U.S. Lady, January 1961, 13. 18. Nancy Shea, “Service Etiquette,” U.S. Lady, November– December 1956, 43. 19. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960, Americans Overseas, Table 10, p. 58. Of the 165,043 female dependents ages eighteen and over, the employment status of 101,981 of them was reported; the employment status of the remaining 63,062 went unreported.
Of those reported, 95,097 were not employed in 1960; 6884 were employed. Of the women listed as unemployed in 1960, 67,927 had worked at some point since 1950; 8605 of these did not report their last occupation. 20. Lt. Ervan E. Zouzalik to the President, 6 March 1961, WHCF SF, Box 243, Folder FO 4–1 Balance of Payments 4–1-61 to 10–31–61, John F. Kennedy Library [JFKL]. 21. Shea, “Service Etiquette,” 43; Ellwyn R. Stoddard and Claude E. Cabanillas, “The Army Officer’s Wife: Social Stresses in a Complementary Role,” in The Social Psychology of Military Service, eds. Nancy L. Goldman and David R. Segal (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1976), 157–158. 22. Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 438–439; Betty Sowers Alt and Bonnie Domrose Stone, Campfollowing: A History of the Military Wife (New York: Praeger, 1991), 114. 23. Margaret C. Harrell, “Army Officers’ Spouses: Have the White Gloves Been Mothballed?” Armed Forces and Society 28, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 56. 24. Ruth Victor, “Military Men Make Miserable Husbands,” U.S. Lady, Spring 1958, 40. 25. Cynthia Enloe, Does Khaki Become You? The Militarization of Women’s Lives (Boston: South End Press, 1983), 73; Roger W. Little, “The Military Family,” in Handbook of Military Institutions, ed. Roger W. Little (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1971), 253–254; Elizabeth M. Finlayson, “A Study of the Wife of the Army Officer: Her Academic and Career Preparations, Her Current Employment and Volunteer Services,” in Families in the Military System, eds. Hamilton I. McCubbin, Barbara B. Dahl, and Edna J. Hunter (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1976), 22–23; Heather Shanklin, “Army Wives Speak Out: A Feminist Oral History,” senior thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1981 (analysis
and transcripts of tape-recorded interviews conducted with Loren E. Ruth, Jane P. Jewett, Marjorie D. McKiernon, Josephine D. Doolittle, and Catherine E. Peyton in 1980), 33, 34–35, 36, 40, 84, 94, 142, 146, Bancroft Library. 26. “Points Concerning Navy’s New Fitness Report (The OfficerWife Team Requirement),” WHCF, Subject File, Box 600, Folder ND 9 “Military Personnel 2–1-63,” JFKL; Harrell, “Army Officers’ Spouses,” 55–56; Doreen M. Lehr, “Do Real Women Wear Uniforms? Invisibility and the Consequences for the U.S. Military Wife,” Minerva 14, Iss. 3 (December 1996), online via Proquest (15 June 2005). 27. Nancy Shea, “Service Etiquette,” U.S. Lady, September 1955, 52 (bold in original); Lee Lorick Prina, “What It Takes to Be a Commanding Officer’s Wife,” U.S. Lady, October 1957, 15, 44; Susie-Lane Hoyle Armstrong, “A Word to the Wives,” Army Information Digest, June 1948, 29–30; Betty Weeks, “There’s No Rank Among Wives,” U.S. Lady, February 1964, 8–9. 28. Land and Glines, The Complete Guide for the Serviceman’s Wife, 298–299; US Army, Eighth Army, Headquarters, Yokohama, Dependents Guide to Japan (Boonjudo, Japan: Eighth Army Printing Plant, rev. 1949), “Housing.” 29. Nancy Shea, The Army Wife, rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1942). In her subsequent advice books for wives in all of the services, Shea incorporated brief guidelines on conduct with residents of occupied and host countries, but this was not as extensive as other women’s advice that appeared in U.S. Lady. See Anne Etheldra Briscoe Pye and Nancy Shea, The Navy Wife (New York: Harper, 1949, and 3rd rev. ed. 1955); Shea, The Air Force Wife (New York: Harper, 1st ed. 1951, rev. ed. 1956); Shea, The Army Wife: What She Ought to Know about the Customs of the Service and the Management of an Army Household (New York: Harper and Broth-
ers, 1954); Sally Jerome and Nancy Brinton Shea, The Marine Corps Wife (New York: Harper and Row, 1955). 30. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1960, Volume 1, Characteristics of the Population, Part A, Number of Inhabitants (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1961), 1–3, Table 1. 31. Dorothy House Vieman, Korean Adventure: Inside Story of an Army Wife (San Antonio, Texas: The Naylor Company, 1951), viii–ix, xi. 32. William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American (New York: W. W. Norton, 1958). 33. Philippe Roger, The American Enemy: A Story of French Anti-Americanism, trans. Sharon Bowman (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 79– 82. 34. Alan McPherson, Yankee No! Anti-Americanism in U.S.– Latin American Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 166; Maria Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 227–229; Richard Kuisel, Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 3, 16– 69; Ussama Makdisi, “AntiAmericanism in the Arab World: An Interpretation of a Brief History,” Journal of American History 89 (September 2002): 538– 557; “Here, There and Everywhere”: The Foreign Politics of American Popular Culture, eds. Reinhold Wagnleitner and Elaine Tyler May (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2000). 35. Douglas H. Mendel, Jr., “Japanese Views of the American Alliance,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 23, no. 3 (Autumn 1959): 329, 327, 339. 36. Douglas H. Mendel, Jr., “Japanese Attitudes toward American Military Bases,” Far Eastern Survey 28, no. 9 (Sept. 1959): 129–132. 37. Daniel J. Nelson, Defenders or Intruders: The Dilemmas of U.S. Forces in Germany (Boul-
der, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987), 68, Table 3.5; 81, Table 3.48; 83, Table 3.53; 66, Table 3.1. 38. Alvadee Adams and John Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, April 1956, 2, 39; Adams and Adams, The Editorial We, “Our Hundredth Lady,” U.S. Lady, May 1965, 4–5. 39. Frederick J. Simonelli, American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 24, 31; William H. Schmaltz, Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1999), 25–26, 56; George Lincoln Rockwell, This Time the World, 2nd ed. (New York: Parliament House, 1963), chapter IX. 40. Schmaltz, Hate, 26. 41. Adams and Adams, The Editorial We, April 1956, 2, 39. 42. U.S. Lady, June 1956, 2. 43. Mildred M. Merrifield, “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month: Mary Lee Harvey,” U.S. Lady, March 1963, 12–13, 50. 44. Moskos, The American Enlisted Man, 46. 45. M/Sgt. and Mrs. William M. Culin, Mail Call, U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1957, 43–44; Catherine Gerechten, Mail Call, U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1957, 44; Mrs. Samuel A. Bryant, Mail Call, U.S. Lady, March 1962, 3. 46. Alvadee Adams and John Adams, The Editorial We, “U.S. Lady Goes to a Conference,” U.S. Lady, November 1957, 40. This column reports on the gathering of over 500 service wives, “with prominent political and civilian leaders as their guests,” at the 19th Conference of American Women’s Activities in Europe, in Berchtesgaden, Germany. Speakers included David K. E. Bruce, the American ambassador to Germany; Simone J. Majorelle, secretary of the National Council of French Women; Hilde Heilmann, executive secretary of the German Association for International Affairs; and Heather Hodges, chief of the British Air Ministry’s community relations office. 47. Wilby, “Dependents,” 5; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power:
Notes to Chapter 3 245
The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), 7–8. 48. Jean D. Andrew, “A U.S. Lady’s World,” U.S. Lady, May 1956; John Fousek, To Lead the Free World: American Nationalism and the Cultural Roots of the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 91–92; Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946– 1958,” in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz (Philadelphia: The University Press, 1994), 241. 49. “Reporting for Duty,” U.S. Lady, May 1956, 5. 50. Land and Glines, The Complete Guide for the Serviceman’s Wife, xiii, 237. Italics in original. For more on Glines’s course for wives, see Land Kaderli [Elizabeth Land], “How the Air Force Woos Uneasy Wives,” Saturday Evening Post, 3 July 1954, 17–19, 42, 44. 51. Pat Moore, “How to Be Perfectly Miserable Overseas,” U.S. Lady, May 1958, 22, 43. 52. Chantal M. Moon, “Off on the Right Foot in France,” U.S. Lady, July 1958, 21–22. 53. Elizabeth Dallmeier LaMantia (as told to Mary Drahos), “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” U.S. Lady, March 1960, 14. 54. Sally Ramsey, “What Shall I Wear?” U.S. Lady, July–August 1961, 19. 55. Trudy Sundberg, “How to Succeed in Traveling by Really Trying,” U.S. Lady, November 1964, 7. 56. Katz questionnaire, 1999– 2000. 57. Ann Saling, “Credo,” U.S. Lady, February 1963, 16. 58. Saling, “Credo,” 16. 59. Lucius D. Clay, Decision in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1950), 71– 72; Operation Vittles Cook Book, compiled by the American women in blockaded Berlin (Germany, 1949). 60. Margery Finn Brown, Over a Bamboo Fence: An American Looks at Japan (New York:
246 Notes to Chapter 3
William Morrow, 1951), 55–58, 63–66, 76–81, 109–111. 61. Wilby, “Dependents,” 5. 62. Petra Goedde, GIs and Germans: Culture, Gender, and Foreign Relations, 1945–1949 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003), 127. 63. Brown, Over a Bamboo Fence, 51. 64. Vieman, Korean Adventure, 27. 65. Vieman, Korean Adventure, 76–77; Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs, Preliminary Inventory, Mss. 32, October 2002, <www.twu.edu/tfwc/scholarships .pdf> (17 July 2005). 66. Routh Trowbridge Wilby, “A Kimono for the Teacher,” U.S. Lady, June 1958, 18. 67. US European Command, Historical Division, The Relations of Occupation Personnel with the Civil Population (Karlsruhe, Germany, 1951), 29–34; Patricia Mauldin, “U.S. Lady-ofthe-Month Mrs. Reed H. Richards,” U.S. Lady, October 1955, 37–39; Master Sergeant Gustaf Larsson, “Aurelia Richards: U.S. Lady-of-the-Year,” U.S. Lady, January-February 1957, 34; Alvadee Adams and John Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, Spring 1957, 4. 68. Alvadee Adams and John Adams, The Editorial We, “No Ugly American Here!” U.S. Lady, January 1962, 4. Christina Klein examines numerous popular cultural representations of “both imaginary and real” adoptions of Asians by Americans after World War II. Among the texts analyzed are solicitations in magazines to donate money to orphaned and other needy Asian children (e.g., through the Christian Children’s Fund), James Michener’s book Tales of the South Pacific, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway and film musical South Pacific, and Reader’s Digest accounts of Americans’ adoptions of non-American children. Klein concludes that the adoptions “encouraged a sense of political obligation to a part of the world with which most Americans had limited ties; they assigned re-domesticated women a role in the national project of global expansion; they gave millions of Ameri-
cans a sense of personal participation in the Cold War. Perhaps most important, they affirmed that Americans, despite their nation’s history and their own prejudices, were not irredeemably racist or imperialist.” See chapter 4, “Family Ties as Political Obligation: Oscar Hammerstein II, South Pacific, and the Discourse of Adoption,” in Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945– 1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 143– 190. 69. Helen Kendrick, “Au Revoir, Mike,” U.S. Lady, April 1961, 6–7, 48–49. 70. M. Nash to J. Cochran, 16 November 1955; S. Nash to J. Cochran, 16 November 1955; M. Nash to J. Cochran, 12 December 1955; M. Nash to J. Cochran, 8 January 1956; M. Nash to J. Cochran, 15 March 1956; S. Nash to J. Cochran, 22 April 1956; S. Nash to J. Cochran, 12 September 1956; S. Nash to J. Cochran, 30 October 1956; M. Nash to J. Cochran, 20 October 1957; S. Nash to J. Cochran, 14 January [no year given; probably 1958]. All documents in Jacqueline Cochran Papers, 1932–1975, General Files Series, box 253, folders “Spain, Nash, Major and Mrs. Slade,” EL. 71. Brown, Over a Bamboo Fence, 36. 72. Wilby, “Dependents,” 5. 73. Bernadine V. Lee, “Army Wife in Tokyo,” Army Information Digest, December 1946, 15– 18, 20. 74. Betty Horn, “May Day,” U.S. Lady, May 1961, 6–7, 36, 44. 75. Ruth Bryant, “An Army Wife in Manila,” Army Information Digest, February 1948, 38. 76. Brown, Over a Bamboo Fence, 35–38, 28–31. 77. Brown, Over a Bamboo Fence, 29–30. 78. Ida M. Pardue, Take a Break, “Maid for Laughs,” U.S. Lady, September 1959, 48. 79. Vieman, Korean Adventure, 9. 80. Barbara Richardson, “Life in Korea,” Army Information Digest, May 1948, 12.
81. Shanklin, “Army Wives Speak Out,” 18. 82. Virginia Harris Hendricks, “Our Faith Goes Along,” U.S. Lady, October 1959, 16, 41. The quotation on worshipping in French churches appears in this article; the author states that it came from an Air Force pamphlet for service personnel preparing to leave for France. On service families and Christianity, see also Lonnie Hackman, “Religion to Me,” U.S. Lady, October 1955, 17. 83. “Post of the Month: Izmir, Turkey,” U.S. Lady, September 1957, 25. 84. Brown, Over a Bamboo Fence, 76–81. 85. “Post of the Month: Izmir, Turkey,” 25–26. 86. Pat Donat, “For Foreigners Only,” U.S. Lady, February 1960, 12–13, 46. 87. Virginia Ferrell Alfonte, “An Alpine Holiday for $6 per Day,” U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1956, 46–49. 88. E. Jonas Kosier, Jr., “Naples’ Culture Vultures,” U.S. Lady, September 1957, 12–13. 89. Vieman, Korean Adventure, viii. 90. “Good Neighbors in Japan,” U.S. Lady, April 1959, 36–37; “Post of the Month: Izmir, Turkey,” 25. 91. Jane Metzger, “Teacup Allies: ‘Pushbutton queens’ from the USA are winning friends in England with lectures on why we live the way we do,” U.S. Lady, January 1960, 16–17, 41. Metzger was a US Marine officer’s wife, but most of the American women involved in this group— the Embassy Wives’ Speakers Bureau—were diplomatic wives. 92. Brown, Over a Bamboo Fence, 185–203. 93. Bernadine Lee, “Army Wife in Tokyo,” 5. 94. Josephine Pope, “Pope’s Chateau: Making a Go of It for Two Years in the Farming Country of France,” U.S. Lady, June 1956, 32–34. 95. Patricia Moore, “That Yankee Lady in Old Hall Cottage,” U.S. Lady, December 1957, 8–9, 43. 96. Karal Ann Marling’s reconstruction of the debate, in As
Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 276; Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, revised and updated edition (n.p.: Basic Books, 1988, 1999), 10–12. 97. Marian Merritt, Is Like Typhoon: Okinawa and the Far East (Tokyo: The World News and Publishing Co., ca. 1955), 5; Department of the Air Force, Philippines, 5; Department of the Air Force, France, 6; US Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information on Guam (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1956), 2–3. 98. Lieutenant Colonel Margaret Chase Smith, USAFR, “Final Report on Retention Study,” 2 April 1958, file “Armed Services Committee— Air Force Retention Study by Smith,” 7–9, 28, 80, 84, 100, Margaret Chase Smith Library [MCSL]; Lauris Norstad, General, USAF, Supreme Commander Allied Powers Europe, to Senator Smith, n.d. [ca. January 1958], Lauris Norstad Papers, 1930– 1987, box 79, folder “SillenSmith,” EL. In 1966, Congresswoman Edna F. Kelly described family housing in Iceland as “horrifying.” In response, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense John J. Reed stated that “substantial Defense commitments in Southeast Asia” had caused the postponement of the construction of more suitable family housing, but that the decision had been made to resume the project. See telegram from Kelly, M.C. to the President, 22 December 1966; and Reed to Kelly, 27 December 1966, WHCF ND, Box 156, Folder ND 9–5 Housing-Quarters, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library [LBJL]. 99. The following items are located in White House Central Files, General Files 11-H-8, box 232, folders “Dependents of Members of the Armed Forces,” EL: Mrs. William L. Dunlap II to President Dwight Eisenhower, 6 December 1960; Mrs. Robert I. Wentzel to Wilber M. Brucker, Secretary of the Army, 27 August 1959; Mrs. R. Wentzel to Presi-
dent Eisenhower, 30 August 1959. The following items are located in White House Central Files, General Files 11-H-8, box 231, folders “Dependents of Members of the Armed Forces,” EL: Mrs. Ruay LaCoste to Sherman Adams, 8 September 1957; S. Adams to Mrs. R. LaCoste, 23 October 1957; Robert L. Schulz, Colonel, US Army, Military Aid to the President, to Mrs. Joseph H. McManus, 14 February 1957. 100. Brown, Over a Bamboo Fence, 151–152. 101. One of the best known and most vituperative attacks on American women appears in Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942; later editions published in 1946 and 1955), in the chapter “Common Women.” 102. Sundberg, “How to Succeed,” 7. 103. Winifred A. Frear to President Eisenhower, 11 November 1957, WHCF, General File 11-H8, box 231, folder “Dependents of Members of the Armed Forces,” EL; Elizabeth Happan, If You Marry a Soldier (New York: Vantage Press, 1955). 104. Jack A. Davis, “Emotional Problems of Service Families Living in Japan,” Social Work 5, no. 1 (January 1960): 101; Donald Robinson, “The Divorce Scandal in Our Armed Forces,” Redbook, July 1954, 31, 72; Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 474, 482–484; Little, “The Military Family,” 265. 105. Ruth A. Nuttall, “The Question of Infidelity: and here’s a Navy wife’s answer,” U.S. Lady, May 1958, 13. 106. Edwin L. Dooley, Jr., “And Hoping We’ll Meet Again: The Life of a Service Brat” (unpublished memoir, 1999), ch. 7, pp. 34–35; D. Brockman, 1st Lieutenant Psychiatrist, Unit 5, US Army, to Commanding Officer, Saga Military Government Team, Unit 5, subj. “Medical Status,” 6 May 1949 [copy], RG 331, SCAP Civil Affairs Section, Kyushu Civil Affairs Region, box 3145, folder “292—Dependents Officers—1949,” NACP; Headquarters, Chugoku Civil Affairs Region, to Chief, Chugoku Civil Affairs Region, subj. “Request
Notes to Chapter 3 247
for Early Return of Dependents,” 8 September 1950, RG 331, SCAP, Civil Affairs Section, HQ Civil Affairs Regions, miscellaneous publications file 1950, box 2436, folder “Return of Dependents to Z.I.,” NACP; Headquarters, Kyushu Civil Affairs Region, Subj. “Application for Return of Dependents,” 5 July 1951, RG 331, SCAP Civil Affairs Section, Administrative Division, Correspondence File 1951, box 2410, folder “Application for Return of Dependents—Officers—EM, 1951,” NACP. 107. Thomas F. Staton, “Diagnosing the Blues,” U.S. Lady, December 1955, 10–12, 78; Staton, “Toward Happier Marriages,” U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1956, 27–28; Staton, “Are You Sexually Mature?” U.S. Lady, Spring 1957, 12–13, 37; Victor, “Military Men,” 12–13, 40; “We Are the Women Who Wait,” Saturday Evening Post 233, no. 2 (1960): 35–36, 38–39. 108. Moskos, The American Enlisted Man, 174–175; Enloe, Khaki, 86–91; Nancy L. Goldman, “Trends in Family Patterns of US Military Personnel during the 20th Century,” in Goldman and Segal, eds., The Social Psychology of Military Service, 124, Table 1, “Number and Percentage of Active-Duty Male Personnel Who Are Married”; M. Duncan Stanton, “The Military Family: Its Future in the All-Volunteer Context,” in Goldman and Segal, eds., The Social Psychology of Military Service, 135. 109. Hamilton I. McCubbin, Barbara B. Dahl, Edna J. Hunter, “Research on the Military Family: A Review,” in McCubbin et al., Families in the Military System, 291–319. 110. Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 119–123. 111. MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 179; Sherie Mershon and Steven Schlossman, Foxholes and Color Lines: Desegregating the US Armed Forces (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 263, 271, 276–277; James H. Harvey and Roy Maurer, Jr., American
248 Notes to Chapter 3
Friends Service Committee, to Robert S. McNamara, 23 May 1966; and Harvey to the President, 26 May 1966, WHCF ND, Box 156, Folder ND 9–5 Housing Quarters, LBJL. 112. Mrs. Theodore Miles to President Dwight Eisenhower, 11 November 1957, WHCF, General Files 11-H-8, box 231, folder “Dependents of Members of the Armed Forces,” EL; Dollie M. Allen to Dwight Eisenhower, 21 September 1959, WHCF, General Files 11-H-8, box 232, folder “Dependents of Members of the Armed Forces (6),” EL; MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces, 552–553; Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 184– 186. 113. Mershon and Schlossman, Foxholes and Color Lines, 276–277. 114. Brenda Gayle Plummer, “Brown Babies: Race, Gender, and Policy after World War II,” in Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945–1988, ed. Brenda Gayle Plummer (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 75–79, 85–86; Robert Shaffer, “Women and International Relations: Pearl S. Buck’s Critique of the Cold War,” Journal of Women’s History 11, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 164; Yukiko Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms and the U.S. Occupation of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 161. 115. Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms, 161–164, 183–185, 189–190, 199–200. In 1951, in Saturday Evening Post (under the title “Army Mother”), and again in 1956, Vern Sneider published a short story on an American military community’s racism toward an Asian girl adopted by an Army couple. See “A Child of the Regiment” in A Long Way from Home and Other Stories (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1956), 171–188. 116. Plummer, Rising Wind, 208–209; Shaffer, “Buck’s Critique,” 164–166. 117. Tom Sturm, “First Assignment,” U.S. Lady, November
1957, 8–9, 44; Adams and Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, October 1958, 4; Adams and Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, October 1960, 3; Sylvia E. Stotts, “The Bridge Between,” U.S. Lady, April 1960, 6–7, 42–43; Ted Kurashige, “Wanted: A Japanese Wife,” U.S. Lady, October 1961, 8–9, 48; Adams and Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, August 1963, 6– 7; Mrs. Helen L. Gillum, Mail Call, “Will the Race Question Ever Be Settled?” U.S. Lady, September 1963, 4. 118. Laura Briggs and Christina Klein, interviewed by Gretchen Helfrich, “International Adoption,” Odyssey, Chicago Public Radio, 10 September 2004, (20 July 2005). 119. Happan, If You Marry a Soldier, 39–42, 60–62. 120. Mrs. Honour P. Brinlee to the President, 8 May 1965, WHCF ND, Box 156, LBJL. 121. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960–1961 (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1961), 862, 865; Major General R. A. Hewitt, “Reducing Individual Spending Overseas,” Army Information Digest, September 1961, 48–51; Stewart Fisher, “Good as Gold,” U.S. Lady, January 1961, 45. 122. Alvadee and John Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, January 1961, 4–5; Victor Wickersham, M.C., to the President, 25 January 1961, WHCF SF, Box 600, Folder ND 9 Military Personnel 1-20-61–9-30-61, JFKL. 123. John F. Kennedy, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1962), 12–13, 31; Lardner, “Life without Father?” 13. 124. Ernest Leiser, “U.S. Army Wives—The Big Snafu in Europe,” Collier’s, 11 August 1951, 19, 52; also see Fred Lardner, Capital Command Post, “Congress Asks, Should Overseas Wives Go Home,” U.S. Lady, October 1958, 6–7; Lardner, Capital Command Post, “A Year in Europe without Families?”
U.S. Lady, June 1962, 32–33; and Lardner, “Life without Father?” 13, in which the author puts the ratio of overseas military personnel to dependents at three to two. 125. Howard L. Burris to W. Marvin Watson, 2 February 1968, WHCF ND, Box 11, Folder ND 12/20/67–2/19/68, LBJL; “Why Johnny Comes Flying Back Home,” Business Week, 27 January 1968, 126–128, 132. 126. Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Iron Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945–1961 (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1991), xiii–xiv. 127. Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), 189. 128. Kennedy, Public Papers, 359–360; Adams and Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, May 1961, 4. 129. Margaret Wayt DeBolt, “So You’re Going Overseas,” U.S. Lady, July-August 1960, 35. 130. Dennis Wrong, “Cultural Relativism as Ideology,” Critical Review 11 (Spring 1997): 294. 131. Jessica C. E. GienowHecht, “Cultural Transfer,” in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 2nd ed., ed. Michael L. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 257–278; Carol C. Chin, “Beneficent Imperialists: American Women Missionaries in China at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” Diplomatic History 27, no. 3 (June 2003): 328– 330. 132. Barbara N. Ramusack, “Cultural Missionaries, Maternal Imperialists, Feminist Allies: British Women Activists in India, 1865–1945,” in Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, ed. Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 133. 133. Hoffman, All You Need Is Love, 5, 25. notes to chapter 4 1. Lelah Berry, as told to Ann Stringer, “An Army Wife Lives
Very Soft—in Germany,” Saturday Evening Post, 15 February 1947, 24–25, 119–120. 2. Colonel Morton P. Brooks, “Community Relations Is Everybody’s Business,” Army Information Digest, August 1960, 33– 37. 3. Manfred Jonas, The United States and Germany: A Diplomatic History (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), 287. 4. D. J. Hickman, United States Army, Europe, Headquarters, Operations Division, Historical Section, The United States Army in Europe, 1953–1963 (1964), 208. 5. US Forces European Theater [USFET], Information and Education Service, Orientation Program for Dependents (1946), 4, 10; European Command [EUCOM], Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, 1947), 89–91. 6. EUCOM, Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy, 2. 7. USFET, Orientation Program, 4, 9, 13–14; US European Command, Historical Division, The Relations of Occupation Personnel with the Civil Population, 1946–1948 (Karlsruhe, Germany, 1951), 6–7; EUCOM, Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy, 88–91. 8. Oliver J. Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of Germany, 1945–1953 (United States Army, Europe, Headquarters, Historical Division, 1953), 131. 9. USFET, Orientation Program, 9, 11, 12, 24; [US Army], 12th Army Group, Here Is Germany, RG 111, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, NWDNM(m)-111-OF-11, 1945, National Archives College Park [NACP]. 10. Franklin M. Davis, Jr., Come as a Conqueror: The United States Army’s Occupation of Germany, 1945–1949 (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1967); USFET, Orientation Program, 7, 9, 11; Harold H. Punke, “Families with Servicemen Overseas,” The Social Service Review 26 (June 1952): 178–179. 11. Vivienne Bodeau, “When
Mrs. Biddle Poured,” U.S. Lady, September 1957, 8–9, 45. The ladies’ tea imagery is also an allusion to the status of the Biddle family in Philadelphia’s high society. Arlington National Cemetery Website, 2004, (1 August 2005). 12. John Gimbel, A German Community under American Occupation: Marburg, 1945–52 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961), 56. 13. USFET, Orientation Program, 15; US European Command, Relations of Occupation Personnel, 46–47, 53. 14. Frederiksen, American Military Occupation, 135–136. 15. Georgia Lightfoot, “Teaching German Youth to Take Hold,” Army Information Digest, April 1947, 28. 16. Berry and Stringer, “An Army Wife Lives Very Soft,” 122. 17. Mary Fulbrook, The Divided Nation: A History of Germany, 1918–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 156–157; “Germany—Four Years of Occupation,” written under the direction of General Lucius D. Clay, Army Information Digest, June 1949, 4–6. 18. US European Command, Relations of Occupation Personnel, 1, 4, 7; Frederiksen, American Military Occupation, 131. 19. EUCOM, Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy, 57–58. 20. Daniel J. Nelson, A History of US Military Forces in Germany (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987), 23; Frederiksen, American Military Occupation, 166; Gimbel, Marburg, 55– 57; David Klinger, questionnaire, 1999–2000; US Air Forces in Europe [USAFE], Headquarters, Historical Division, Problems of USAFE Dependents, 1946–1951 (Wiesbaden, Germany, 1953), 58–59, 188. 21. Frederiksen, American Military Occupation, 120, 166, 169; Davis, Come as a Conqueror, 188–189; Nelson, History, 23. 22. European Command, Historical Division, EUCOM Support of Civilians (Karlsruhe, Germany, 1952), 31. The European
Notes to Chapter 4 249
Command report gave the following breakdown of all Allied families present in 1948: 8,471 families of American officers; 4,854 families of American enlisted men grades 1–3; 1,309 families of American enlisted men grades 4–7; 2,947 families of American civilians; and fiftyfour families of Allied military personnel (36). 23. Dewey A. Browder, Americans in Post–World War II Germany: Teachers, Tinkers, Neighbors and Nuisances (Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1998), 40, Table 6. U.S. Lady reported 189,117 dependents in Germany as of January 1961. Fred Lardner, Capital Command Post, “What about Life without Father,” U.S. Lady, January 1961, 13. 24. Jean Edward Smith, ed., Document 349, “Evacuation of Dependents,” 17 March 1948, Telecon TT-9218, in The Papers of General Lucius D. Clay: Germany, 1945–1949 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), vol. 2 (1948): 579–581. Clay recounts these communications in Decision in Germany, but gives the date of this teleconference as 30 March, 1948. Decision in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1950), 358. 25. Clay, Decision, 360. 26. Clay, Decision, 360, 386. 27. Hickman, The United States Army in Europe, 221. 28. Brigadier General Frank Howley, Berlin Command (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1950), Foreword, 3–6. I first discussed this in “‘Unofficial Ambassadors’: American Military Families Overseas and Cold War Foreign Relations, 1945–1965” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Davis, 2000), 190–191. 29. Wolfram F. Hanrieder, The Stable Crisis: Two Decades of German Foreign Policy (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 87; Lothar Kettenacker, Germany since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 34; Nelson, History, 30, 37. 30. Vernon Pizer & Perry Hume Davis II, Your Assignment Overseas: A Handbook for the Serviceman and His Family (New York: W. W. Norton, 1955), 134.
250 Notes to Chapter 4
Pizer and Davis said that between them they had twenty-six years of military service and had lived or traveled extensively in thirtyone foreign countries. They dedicated the book to their wives, “who have hung curtains and roasted joints of beef in many far-flung places” (ix). 31. Browder, Americans in Post–World War II Germany, 40, Table 6; Nelson, History, 40–41. 32. Maria Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 32–34, 86–89; Nelson, History, 57. 33. Daniel J. Nelson, Defenders or Intruders? The Dilemmas of US Forces in Germany (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987), 3–4. 34. Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins, 55–56. 35. Howley, Berlin Command, 3. 36. Frank A. Ninkovich, Germany and the United States: The Transformation of the German Question since 1945, updated edition (New York: Twayne, 1995), 66; Kettenacker, Germany since 1945, 34, 36; Dan Diner, America in the Eyes of the Germans: An Essay on Anti-Americanism, trans. Allison Brown (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 1996), 109. 37. Hanrieder, The Stable Crisis, 13–14, 149, 150; Hans W. Gatzke, Germany and the United States: A “Special Relationship”? (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 181; Jonas, The United States and Germany, 287, 291–292, 293. 38. Hans Peter Schwarz, “The West Germans, Western Democracy, and Western Ties in the Light of Public Opinion Research,” in The Federal Republic of Germany and the United States: Changing Political, Social, and Economic Relations, eds. James A. Cooney, et al. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), 66, 67; Nelson, Defenders or Intruders?, 81, Table 3.48, and 83, Table 3.53. 39. The following two documents are in US Department of
Defense, Communications Reflecting the Current Status of the Activities in the Armed Services under the President’s People-toPeople Program, 1959, Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Personnel Management (Lyons et al.): Records, 1953– 1961, box 119, folder “Peopleto-People, 1956–1959 (1),” Eisenhower Library [EL]: (1) Lauris Norstad, General, USAF, Commander-in-Chief, Headquarters, US European Command, to Charles C. Finucane, Chairman, Armed Services Committee, People-to-People Program, Department of Defense, enclosure “Voluntary Actions,” 19 November 1958; and (2) Hugh M. Milton II, Under Secretary of the Army, memorandum for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Personnel and Reserve, 26 November 1958, enclosure “Summary of the United States Army’s Outstanding Programs in Support of the President’s Peopleto-People Program”; Bodeau, “When Mrs. Biddle Poured,” 9, 45. 40. Frances Underwood Hamlett, “Post of the Month: Berlin,” U.S. Lady, December 1959, 23. 41. Lee Rogers Reichers, “The Wiesbaden Officers’ Wives Club: A Study of Achievement,” U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1957, 9, 41. 42. “In Tune with Home,” U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1956, 51. 43. Bodeau, “When Mrs. Biddle Poured,” 45. 44. Hamlett, “Post of the Month: Berlin,” 23; Bodeau, “When Mrs. Biddle Poured,” 9, 45. 45. Bodeau, “When Mrs. Biddle Poured,” 9; European Command, Historical Division, Negro Personnel in the European Command 1 January 1946–30 June 1950 (Karlsruhe, Germany, 1952), 160–161, US Army Center of Military History (initially classified as “secret”). 46. Vivienne Bodeau, “You Too Can Have a Child,” U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1957, 15, 42; Elsie C. Strickler, “U.S. Lady-ofthe-Month Mary E. Sawyer,” U.S. Lady, July-August 1959, 14–15; Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans
and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935– 1960 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 208–209. African Americans in the United States promoted the adoption of mixedrace babies fathered by servicemen overseas, especially in Germany and Japan (Plummer, 208). 47. “In Tune with Home,” 51. This article states that Gudrun joined the Boyle family when they moved to Arizona, but Joseph Boyle later informed U.S. Lady that Gudrun had not been able to come to the United States after all. See Capt. Joseph D. Boyle, Mail Call, “Friendly Hand Failed to Reach—Across the Sea,” U.S. Lady, January-February 1957, 47. 48. USFET, Orientation Program for Dependents, 24. 49. Dr. Sterling W. Brown, “Religious Cooperation,” in The Three R’s of Occupied Germany: Rebuilding a Peaceful Industry, Rehabilitating a Peaceful Economy, Re-educating a Defeated Enemy (Washington, D.C.: US Department of the Army, Public Information Division, 1948), 35. 50. Common Values, Common Cause: German Statesmen in the United States, American Statesmen in Germany, 1953–1983: Statements and Speeches (New York: German Information Center, 1983), 35. 51. Frederiksen, American Military Occupation, 132; Maria Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins, 61, 65. 52. Lynn Seese, “Post of the Month: Germany, FrankfurtWiesbaden Area,” U.S. Lady, Mid-Summer 1956, 57. 53. Val Bowman, “Post of the Month: Heidelberg, Germany, Headquarters, United States Army, Europe,” U.S. Lady, April 1959, 25. 54. Penne L. Restad, Christmas in America: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 57–62, 65, 108–109. 55. “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month Dorothy Carlson Easely,” U.S. Lady, November 1957, 20 (Easely was nominated for the US Lady-of-the-Month honor by Headquarters, US Army Europe); Robert G. Moeller, “War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in
the Federal Republic of Germany,” American Historical Review 101, no. 4 (October 1996): 1030. 56. Suzanne Shea, “Frohliche Weihnachten, Merry Christmas,” U.S. Lady, December 1955, 20– 22, 79. 57. Maria Höhn, GIs, Veronikas, and Lucky Strikes: German Reactions to the American Military Presence in the Rhineland-Palatinate during the 1950s (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1995), 93; also see Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins, 78. 58. Bowman, “Post of the Month: Heidelberg, Germany,” 24. 59. Reinhold Wagnleitner, Coca-Colonization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria after the Second World War, trans. Diana M. Wolf (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 44, 295. 60. Shea, “Frohliche Weihnachten,” 22. 61. Norstad, “Voluntary Actions”; Hamlett, “Post of the Month: Berlin,” 23; Bowman, “Post of the Month: Heidelberg, Germany,” 24. 62. “Dorothy Carlson Easely,” 20–21; Wagnleitner, Coca-Colonization and the Cold War, 52. 63. US Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information on Germany (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1955), 2; Joe C. Adams, “Christmas at Sea,” U.S. Lady, December 1962, 8–9. 64. US Department of Defense, Office of Armed Forces Information and Education, A Pocket Guide to Germany (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1956), 33. 65. Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins, 78. 66. “Dorothy Carlson Easely,” 43. 67. Barbara J. Griffith, “English Lesson,” U.S. Lady, MidSummer 1956, 9, 51. 68. US Department of the Army, Ambassadors All (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1952), 15; US Department of the Army, Headquarters, Information for Dependents Traveling to Oversea Areas (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1959), 40; USAFE, USAFE Dependents, 205, 224, 226, 229;
US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, US Census of Population: 1960, Selected Area Reports, Americans Overseas, X, & 56, Table 9, “Social Characteristics of Dependents of the Armed Forces Abroad, by Age and Sex, by Area, 1960— Europe and U.S.S.R.” The census did not ask whether children under fourteen years could speak the local language, although anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them did, and that perhaps young children were more likely than parents to learn foreign languages while living abroad. See chapter 6 (this volume). 69. Gene Donner, “Army Wife in Berlin,” U.S. Lady, February 1962, 14–17; Department of the Air Force, Dependents Information, 2. 70. Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins, 75–78, 84; Nelson, Defenders or Intruders?, 59. 71. Harold Zink, The United States in Germany, 1944–1955 (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1957), 140–144. 72. Hickman, The United States Army in Europe, 222; Frederiksen, American Military Occupation, 166; Bowman, “Post of the Month: Heidelberg, Germany,” 23. 73. US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, US Census of Population: 1960, Selected Area Reports, Americans Overseas, 56, Table 9. 74. Joe Adams, “Are You Naked and Don’t Know It?” U.S. Lady, September 1961, 12. 75. Elizabeth Dallmeier LaMantia (as told to Mary Drahos), “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” US Lady, March 1960, 14; Reporting for Duty, US Lady, March 1960, 47. One may speculate that LaMantia was a member of Germany’s affluent and prominent Dallmeier family, but I have not substantiated this. 76. Höhn, GIs, Veronikas, and Lucky Strikes, 119. According to Höhn, these rumors were most likely unfounded. 77. David Lodge, Out of the Shelter, revised edition with an introduction by the author (New York: Penguin Books, 1970, 1985), vii-x.
Notes to Chapter 4 251
78. Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins, 170–171. 79. Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins, 91, 95–103, 222. 80. Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins, 103, 93, 86. 81. EUCOM, Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy, 1–2; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 474, 482–484. 82. Hamlett, “Post of the Month: Berlin,” 25. 83. Bodeau, “Mrs. Biddle,” 9. 84. Ethel G. Keener, “The Russian Bear in East Berlin,” U.S. Lady, December 1959, 16– 17, 42. 85. Donner, “Army Wife,” 17. 86. Fulbrook, The Divided Nation, 195–196; Hanrieder, The Stable Crisis, 96–98. 87. Donner, “Army Wife,” 17. 88. Bob Sikes to the President, 20 July 1961, White House Central Files (WHCF), Subject File (SF), Box 600, Folder ND9 Military Personnel 1–20–61 to 8– 31–61, JFK Library (JFKL). 89. Lawrence F. O’Brien to Bob Sikes, 26 July 1961, WHCF, SF, Box 600, Folder ND9 Military Personnel, 1–20–61 to 8– 31–61, JFKL. 90. Senator A. Willis Robertson (Virginia), letter to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, 28 August 1961, US Army Military History Institute (USAMHI), Miscellaneous Files. 91. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara to the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Air Force, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, memorandum, 9 September 1961, subj. “Suspension of Movement of Dependents to Western Europe,” USAMHI, Miscellaneous Files. 92. Fred Lardner, Capital Command Post, “Overseas Dependents to Be Reduced,” U.S. Lady, October 1961, 29. Lardner mused that “Apparently [Berlin] is to be a show case, an indication that the U.S. Government is not afraid to keep dependents on the front line, or, to be more exact, surrounded by greatly superior forces. Dependents in Berlin emphasize the right of the
252 Notes to Chapter 4
United States and allied forces to be in that area.” 93. Fred Lardner, Capital Command Post, “Could Dependents in Europe Help Cause War?” U.S. Lady, September 1961, 5. 94. John F. Kennedy, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962 (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1962), 155. A month later, Associate Press Secretary Andrew T. Hatcher wrote in response to an inquiry about the travel ban that “There are many other factors aside from the question of unfavorable balance of payments which must be worked out.” Hatcher to Mrs. Marie Jeanne Everett, 20 March 1962, in WHCF, SF, Box 600, Folder ND9, 10–1-61 to 10–31–62, JFKL. 95. Nelson, History, 76–79. 96. Both of the following documents are at USAMHI, Miscellaneous Files: Lieutenant General R. L. Vittrup, Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel to the Under Secretary of the Army, memorandum, 22 December 1961, subj. “Suspension of Movement of Dependents to Western Europe”; US Army, Headquarters, Troop Information Support Unit, Army News Service, 26 April 1962, “Fact Sheet: Army Policy for Movement of Dependents to Europe.” 97. Josephine Galbraith Stacker to the President, 6 July 1962; and Ralph A. Dungan to Stacker, 16 August 1962, in WHCF, SF, Box 600, Folder ND9 10–1-61 to 10–31–62, JFKL. 98. Cabrini R. Lepis, “The Night Our President Died,” U.S. Lady, November 1967, 28–29. 99. Lepis, “The Night Our President Died,” 29. 100. Common Values, Common Cause, 57–59. 101. Hickman, The United States Army in Europe, 216, 222; Jonas, The United States and Germany, 287. Also see Joseph S. Nye, Jr.’s discussion of interdependence established between stronger and weaker states, in Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990), 197– 198.
notes to chapter 5 1. Marian Merritt, Is Like Typhoon: Okinawa and the Far East (Tokyo: The World News and Publishing Co., ca. 1955– 1956), 159. The account does not give the exact dates of the Merritts’ stay in Okinawa. Also, the book does not provide a publication date. A U.S. Lady article states that the Merritts arrived in Okinawa (for Robert Merritt’s second assignment there) in 1952 and stayed for twenty-eight months, which means they probably left sometime between 1954 and 1955. The magazine article, published in the April 1956 issue, gives the date of the book’s publication as “last March.” It also reports that the 5,000 copies of the first edition of Is Like Typhoon had “already sold out . . . on American newsstands in the Far East.” “U.S. Lady-of-the-Month: Mrs. Robert Merritt,” U.S. Lady, April 1956, 53. 2. Shannon McCune, The Ryukyu Islands (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1975), 59. 3. “The Cornerstone of Peace,” (17 January 2006); John Dower, War without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 298; see also Okinawa, Keystone of the Pacific (no author given, but this is clearly a military pamphlet). Masahide Ota states that Okinawa’s population was “less than 500,000” as of December 1944. “Re-Examining the History of the Battle of Okinawa,” in Okinawa: Cold War Island, ed. Chalmers Johnson (Cardiff, Calif.: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999), 19. 4. Merritt, Is Like Typhoon, 19. 5. For example, see Andrew J. Rotter’s very informative and absorbing analysis in Comrades at Odds: The United States and India, 1947–1964 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000). 6. Okinawa, Keystone of the Pacific, 19; US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands [USCAR], Programs and Statistics Section, The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance (1953), 16; M. D.
[Morton] Morris, Okinawa: A Tiger by the Tail (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1968), 81–82. According to George Kerr, “John Foster Dulles [as a consultant to the U.S. Secretary of State] formulated and proclaimed a doctrine of ‘residual sovereignty,’ designed to mollify the Japanese and to appease critics everywhere. The United States affirmed that Japan retained legal title to the Ryukyu Islands, although all sovereign rights and obligations were to be in abeyance as provided in Article 3 of the treaty [between the United States and Japan, signed in San Francisco in 1951]. This new doctrine implied that the United States would not recommend a trusteeship for the islands and that in good time and good faith Okinawa Prefecture would one day return to Japanese control.” Kerr, Okinawa: The History of an Island People (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1958), 15. Also see Kensei Yoshida, Democracy Betrayed: Okinawa under U.S. Occupation (Bellington: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University [2001]), 46–49. 7. US Congress, House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Report of a Special Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee, House of Representatives, Following an Inspection Tour September 16 to November 12, 1953 (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1954), 13– 14, 16. 8. McCune, Ryukyu Islands, 101. 9. Morris, Tiger, 65. 10. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Report of a Special Subcommittee, 9. 11. USCAR, The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance (1953), 2 (it is not clear whether or not these figures include US military personnel and their families, but they probably do not); McCune, Ryukyu Islands, 15, 115–116. A 1955 Time article reported a population density of 800 people per square mile. “Levittown-onthe-Pacific,” Time, 15 August 1955, 20. 12. Life Special Issue: Amer-
ica’s World Abroad, Millions of Ambassadors over the Earth, 23 December 1957, 123. Also see Yoshida, Democracy Betrayed, 67–68. 13. Johannes A. Binnendijk, “The Dynamics of Okinawan Reversion, 1945–69,” in Public Diplomacy and Political Change, Four Case Studies: Okinawa, Peru, Czechoslovakia, Guinea, ed. Gregory Henderson (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973), 93. See chapter 1 (this volume) on the seizure of farmland and servicemen’s criminal behavior. 14. Kerr, Okinawa, 6. 15. Steve Rabson, Introduction, Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas, translated and with an introduction and afterword by Steve Rabson (Berkeley: The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1989), 10. 16. “Levittown,” 20. 17. Masahide Ota, “Governor Ota at the Supreme Court of Japan,” in Okinawa: Cold War Island, 210. 18. “Levittown,” 18–20; James A. Carson, letter, Time, 12 September 1955, 12. 19. Kishaba Jun, “Dark Flowers,” trans. Steve Rabson, in Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa, ed. Michael Molasky and Steve Rabson (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000), 97–111. The novella “Child of Okinawa,” first published in 1971, also refers to the assault of a fourteenyear-old maid by an American man for whom she worked. Higashi Mineo, “Child of Okinawa,” in Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas, 95. 20. Weldon James, “How Are Things on Okinawa?” Collier’s, 12 July 1947, 18. 21. Vern Sneider, The Teahouse of the August Moon (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951), 40, 119, 18, 98, 28, 48, 108. Teahouse became a popular stage play and a movie in which Marlon Brando played the Okinawan interpreter, Sakini. See chapter 2 (this volume) for a lengthier discussion of the novel. 22. Morris, Tiger, 5, 196. Evidently, Okinawans also saw Americans as “child-like,” based
on their experiences with them. F. R. Pitts, W. P. Lebra, and W. P. Suttles, Post-War Okinawa (Washington, D.C.: Pacific Science Board, National Research Council, June 1955), 208. 23. Emily S. Rosenberg, “Gender,” Journal of American History 77 (June 1990): 119–120. 24. Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and US Foreign Policy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987), 62; 68, figure 10; 80; 84, figure 18; 87, figure 21. 25. Office of Public Affairs, Office of the High Commissioner, Section I, “Okinawa in Retrospect,” The Ryukyu Islands: A Report of Progress (San Francisco, Calif.: 1962). 26. Morris, Tiger, 197. 27. Steve Rabson, “Assimilation Policy in Okinawa: Promotion, Resistance, and ‘Reconstruction,’” in Okinawa: Cold War Island, 145; Kerr, Okinawa, 6; Pitts et al. also advised Americans not to confuse Okinawans’ “pro-Japanese feeling” with communism (Post-War Okinawa, 221). 28. USCAR, The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance (1953), 6; and The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance (1954), 14. 29. Rabson, Introduction, Okinawa, 12. 30. “Conversation between General of the Army MacArthur and Mr. George F. Kennan, March 5, 1948,” Foreign Relations 6 (1948): 701, quoted in Rabson, Introduction, Okinawa, 7; The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance (1953), 29. 31. “Levittown,” 19, 20. 32. “Okinawa: Except for Japs It Is a Very Pleasant Place,” Life, May 1945, 90. 33. “Faith of Their Liberators,” Newsweek, 30 June 1947, 66. 34. Okinawa, Keystone of the Pacific, 9. 35. “Levittown,” 20. 36. Miyazato Siegen, “Problematic Points of Reversion of Okinawa,” publication of Nampo Doho Engokai (Tokyo, November 1965): 23, cited in Gregory Henderson, ed., Public Diplomacy and Political Change, 84–85. 37. Koji Taira, “Troubled Na-
Notes to Chapter 5 253
tional Identity: Ryukyuans/Okinawans,” in Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity, ed. Michael Weiner (New York: Routledge, 1997), 161. 38. William Jenkins, Okinawa: Isle of Smiles, an Informal Photographic Study (New York: Bookman Associates, 1951), 11. 39. Rabson, “Assimilation Policy in Okinawa,” 136–137, 145– 146. 40. Taira, “Troubled National Identity,” 161. 41. “Faith of Their Liberators,” 66. 42. Walter Adams, “Is Your Wife too Civilized?” Better Homes and Gardens, November 1949, 197–198, 200, 203. 43. Vernon Pizer and Perry Hume Davis II, Your Assignment Overseas: A Handbook for the Serviceman and His Family (New York: W. W. Norton, 1955), 224. 44. USCAR, The Ryukyu Islands at a Glance (1954). The 1953 edition of this pamphlet presented the same illustration, but with the caption “Most farms are small” (37). 45. Office of the High Commissioner, Office of Public Affairs, The Ryukyu Islands, section III, “The Economic Situation.” 46. Taira, “Troubled National Identity,” 171, 173. 47. Virginia Wiesel Johnson, “Seeds of Friendship Take Root on ‘The Rock,’” U.S. Lady, September 1957, 29–30, 44. 48. ; Morris, Tiger, 60–61; Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), xiii. Morris blamed servicemen’s violence and sexual assaults of Okinawan women on the termination of a system, implemented in 1946, which provided military men with monitored (yet allegedly unofficial) access to Okinawan prostitutes. Morris described this as an “offthe-record arrangement whereby all interested girls were assembled in a single area in which drinking, money, medical examinations, and an orderly movement of actually thousands all were controlled closely. . . . After duty hours, military buses from
254 Notes to Chapter 5
several areas unofficially would take and return the troops.” To Morris’s dismay, “the crusaders succeeded in wrecking this project.” In Morris’s view, removing military supervision of servicemen’s access to prostitutes resulted in severe problems for both Americans and Okinawans: “the island-wide venereal disease rate skyrocketed. With no controls, the fees jumped; black marketing, drunkenness, disorderliness, and violence again became a serious Military Police problem. . . . Once again innocent Okinawan girls, instead of their more willing sisters, fell victims to the inevitable violent prurience. The disturbance of a controlled solution harmed American-Ryukyuan relations more than condoning the activity ever would have.” 49. Holshouser, “Ami,” 16. 50. ; “Reporting for Duty: Contributors in This Issue,” U.S. Lady, March 1960, 47; Morris, Tiger, 60–61. For a description of military supervision of “dates” between American servicemen and Okinawan women, see “Okinawa: Home Was Never Like This,” Time, 22 February 1960, 32. 51. William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American (New York: W. W. Norton, 1958). This novel is also discussed in chapter 3 (this volume). 52. Holshouser, “Ami,” 16. The term “Ami” is short for “American,” usually seen in foreign countries in the context of signs and graffiti that expressed anti-Americanism: “Ami, go home!” 53. Francis Lee Buck, “Salary: Flowers and Tea,” U.S. Lady, February 1961, 8–9, 35. 54. “Mrs. Robert Merritt,” 29–31, 53. 55. Merritt, Typhoon, 10, 25, 47, 100, 118; also see 14, 22, and 34 for more references to Okinawans as small. Professor Luke Roberts of the University of California at Santa Barbara pointed out to me that the maids indeed might have been girls. Marian Merritt recounted a dispute with her new maid over the question about whether the domestic employee was a woman
(as the maid described herself) or a girl (what Merritt judged the maid to be). Merritt, 6. 56. “Mrs. Robert Merritt,” 30. The “American distaste for anything unsanitary” likely refers to Merritt’s reactions to Okinawans’ living conditions, such as the use of ditches rather than Western-style toilets, and the presence of numerous flies and fleas in the hut of a poor Okinawan woman. Merritt, Typhoon, 42–45. 57. Merritt, Typhoon, 283– 284. I thank Luke Roberts for this analysis of the title of Merritt’s book. 58. Merritt, Typhoon, 31, 58. 59. Merritt, Typhoon, 19. 60. Merritt, Typhoon, 17, 71, 52–53. 61. Merritt, Typhoon, 53–54. 62. Ruth Ann Keyso, Women of Okinawa: Nine Voices from a Garrison Island (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 12–13. 63. Keyso, Women of Okinawa, 16. 64. Keyso, Women of Okinawa, 24–27. 65. Keyso, Women of Okinawa, 32. 66. Merritt, Typhoon, 187– 190; 31–32. 67. Merritt, Typhoon, 102, 241. 68. Merritt, Typhoon, 10, 250, 265. 69. Merritt, Typhoon, 288, 187. According to George Kerr, in previous centuries it was upper-class families that placed their dead in tombs: “The majority of peasant folk could not afford the luxury of a handsome tomb; internment in the common earth sufficed.” Kerr, Okinawa, 218–219. 70. Merritt, Typhoon, 263, 266–267. 71. Merritt, Typhoon, 35–37, 102, 103, 190, 238, 241, 266. 72. Mari Yoshihara, Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 6–7, 95–100, 194–195. This book focuses on the period spanning the 1870s to 1940s. 73. McCune, Ryukyu Islands, 79, 141–142; US Department of Defense, Office of Information
for the Armed Forces, A Pocket Guide to Okinawa (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1968), 30–31 (this guide estimated that fewer than one percent of Okinawans had converted to Christianity); “Faith of Their Liberators,” 66; [US Army], Welcome to Okinawa, Today’s “Gibraltar of the Pacific,” 31882-Army-AG Admin Cen-FEC-9/52-10M (ca. 1952), 3. 74. Merritt, Typhoon, 18, 19, 251. Marian Merritt wrote that the Kadena Chapel Guild was “made up of Air Force women” (251). I assume that she meant Air Force wives, though perhaps the guild included women service and civilian personnel. 75. Merritt, Typhoon, 89–91. 76. Merritt, Typhoon, 18, 251–258. Marian Merritt related this anecdote about her first day teaching English at Koza Junior High School: She thought she heard one of the teachers say to her that “What we need so much, Madian-Sensei, is conversion.” She soon realized that the teacher had meant to say that the students needed “conversation,” not “conversion.” She concluded that “they need both, but I think I understand better how to converse with them than how to convert them so I am glad that that is what is expected of me” (32– 33). 77. Merritt, Typhoon, 40, 42. A benjo is a ditch. 78. Karal Ann Marling, As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 243, 277. 79. Merritt, Typhoon, 7, 71– 73. Merritt states that the newspaper article appeared in Japanese, and that her excerpts from it are from a translation she requested. 80. Merritt, Typhoon, 168. 81. Mire Koikari, “Exporting Democracy? American Women, ‘Feminist Reforms,’ and Politics of Imperialism in the U.S. Occupation of Japan, 1945–1952,” Frontiers 23, no. 1 (2002): 23– 25, 28–30, 33–37. ¯ shiro Tatsuhiro, “The 82. O Cocktail Party,” in Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas, 35.
¯ shiro, “The Cocktail 83. O Party,” 35–36. ¯ shiro, “The Cocktail 84. O Party,” 43. ¯ shiro, “The Cocktail 85. O Party,” 47–51. ¯ shiro, “The Cocktail 86. O Party,” 52–53. Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, discusses and harshly criticizes the complicated United States–Japan Status of Forces Agreement made in 1960 in “Three Rapes: The Status of Forces Agreement and Okinawa,” January 2004, (13 August 2005). ¯ shiro, “The Cocktail 87. O Party,” 57–58. ¯ shiro, “The Cocktail 88. O Party,” 78. ¯ shiro, “The Cocktail 89. O Party,” 78. ¯ shiro, “The Cocktail 90. O Party,” 36, 75. 91. Yehudi Cohen, an enlisted man stationed in Okinawa for four months in 1954, did a study (independent of his affiliation with the armed forces) that attempted to identify the factors that contributed to commercialized prostitution in rural Okinawa. He found that the loss of farmland and the social disequilibrium brought on by the damage of World War II and the U.S. military’s postwar demands on the resources of the Ryukyu Islands exacerbated the problem of prostitution. Without land, families found it more difficult to support daughters, and sons who did not inherit land were more likely to open brothels. Yehudi A. Cohen, “The Sociology of Commercialized Prostitution in Okinawa,” Social Forces 37 (December 1958): 164–167. notes to chapter 6 1. Ann P. Chase, “What’s in It for Them?” U.S. Lady, January 1958, 16–17. 2. Marcia Matthews, “Raising Cosmoppets,” U.S. Lady, September 1955, 62; Beryl F. Kent, “Schooldays in Tokyo,” Army Information Digest, October 1948, 12–16. 3. Florence Dmytryk, “A De-
scription of a Year as a Fifth Grade Teacher in the Army Overseas Dependents School in Paris, France” (M.S. thesis, University of Massachusetts, 1958), 76. 4. US Forces European Theater, Information and Education Service, Orientation Program for Dependents (1946), 15. 5. US Department of the Army, Headquarters, Information for Dependents Traveling to Oversea Areas (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1959), 39. 6. US Department of the Army, Ambassadors All (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1952), 11–13. 7. Patsy Laux, “You Bet I’m an Army Brat,” U.S. Lady, January 1961, 9. 8. Henrietta M. Schwartz, “Juvenile Ambassadors,” U.S. Lady, December 1955, 65. 9. Joyace Ann Downing Katz, questionnaire, 1999–2000; Dale Drysdale, questionnaire, 1999– 2000; see also questionnaires (1999–2000) from John DolanHeitlinger, Jo Wilson Emerson, David Klinger, Forest Ramsey, Elizabeth “Betty” J. Thomas, Mary Ann Tyler, John D. Walker, Patricia Wamboldt; and John E. Hunt, “Looking Back” (unpublished memoir, copyright 1996), ch. 1, p. 3. 10. Hudson “Bill” Phillips, questionnaire, 1999–2000. 11. Lelah Berry, as told to Ann Stringer, “An Army Wife Lives Very Soft—in Germany,” Saturday Evening Post, 15 February 1947, 25, 120. 12. Chase, “What’s in It for Them?” 17. 13. Berry and Stringer, “Army Wife,” 120. 14. United States Air Forces in Europe [USAFE], Headquarters, Office of the Adjutant General, Historical Division, Problems of USAFE Dependents, 1946–1951 (Wiesbaden, Germany, 1953), 189; Berry and Stringer, 120; Chief Warrant Officer Frederick A. Gass, “U.S. Lady-of-theMonth Jean Louise Elkin,” U.S. Lady, September 1957, 14–15. 15. Dorothy Tedrowe, “Domani,” U.S. Lady, December 1961, 8–9, 46. 16. Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 44–45; Chase,
Notes to Chapter 6 255
“What’s in It for Them?” 16; Lillian T. Mowrer, “Home Is under Your Hat,” 57; Berry and Stringer, “Army Wife,” 120. 17. Emerson questionnaire; Ramsey questionnaire; Katz questionnaire; Walker questionnaire; Confidential questionnaire no. 13; Confidential questionnaire no. 14. 18. Katz questionnaire; Wamboldt questionnaire; Klinger questionnaire; Ramsey questionnaire; Thomas questionnaire; Confidential questionnaire no. 13; Confidential questionnaire no. 14; Edwin L. Dooley, Jr., “And Hoping We’ll Meet Again: The Life of a Service Brat” (unpublished memoir, 1999), ch. 7, pp. 26, 27. 19. Bernadine V. Lee, “Army Wife in Tokyo,” Army Information Digest, December 1946, 17, 20. 20. Walker questionnaire; Florence S. Richards, “What’s It Like in Korea?” U.S. Lady, September 1960, 33. 21. Confidential questionnaire no. 13; Ramsey questionnaire; also see Hunt, “Looking Back,” chapter 1, p. 4. 22. Cora Cheney, “Mom, Make It a Living Adventure,” U.S. Lady, June 1966, 47. 23. Department of the Army, Headquarters, Information for Dependents, 39. 24. Robert William Kirk, Earning Their Stripes: The Mobilization of American Children in the Second World War (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), 3; Marc Richards, “Recruitment in the Nursery: The Cold War Mobilization of Children” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Davis, 1998), 5–6, 28–32, 41–42. 25. Ronald Rainville, preliminary questionnaire, 1998; Ramsey questionnaire; Walker questionnaire; Dooley, “Hoping We’ll Meet Again,” ch. 7, p. 34; Hunt, “Looking Back,” ch. 2, p. 2. 26. Alvadee Adams and John Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, May 1960, 4, 43. 27. Matthews, “Raising Cosmoppets,” 61. 28. Elizabeth Land and Carroll V. Glines, Jr., The Complete Guide for the Serviceman’s Wife (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.,
256 Notes to Chapter 6
1956), xiii, 237. Italics in original. 29. Department of the Army, Ambassadors All, 12–13; Dooley, “Hoping We’ll Meet Again,” 33–34. General Guthrie was the commanding general of Misawa Air Force Base. 30. European Command [EUCOM], Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, 1947), 66–74; Allen Dale Olson, From DSS to DoDDS (n.p., n.d.), 18–23; US Department of Defense, report of survey committee appointed by Dr. Edward L. Katzenbach, Jr., US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Education), “Overseas Dependents Schools: Recommendations for Improvement,” 1962, 6. The Katzenbach committee consisted of six educators who spent two months assessing eighty American schools for dependents (out of more than three hundred worldwide) in Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Okinawa, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines (4). 31. Oliver J. Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of Germany, 1945–1953 (Historical Division, Headquarters, US Army Europe, 1953), 131; US Army, Europe [USAEUR], Headquarters, Historical Division, The Dependents Schools Program of the US Army, Europe, 1946–1956 (1958), 81–82, RG 407, Adjutant General’s Office, NACP. 32. Beryl F. Kent, “Schooldays in Tokyo,” Army Information Digest, October 1948, 12–16. 33. USAEUR, Dependents Schools, 1946–1956, 81. 34. Marjorie B. Parker, “Spanish Conversation Achievement of Elementary School Children in Overseas Dependents’ Schools” (M.E. thesis, Boston University, 1962), 1, 41 (Parker argued that children under the age of ten acquired a foreign language more easily than did older children or adults [14]); USAEUR, Dependents Schools, 1946–1956, 81. 35. James W. Clark, Chief, International Division, Bureau of the Budget, Memorandum for Douglass Cater, 20 May 1966, p. 2, White House Central Files [WHCF] ED, Folder ED1 8/2/66
to 12/6/66, Box 18, LBJ Library [LBJL]. 36. EUCOM, Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy, 74–75; Irvin H. Lee, “Miniature Diplomats,” U.S. Lady, September 1963,14–15; Marjie Haga, “Post of the Month: Prestwick, Scotland,” U.S. Lady, September 1963, 19, 22–23; see also Dolan-Heitlinger questionnaire. In a recent documentary, an interviewee from an African-American military family recalled feeling that she and her family, with their “horrendously big American car,” were “a spectacle” to people abroad: “While we were out seeing the sights, I believe that we were the sight that people were noticing, more often than not.” Another interviewee recalled feeling more subjected to scrutiny and suspicion because of his race in the United States than abroad. Brats: Our Journey Home, produced by Beth Goodwin and Donna Musil, approx. 90 minutes, Brats without Borders, Inc., DVD. 37. Lynn M. Bartlett, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Education), to Douglass Cater, 14 April 1966, WHCF ED, Folder ED1 8/2/66 to 12/6/66, Box 18, LBJL. 38. Charlotte Wolf, Garrison Community: A Study of an Overseas American Military Colony (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1969), 153. 39. EUCOM, Office of the Chief Historian, Domestic Economy, 73; Heidelberg American Elementary School, Office of the Elementary Principal,Heidelberg Military Post, “Historical Report,” 14 September 1952, RG 338, Box 9, US Army Commands, EUCOM, Records of Heidelberg Elementary and High Schools, National Archives College Park [NACP]; USAEUR, Dependents Schools, 1946–1956, 81–82; USAFE, USAFE Dependents, 51; Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 13, 45, 54; Heidelberg American High School, “Historical Report for December,” 1952, RG 338, Box 9, US Army Commands, EUCOM, Records of Heidelberg Elementary and High Schools, NACP; Dooley, “Hoping We’ll Meet
Again,” ch. 7, p. 27. Also see “Report on German-American Relationship,” 3 February 1953; and “Report on German-American Relationship,” 26 February 1953, RG 338, Box 9, US Army Commands, EUCOM, Records of Heidelberg Elementary and High Schools, NACP. 40. Wilma L. Ecker, questionnaire, 1999–2000; “Bad Godesberg American School History for February,” 1953, “Bad Godesberg American School History for March,” 1953, and “Bad Godesberg American School History for April,” 1953, RG 338, US Army Commands, EUCOM, Records for Bad Godesberg American School, NACP; Gerard Akkerhuis, questionnaire, 1999– 2000. 41. USAEUR, Dependents Schools, 1946–1956, 81; Gladys Zabilka, Okinawa Culture and Customs (n.p., 1954); Dooley, “Hoping We’ll Meet Again,” ch. 7, p. 27; Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 32, 41; Department of Defense, “Overseas Dependents Schools,” 26. 42. Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 14, 24–25, 25–26, 27, 29–30, 36, 45, 46, 55. Another observer of overseas schools for service children noted that some schools in Europe offered physical education classes in skiing; this is given as an example of how dependents’ schools enriched their curricula by taking advantage of foreign locations. Donald C. Nyholm, “A Comparison of Actual and Recommended Practices in Armed Forces Overseas Dependents’ Schools” ([“a non-credit research paper”] North Dakota State University, 1965), 11. 43. Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 13, 48, 52, 54, 59. 44. Office of the Principal, Heidelberg American Elementary School, “Historical Report,” 14 April 1953; and Office of the Principal, “Report on GermanAmerican Relationship,” 4 May 1953, RG 338, US Army Commands, EUCOM, Records of Heidelberg Elementary and High Schools, NACP. Herbert “Bub” Kale, whose father, Major Samuel S. Kale, was stationed in Würzburg, Germany, between
1946 and 1949, wrote in a March 1947 letter of attending a session of the Nürnberg Trials with his citizenship class. See Mark W. Falzini, Letters Home: The Story of an American Military Family in Occupied Germany, 1946–1949 (New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2004), 20, 61– 64. 45. Marie Espinoza, “DoDDS Days” (unpublished memoir, 1991), 4, 23; Akkerhuis questionnaire. 46. USAEUR, Dependents Schools, 1946–1956, 83. 47. Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 32, 53; USAEUR, Dependents Schools, 1946–1956, 63. 48. USAEUR, Dependents Schools, 1946–1956, 82–83, 84. 49. Phillips questionnaire. 50. “Bad Godesberg American School History for April,” 1953. 51. Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 76. 52. Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 33, 38–39, 41, 42, 59–60. 53. “Bad Godesberg American School History for March,” 1953; Heidelberg American High School, “Historical Report,” June 1953 (the report states that “most” parents voted to accept the language program, which suggests that some voted to reject it), RG 338, US Army Commands, EUCOM, Records of Heidelberg Elementary and High Schools, NACP; Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 20, 43. 54. Ecker questionnaire; Espinoza, “DoDDS Days,” 7; Akkerhuis questionnaire; Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 71; also see Nyholm, “A Comparison of Actual and Recommended Practices,” 11. Also see Lula E. Dalton, Schoolmarm Abroad with G.I. Jr.: A ThreeYear Odyssey (New York: Exposition Press, 1953), recounting the author’s numerous excursions while working as a teacher for American children in Germany (circa 1948–1950) and Japan (circa 1950–1951). 55. Nan Carroll, “Beyond a Picket Fence,” U.S. Lady, Early Summer 1957, 6–7; Mail Call, U.S. Lady, Early Summer 1957, 41; Liz Reeves, “I Was an Army
Brat,” U.S. Lady, January 1962, 48; Thomas F. Staton, Ph.D., “Special Problems of Military Children, Part One,” U.S. Lady, May 1956, 27. 56. Sociologist Morten Ender’s assessment of the long-term effects of overseas life on service children suggests that the many benefits counterbalance, and might outweigh, the negative aspects. A study of military teenagers who lived in Europe found that rather than debilitating experiences of “culture shock” (defined as maladjustment to a foreign society) and “stairwell syndrome” (isolation from a host community as a consequence of culture shock), ninety-five percent of teenagers engaged in at least one “international activity” and most made friends in their host society. Furthermore, service children who lived abroad were found to perform better than civilian children in major testing areas on college board exams; and thirty-four percent of teenagers who had lived overseas could converse in a foreign language, though they tended to underestimate their fluency. A reported positive effect, resulting from children’s acquisition of host nation languages and conventions, was “an opportunity to take on new family roles by becoming the social liaison between one’s family and the host culture, assisting with family activities like shopping, driving, and communicating in the foreign country.” Morten Ender, “Growing Up in the Military,” in Strangers at Home: Essays on the Effects of Living Overseas and Coming “Home” to a Strange Land, ed. Carolyn D. Smith (New York: Aletheia Publications, 1996), 131–133. 57. Portia Meares, “Reorientation: A Teen-Age Saga, Army Style,” U.S. Lady, January 1961, 6–7, 50. 58. Dmytryk, “A Description of a Year,” 19, 33, 51–52; USAEUR, Dependents Schools, 1946–1956, 113; Dooley, “Hoping We’ll Meet Again,” ch. 7, p. 32. 59. Cheney, “Mom, Make It a Living Adventure,” 47; Chase, “What’s in It for Them?” 17.
Notes to Chapter 6 257
60. Chase, “What’s in It for Them?” 17. 61. Confidential questionnaire no. 14; Simon Duke, United States Military Forces and Installations in Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 149–150; Chase, “What’s in It for Them?” 17. 62. Phillips questionnaire. 63. Wolf, Garrison Community, 173–175; 202. 64. Dooley, “Hoping We’ll Meet Again,” ch. 7, pp. 2, 7, 11– 12, 32, 35. 65. Confidential questionnaire no. 13; Confidential questionnaire no. 7; Akkerhuis questionnaire; Dooley, “Hoping We’ll Meet Again,” ch. 7, p. 31; Drysdale questionnaire; Katz questionnaire; Thomas questionnaire. Barbara Kale Falzini recalled that she and her American friends riding on a train in February 1947 “tossed out a few cigarettes to watch the German men on the platform scramble for them.” Falzini, Letters Home, 8. 66. Phillips questionnaire; Ramsey questionnaire. 67. Phillips questionnaire; Geraldine L. Childress questionnaire. 68. “Why Panama Erupted,” US News & World Report, 20 January 1964, 32–33; “Inside Story of Panama Riots,” US News & World Report, 30 March 1964, 48–52; Alan McPherson, Yankee No! AntiAmericanism in U.S.–Latin American Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 94–97.
331, SCAP Civil Affairs Section, Headquarters Civil Affairs Regions, Folder “Return of Dependents to ZI,” Box 2436, NACP; Headquarters, Kyushu Civil Affairs Region, subj. “Application for Return of Dependents,” 28 June 1951, RG 331, SCAP Civil Affairs Section, Administrative Division, Folder “Application for Return of Dependents—Officers —EM, 1951,” Box 2410, NACP; Edwin L. Dooley, Jr., “And Hoping We’ll Meet Again: The Life of a Service Brat” (unpublished memoir, 1999), ch. 7, pp. 58–60. 2. Dorothy House Vieman, Korean Adventure: Inside Story of an Army Wife (San Antonio, Tex.: The Naylor Company, 1951), 95–96, 98, 103–104. 3. “Report from Americans in Cuba: ‘Eventually, We Will Have to Fight,’” U.S. News and World Report, 8 October 1962, 46; “The Threat, the Moves to Meet It—Kennedy’s Broadcast on Cuba,” U.S. News and World Report, 5 November 1962, 110. 4. Marian Merritt, Is Like Typhoon: Okinawa and the Far East (Tokyo: The World News and Publishing Co., ca. 1956), 287. 5. Merritt, Typhoon, 287– 288; David M. Klinger, questionnaire 1999–2000, and unpublished account included with questionnaire (1993), 13. Over the years, some Americans maintained contact with residents of occupied and host countries. Americans who had resided abroad also stayed in contact with other Americans, often for decades, through reunions and membership in organizations for notes to the people associated with the armed conclusion forces, including military family 1. War Department, Circular members and educators (for exNo. 98, “Overseas Movement of ample, the American Overseas Dependents,” 30 March 1946, Schools Historical Society and RG 331, Supreme Command Al- Overseas Brats). lied Powers [SCAP] Civil Histori6. “Cooper on ‘Bombing the cal Section, Administrative Divi- North’ Gambit,” n.d., Folder sion, Box 3277, National “Southeast Asia, Special Intell. Archives, College Park [NACP]; Material 11/64–2/65, Vol. III,” Headquarters, Kinki Civil Affairs National Security File [NSF], Region, subj. “Application for Country File, Vietnam, Box 48, Return of Dependents,” 3 August Lyndon Baines Johnson Library 1950, & Headquarters, Chugoku [LBJL]. Civil Affairs Region, subj. “Re7. John T. McNaughton, memquest for Early Return of Depen- orandum of conversation, “Evacdents,” 8 September 1950, RG uation of Dependents, 4 February
258 Notes to Chapter 6
1965, Folder “Trip, McGeorge Bundy—Saigon, Vol. 1, 2/4/65,” NSF, International Meetings and Travel, Box 28, LBJL. 8. “Goodbye Saigon,” Newsweek, 22 February 1965, 35–36; Robert D. Schulzinger, A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 171–172. 9. Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 205– 230. 10. Shigeharu Matsumoto, “The Rising Anger in Japan,” Atlas, December 1965, 334; Chanchal Sarkar, “Anti-Americanism in Asia,” Atlas: The Magazine of World Press, November 1967, 24; Alexandra Friedrich, “Awakenings: The Impact of the Vietnam War on West German– American Relations in the 1960s” (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 2000), 331–332, 372; Frank Costigliola, “The Vietnam War and the Challenges to American Power in Europe,” in International Perspectives on Vietnam, eds. Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000), 143–153. 11. Major General R. A. Hewitt, “Reducing Individual Spending Overseas,” Army Information Digest, September 1961, 48–51; Alvadee Adams and John Adams, The Editorial We, U.S. Lady, May 1962, 2, 43. 12. US Department of Commerce, Social and Economic Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census, 1970 Census of Population: Subject Reports: Americans Living Abroad (Washington, D.C.: US GPO, 1973), p. VII, Table 1. 13. US Department of Defense, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, Statistical Information Analysis Division, Personnel, Military Personnel Historical Reports, Active Duty Military Personnel by Regional Area and by Country, “Department of Defense Deployment of Military Personnel by Country as of 30 September 1960,” and “Department of Defense Deployment of Military Personnel by
Country as of 30 September 1968,” available at (11 January 2006). The populations of American military family members and personnel shrank in Europe and other areas in this period, but increased in Asia. 14. Mary Edwards Wertsch, Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1991), 323–327, 383–385. 15. Elizabeth I. Brown, “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie: Wives of American Servicemen in Southeast Asia, 1961–1975” (Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 2005), 233–245. 16. Allyson Sherman Grossman, “The Employment Situation for Military Wives,”
Monthly Labor Review 104 (Feb. 1981): 60. 17. US Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Worldwide Manpower Distribution by Geographical Area (September 30, 2004), “Total Military, Civilian, and Dependent Strengths by Regional Area and by Country (309),” 5. Available at Statistical Information Analysis Division, Work Force Publications, (23 November 2005). 18. Public Law 103–137, 103d Congress (8 November 1993), Joint Resolution Designating November 22, 1993, as “National Military Families Recognition Day.“ 19. John D. Banusiewicz, “Bush Announces Global Posture Changes Over Next Decade,” 16
August 2004, (23 November 2005). 20. Karen Houppert, Home Fires Burning: Married to the Military—For Better or Worse (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), 166–167, 198–199, 213, 226; Margaret C. Harrell, “Army Officers’ Spouses: Have the White Gloves Been Mothballed?” Armed Forces and Society 28, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 56, 71, 72. 21. Charlotte Wolf, Garrison Community: A Study of an Overseas American Military Colony (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1969), 199. 22. Ruth Ann Keyso, Women of Okinawa: Nine Voices from a Garrison Island (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 16.
Notes to the Conclusion 259
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Index
2001 terrorist attacks, 232 Acheson, Dean, 17–18 Adams, Alvadee and John (editors of U.S. Lady): on benefits of service families, 125; on harmony among diverse people, 106; Rockwell (George Lincoln) and, 94–95; on service wives’ suitability for Peace Corps, 81–82 Adenauer, Konrad, 143 Adjutant General’s Wives’ Club (Heidelberg), 148 Adoptions by service families: of Asian children, 246n48; children’s response to, 107; coverage in U.S. Lady, 106, 123; in Germany, 145–146; in Japan, 106; of mixed-race children, 146; multiple adoptions, 106; of nonwhite children by white parents, 106, 123; of orphanages/poor families, 49; personal participation in Cold War, 246n48; short story about, 106–107 Africa, family members of U.S. armed forces in, 11t African Americans: desegregation of the armed forces, 121, 158; exclusion from certain areas abroad, 85; percent of enlistees in armed forces, 244n14; percent of officers in armed forces, 84; percent of servicemen overseas, 84; scrutiny of, 256n36; in West Germany, 157–158 Air Force. See United States Air Force Akkerhuis, Gerard, 216, 218 Alfonte, Virginia Ferrell, 112 Allen, Dollie, 121 Allensbach Institute, 93 Allied Control Council, 47–48, 134 American good will, demonstrations of, 2, 48–49, 70–71, 136, 189, 232
American Nazi Party, 94 American Occupation Women’s Voluntary Service, 78, 136 American Red Cross, 72 American sensitivity to foreigners, demonstrations of, 2, 51, 53, 75 American Way of Life: belief in its superiority, 6, 9, 83, 128, 157; service families as representatives of, 2 The American Way (Rockwell), 53, 54 American Women’s Activities in Europe, 136 American Women’s Club (Heidelberg), 150 American Women’s Club (West Berlin), 103, 145 “Ami, Don’t Go Home” (Holshouser), 179–180 Anderson, Robert, 163 Andrews, Jean, 97, 98 Anti-communism: Cold War, 2, 6, 39, 80, 132–133; democratization, 52–53; domestic anti-communism, 61; employment of domestic servants in Asia, 183; overseas bases, 46; postwar domestic revival, 61; service families, 2, 6, 39; service wives, 82 Armed Forces Radio Station, 128 Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives, 169–170 Army. See United States Army Army Information Digest (magazine), 46, 48, 132 Army Overseas Dependents School (Paris), 214, 215, 220 Arrington, Satomi, 218 Asia: employment of domestic servants in, 183; family members of U.S. armed forces in, 11t
273
“Au Revoir, Mike” (short story in U.S. Lady), 106–107 Bad Godesberg, Germany, 216 Bad Kreuznach, Germany: “adoption” of orphanages/poor families in, 49; Christmastime celebrations in, 148–149 Bad Nauheim, Germany, 72 Baden-Wuerttemberg State Homemakers Fair, 150 A Bell for Adano (Hersey), 53–54 Berlin. See West Berlin Berlin blockade and airlift (1948-1949): debate on service families, 159–165; evacuation of dependents, 72, 139–140, 161; German-American relations, 132, 139–141, 143, 165; Howley on, 142; suspension of dependents’ travel to Western Europe, 162, 163–164 Berry, Bonnie, 202, 203, 204 Berry, Jimmy, 202 Berry, Lelah: domestic servants employed by, 131, 137; off-base excursions, 131; relations between Germans and Americans, 201–203; in West Berlin, 131–132 Best, Bea, 106, 123 Better Homes and Gardens (magazine), 177 Biddle, Margaret Thompson, 135–136 “The Big Picture” (radio program), 146 Bolton, Frances, 123 Boy Scouts, 78, 221, 222 Boyle, Joseph, 146, 228 Boys Club (Bremen), 49, 241n39 Bradley, Omar, 23 Bremen Boys Club, 49, 241n39 Bremerhaven, Germany, 32 “Bring Back My Daddy” club, 21 Brinlee, Honour P., 124 British Red Cross, 78 Brooks, Morton P., 132 Brown, Elizabeth, 230–231 Brown, Margery Finn: charitable work by, 103–104, 111; death of a boy in Japan, 104; domestic servant of, 109; on equality in American marriages, 118–119; friendships in Japan, 114 Bryant, Ruth, 109 Buck, Francis Lee, 180–181 Buck, Pearl S., 122 Burdick, Eugene, The Ugly American (with Lederer), 91, 179–180 Bureau of the Census, 73 Burke, Arleigh, 63
274 Index
Burns, Robert, 212 Burris, Howard L., 126 Bush, George W., 231 Bush administration (George W.), 231–232 Business Week (magazine), 126 Byrnes, James, 137 Canada, family members of U.S. armed forces in, 11t Carroll, Nan, 218–219 Castro, Fidel, 224 Charitable work by service families: aiding the elderly, 144; aiding refugees, 144; aiding the ill, 103; alleviation of poverty, 103, 111; anti-communist objectives, 145; assistance to women who had given birth to children fathered by American servicemen, 145, 250n46; Christmas gifts, 144; countering communist critiques of the U.S., 144; donating blankets and heaters to hospitals, 189; donations of food and clothing, 103, 144, 189; establishment of hierarchy between benefactor and beneficiary, 102, 103, 104; expression of maternalism, 102, 103; fund drives, 103, 111; in Heidelberg, 145; in Japan, 103; in Kyoto, 111; in Okinawa, 49–50, 189, 196; orphanages, 103, 144; in Paris, 49; perpetuation of dependence on the U.S., 196; by service wives, 49–50, 71, 102, 103–104, 132, 135–136, 144–145; by servicemen overseas, 49–50; sponsoring summer camps, 144; Stars and Stripes on, 49; in Turkey, 111; U.S. Lady on, 135–136; in West Berlin, 144; in West Germany, 49, 71, 103, 132, 135, 136, 144–145; in Wiesbaden, 49; youth programs, 49–50 Chase, Ann: arrival in Italy, 198; her children’s contacts with locals, 202, 204, 221 Chase, Debby, 198 Chase, Nancy, 198 Chase, Robbie, 198 Chase, Robert, 198 Cheney, Cora, 206–207, 220–221 Chiang Kai-shek, 44 Child Welfare Group (Mannheim), 145 Christian Democratic Union (CDU), 143 “Christmas at Sea” (short story in U.S. Lady), 150–151 Churchill, Winston, 16, 42 Civilian government personnel overseas, 11–12
Clay, Lucius DuBignon: evacuation of service families during Berlin blockade, 72, 139–140, 226; on food for postwar Germany, 41; German Youth Activities, 48; in Germany, 29; wife, 101; on women’s charitable work, 71 Clay, Marjorie, 101 Cochran, Jacqueline, 107 “The Cocktail Party” (Oshiro), 193–196 Cold War: acceptance of militarization as dominant foreign policy paradigm, 126– 127; adoptions by service families, 246n68; aid to Greece, 43; aid to Turkey, 43; aircraft industry “war boom,” 44; anti-communism, 2, 6, 39, 46, 80; belief in superiority of American Way of Life, 128; complexity of international power relations, 130; conflicting demands placed on overseas dependents, 9, 11, 102, 128–129, 188, 199, 217, 225; containment of communism, 42– 43, 46, 61, 65; cultural internationalism, 55, 56; democratization (see Democratization); deployment of military power abroad, 57, 116; development of, 42– 44; development of hydrogen bomb, 45; funding increases for national security, 45; glorification of the nuclear family, 60–61, 80; good-versus-evil conflict between communists and anti-communists, 229; idealized version of domesticity, 36–37, 60–61; Jim Crow, 5; masculinity and femininity during, 4; NATO membership, 43–44; necessity for overseas bases and operations, 3; NSC-68 report, 45; “offset payments” arrangement with West Germany, 163; onset of, 16; overseas bases (see Overseas bases); postwar international involvement, 40–42; racism and, 120–123; recognition of cultural diversity, 128; relations with the Soviet Union, 42–43; remilitarization, 44–46; service families’ participation in, 2–3, 4, 13, 60–61, 208–209, 246n68; significance of overseas bases, 45; Soviet atomic bomb, 45; spread of liberal capitalism, 43; women during, 4 Collier’s (magazine), 125–126, 172 Comfort, Clarence, Jr., 24–25 “Comfort facilities,” 28 Contacts/interaction/relations with locals, 102–118; 1960s and 1970s, 231; attending religious services with locals, 110–111, 147–148, 189; casual/infor-
mal contacts, 154, 155–156; charitable work (see Charitable work by service families); contacts with local children, 48, 57, 102, 104–107, 136, 180; in Department of Defense Dependents’ Schools, 213–214; employment of domestic servants, 78, 102, 107–110, 131, 183–185, 206; fraternization with German women, 24–25, 28, 29, 47–48, 97–98, 134, 153, 158–159; fraternization with Japanese women, 158; friendships with local people, 114–116, 152– 153, 158, 203, 232; housing for service families, 32; international women’s clubs, 102, 112–113, 136, 149, 185– 186; jobs for local nationals, 87, 155, 174; “Little Americas” and, 154; maintenance after departure from overseas, 258n5; most common forms, 102; offbase excursions, 102, 111–112, 131, 155, 215–216, 223; in Okinawa, 180, 182, 185–193, 214; portrayals of, 233; by service children, 11, 77–78, 201– 207, 211, 213–214, 217; by service families, 7–8, 12, 32, 71–73, 233, 258n5; by service wives, 77–78, 80, 83, 93–94, 102–118; by servicemen overseas, 98; sex with domestic servants, 158; showcasing American homes, 116– 118, 150, 157, 180–181, 189, 190–192; U.S. Lady on, 155–156; in West Germany, 48, 136, 147–149, 154; working as teachers, 105, 218, 255n76 Cooper, Chester, 228 Cuban Missile Crisis, 226 Cultural imperialism, 149 Cultural internationalism, 55, 56 “Culture Vultures,” 112 “Dark Flowers” (Kishaba), 171–172 Davis, Franklin, 27, 238n81 Davis, Perry Hume, II, 141 De Gaulle, Charles, 221 DeBolt, Margaret Wayt, 128 DeForest, Cornelius, 26, 31–32 Democratization: anti-communism, 52–53; in A Bell for Adano, 53; countering impression of U.S. as power-hungry, 79– 80; in Department of Defense Dependents’ Schools, 210; of Japan, 16, 49, 167, 192–193, 210; of Okinawa, 55; Truman administration goal, 43; of West Germany, 16, 49, 132, 137, 210
Index 275
Department of Defense. See United States Department of Defense Department of Defense Dependents’ Schools, 209–212; in Bad Godesberg, 216–217; contacts/interaction/relations with locals, 213–214; democratization and, 210; desegregation of, 121; in Europe, 257n42; foreign language instruction, 205, 210, 212; foreign students in, 216–217; in France, 213–214, 216, 217; funding for, 209; in Heidelberg, 201, 213, 215; in Japan, 214, 220; Katzenbach committee, 256n30; in Madrid, 212; number of students, 210; off-base excursions, 215–216, 217, 223; in Okinawa, 1, 214; in Paris, 214, 215, 220; skiing lessons, 257n42; at StuttgartLudwigsburg, 205; teaching jobs, 72; in Tokyo, 210; understanding of host nations, 214–215; view of locals, 210; in West Germany, 210, 216–217 “Dependents,” 12 Dependents of American servicemen. See Service children (overseas); Service families (overseas); Service wives (overseas) Dilemmas in Deutschland (Howard and Wolf), 127, 155 Diplomacy, gender and, 3–4 Dmytryk, Florence, 214–215, 217 “Domani” (short story in U.S. Lady), 203– 204 Donat, Pat, 111 Don’t Be a Sucker in Germany! (pamphlet), 47 Dooley, Ed, 214, 220, 222 Dower, John, 71 Drysdale, Dale, 201 Dudziak, Mary, 5 Dulles, John Foster, 252n6 Easely, Dorothy, 148, 150–151 East Germany: East Berliners compared to West Germans, 159–160; establishment of, 141; refugees from, 145; service children in, 223 Ebony (magazine), 29, 59, 61 Ecker, Wilma, 214, 218 Eisenhower, Dwight David: American flag in the Canal Zone, 224; difficulty in coping with family separation, 23; to German people, 135; headquarters during World War II, 216; Marshall and, 23–24; meeting with Servicemen’s Wives
276 Index
and Children’s Association, 21–22, 22; People-to-People project, 144; racism in the armed forces, 121; reduction of military personnel abroad, 124–125; servicemen’s fraternization with German women, 47–48; son (John) and, 23, 24; support for families joining personnel overseas, 14, 21–24; wife (Mamie) and, 22–24 Eisenhower, John, 23, 24 Eisenhower, Mamie, 22–24, 24 Eisenhower administration, 76, 126, 163 Elkin, Jean Louise, 203 Elkin, Lauren, 203 Elkin, Lauren, Jr., 203 Emerson, Jo Wilson, 204 Ender, Morten, 257n56 England: Embassy Wives’ Speakers Bureau, 247n91; friendships between service families and local people, 115–116; housing for service families, 36; school excursions in, 216; schools for service children, 214. See also Great Britain; United Kingdom Enloe, Cynthia, 62–63, 179 Espinoza, Marie, 215, 218 Europe: America willingness to aid postwar recovery, 40–41; American bases in, 46; criminal acts by servicemen, 27; decision to fortify, 142; family members of U.S. armed forces in, 11t; first service families in, 32; off-base excursions in, 112; schools for service children, 257n42; service families in, 249n22 European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), 41–42, 43, 137 Falzani, Barbara Kale, 258n65 The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 61 Feminist movement, 230–231 Flag rivalry/riot in Panama Canal Zone, 224 Fleet Reserve Association, 63 Ford, Ernie, 128 Foreign Missions Conference of America, 189 Foreign policy. See United States foreign policy France: impression of American women, 100, 119; Paris (see Paris); relations with United States, 53; service families (see Service families in France) Frankfurt, Germany: churches in, 147; Ger-
man Youth Program, 48; Girls’ Center, 136; servicemen’s interaction with children, 48 Friedan, Betty, The Feminine Mystique, 61 “The Friendly Hand” (group), 144 “The Friendly Hand” (television program), 146 Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany, 224 Garrison Community (Wolf), 5 Gender relations: foreign policy, 3–4; in Okinawa, 192–193; postwar feminine role, 4, 20; service families and, 83– 84; in South Korea, 109–110; and stability and security, 6; in West Germany, 151 German-American Club (Heidelberg), 148, 149 German-American Club (Wiesbaden), 152 German Red Cross, 136 German Youth Activities: Christmastime (1948), 136; Christmastime activities, 48–49; Clay (Lucius DuBignon) and, 48; creation of, 243n101; participation in by overseas families, 78 German Youth Movement, 72 German Youth Program, 48 Germany: casualties during World War II, 15. See also East Germany; West Germany Ghormley, R. L., 25 Girl Scouts, 78, 221 GIs. See Servicemen (overseas) Glines, Carroll, 98 Goedde, Petra, 5–6, 28 Goffman, Erving, 8 Gorham, Thelma Thurston, 18–19 Gravois, Martha, 5 Great Britain: guidebooks for families in, 74–78; impression of American women, 100, 119; international women’s club in, 113. See also England; United Kingdom Greece, foreign aid to, 43 Griffith, Barbara, 151 A Guide for Dependents in Kyoto (military guidebook), 71 Guidebooks, 74–79; Air Force and Army books, 74–79; concern about image of the United States, 79; A Guide for Dependents in Kyoto (military guidebook), 71; for Okinawa, 177; A Pocket Guide to France (military guidebook), 51–52; A Pocket Guide to Korea (military guidebook), 52, 53; A Pocket Guide to
the Philippines (military guidebook), 51, 52, 53 Guthrie, James O., 209 Hamlett, Frances, 159 Handbook for Army Wives and Mothers (Redmond), 19 Happan, Elizabeth, 123–124 Hard power: de-emphasis of, 53; forms of, 50; Nye and, 4; United States foreign policy, 4–5, 230 Harris, Lewis, 212 Harris, Nevelyn, 212, 213 Harvey, Mary Lee, 95 Headen, T. P., 48 Heidelberg, Germany: Adjutant General’s Wives’ Club, 148; American Elementary School, 213, 215; American High School, 201; American Women’s Club, 150; charitable work in, 145; churches in, 148; German-American Club, 148, 149; Parent-Teacher Association, 217 Henry (a rescued North Korean boy), 57– 58 Here Is Germany (documentary), 135 Hersey, John, A Bell for Adano, 53–54 Heuss, Theodor, 147 Hickman, D. J., 154, 166 Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, 15 Hixson, Walter, 126 Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs, 82, 129 Höhn, Maria, on U.S. military in Rhineland-Palatinate, 6, 153, 157–158 Holshouser, Betty, 179–180 Homeward Bound (May), 6 Hoover, J. Edgar, 20 Hope, R. (may be fictitious name), 21 House Military Affairs Committee, 22 House of Burgesses, 55–56 House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, 169–170 “Houseboys,” 109–110 Housing for service families, 32–36; Air Force, 34, 117; contacts/interaction/relations with locals, 32; in England, 36; for enlisted men’s families, 118; in France, 30, 36, 117–118; in Germany, 6, 30, 32, 34, 118, 137–139; in Iceland, 247n98; in Japan, 30, 32–33, 34, 118; Life on, 33; off-base housing, 36, 89–90, 117, 118; for officers’ families, 118; in Okinawa, 33–34, 116–117; in the Philippines, 36; rank and, 85–86; retention of personnel, 117; in Spain, 36; in Turkey,
Index 277
Housing for service families (cont’d) 118; U.S. News and World Report on, 30, 33; wartime (WWII) ban on nondefense construction, 19 “How to Be Perfectly Miserable Overseas” (Moore), 98–99 Howard, Walt, 127, 155 Howley, Frank, 140–142 Hydrogen bomb, 45 “I Wanta Be a Daddy Club,” 21 Iceland, housing for service families, 247n98 Inafuku, Mitsuko, 184–185 Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Wives Club, 208 Information for Dependents (Army pamphlet), 207 International Club (Okinawa), 185, 187 International House of Japan, 229 Internationale Frauen Gruppe (International Women’s Group), 149 Iriye, Akira, 55 Is Like Typhoon (Merritt): dispute with a new maid, 254n55; material and social progress in Okinawa, 167; sales of, 252n1; title of, 182 Isa, Junko, 184, 233 Istituto Femminile Don Nicola Mazza Orphanage (Verona, Italy), 58–59 Italy: “Culture Vultures” in, 112; fiction about service family in, 203–204; hostility toward service children, 221; impression of American women, 100, 119; Naples, 112; off-base excursions in, 112; relations with United States, 53–54; Verona, 59 Itazuke Air Base, 35 Izmir, Turkey, 111, 113 Jackson, Andrew, 173 Japan: American race relations, 5; callousness/death of a boy in, 104; Camp Zama, 118; casualties during World War II, 15; charitable work in, 103; “comfort facilities” in, 28; demilitarization, 16, 167; democratization, 16, 49, 167, 192– 193, 210; differences between Okinawan and Japanese culture, 176–177, 193– 194; domestic servants in, 108–109, 158; economic reconstruction, 16; food aid to, 41; friendships between service families and local people, 114–115, 203; international women’s club in, 113;
278 Index
Itazuke Air Base, 35; Kyoto, 111; Kyushu, 49; locals’ view of U.S., 92–93; marriage in, 118; marriages of servicemen and local women, 60; Misawa, 222; mixed-race children in, 122–123; occupation of, 10, 16–17, 32, 39–40, 71, 180, 184; postwar reforms, 2; prostitution in, 28; relations with United States, 169; “residual sovereignty” over Okinawa, 252n6; reversion of Okinawa to, 170, 175–176, 194, 197; segregation of the rich and poor, 105; service families (see Service families in Japan); Status of Forces Agreement, 194; venereal disease rates of servicemen, 28; women’s suffrage, 192–193 Jefferson, Thomas, 56 Jim Crow in the Cold War, 5 John, Saint, 111 Johnson, Lyndon, 124, 126, 229 Joint Chiefs of Staff, 44 Jonas, Manfred, 166 Kadena Chapel Guild (Okinawa), 181, 189 Kadena Officers’ Wives Club, 181 Kasson, John, 79 Kastel, Germany, 34 Katz, Joyace Ann Downing, 100, 200–201, 205 Keener, Ethel, 159–160 Kennan, George, 42–43 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald: assassination of, 165; balance of payments problems, 87, 163; in Berlin, 166; Berlin blockade and airlift, 161, 163; Cuban Missile Crisis, 226; decreasing spending abroad, 125; Peace Corps, 81; suspension of service families’ travel to Western Europe, 164; U.S. Lady, 127 Kennedy administration: balance of payments problems, 87, 163; Berlin blockade and airlift, 161–162; emphasis on masculine toughness, 126 Khrushchev, Nikita: Berlin blockade and airlift, 161; “kitchen debate,” 116, 190, 191 Kim Il-sung, 44 Kishaba, Jun, “Dark Flowers,” 171–172 Klein, Christina, 55 Klinger, David, 138, 227 Koikari, Mire, 192–193 Koons, William B., 49 Korea. See South Korea Korean War (1950–1953): American-Fil-
ipino alliance during, 53; funding increases for national security, 45; number of overseas bases following, 46; outbreak, 44, 226; Ryukyu Islands in, 169 Koshiro, Yukiko, 122 Kyoto, Japan, 111 Kyushu, Japan, 49 Lachaussee, Anne, 152–153, 160–161 Lachaussee, Bob, 152–153 Ladies’ Home Journal (magazine), 61 LaMantia, Elizabeth Dallmeier, 99–100, 156 Land, Elizabeth, 98 Lardner, Fred, 162–163 Laux, Patsy, 200 League of Nations, 41, 55 Lederer, William, The Ugly American (with Burdick), 91, 179–180 Lee, Bernadine: domestic servants employed by, 108; friendships with Japanese people, 115; Japanese women, 206; overseas travel to Japan, 31–33; son, 207 Lee, Cecil, 31 Leiser, Ernest, 125–126 Lepis, Cabrini, 165–166 Lewis, Jack, 57–58 Life (magazine): children of occupation personnel on cover, 211; on housing for service families, 33; on military presence in Okinawa, 27; on Okinawa, 174–175; seizure of farmland in Okinawa, 170 Lodge, David, Out of the Shelter, 156–157 Luszki, Walter, 72–73 MacArthur, Douglas: call to reduce personnel in Japan, 17–18; on democratic ideals, 193; on Okinawans, 174; wife, 218 MacArthur, Jean, 218 Mannheim, Germany, 145 Mao Zedong, 44 Marburg, Germany: complaints about women’s club in, 136; confiscation of family dog in, 138 Marine Corps. See United States Marine Corps Marriage: equality in American marriages, 118–119; interracial marriages, 59, 60, 122, 242n68; in Japan, 118; marriage rate during World War II, 18; percent active-duty married men in armed forces, 62, 120; percent married servicemen overseas, 73; of servicemen and
German women, 48; of servicemen and Japanese women, 60; of servicemen and local women, 59–60; side taken by military establishment in marital disputes, 119–120; women leaving military upon marrying, 84 Marshall, George: Eisenhower (Dwight David) and, 23–24; European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), 41–42, 43, 137; Roosevelt (Franklin Delano) and, 23; on service families overseas, 24 Matsumoto, Shigeharu, 229 Matthews, Marcia, 198, 209 Maue, Betty, 14 May, Elaine Tyler: on domestic anti-communism, 61; Homeward Bound, 6; World War II’s effect on family formation, 18 McClain, Charles, 14 McClain, Rosie, 14 McNamara, Robert, 162, 164 Merritt, Bob (Robert): maid of, 192; photograph of, 191; as tour guide, 190, 228 Merritt, Marian, 181–192; as an authority on Okinawa, 187; belief that American wives could improve status of Okinawan women, 195; conflicting demands placed on overseas dependents, 188; daughter, 191; departure from Okinawa, 226– 227; employment of domestic servants, 183–184; on flower arranging, 186; on gender relations in Okinawa, 192–193; housing in Okinawa, 116–117; International Club, 181, 185, 187; Is Like Typhoon (see Is Like Typhoon); Kadena Chapel Guild, 181, 189; Kadena Officers’ Wives Club, 181; Okinawa Leper Colony, 181; on Okinawan culture, 186–188; Okinawan living conditions, 254n56; Okinawan Maid School, 181, 183; Okinawan Women’s Federation, 181; on Okinawans, 190, 197; Orientalism of, 187; outlook exemplified by, 181; photograph of, 187, 191; teaching at Koza Junior High School, 255n76; U.S. Lady, 181, 188; a “U.S. Ladiesof-the-Month,” 181; view of self, 167– 168 Merritt, Robert, 181 Methodist Church, 189 Metzger, Jane, 113, 247n91 Mexico, family members of U.S. armed forces in, 11t Meyerowitz, Joanne, 4, 61
Index 279
Michener, James, 123 Miles, Mrs. Theodore, 121 Military communities: before 1950s, 32; housing (see Housing for service families); as isolated/self-sustained communities, 7–8, 138, 154; Itazuke Air Base, 35; jobs for local nationals, 87, 155, 174; “ladies” vs. “wives” in, 96; as “Little Americas”/“golden ghettoes,” 7–8, 34, 154, 228; racism in, 121, 123; return of residences to German owners, 154; social structure of, 88; undemocratic treatment of fellow Americans in, 83; in West Germany, 138, 154 Military families. See Service families (overseas) Military personnel. See Servicemen (overseas) Misawa, Japan, 222 “Mrs. United States Navy” contest, 63–64 Monroe, James, 56 Monson (Major in the Marines), 58 Moon, Chantal M., 99 Moore, James E., 174 Moore, Patricia (Pat), 98–99, 115–116 Morris, Morton D.: military-supervised prostitution in Okinawa, 178; on Okinawa, 28; on Okinawans, 172–173; on sexual assault by servicemen in Okinawa, 27–28, 178, 254n48; on Teahouse of the August Moon, 242n60 Mowrer, Lillian, 204 Munich, Germany, 136 Naples, Italy, 112 Nasch, Marie, 81 “National Military Families Recognition Day,” 231 National Security Council, 45 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization): American membership in, 43–44; strength relative to Soviet forces, 162; West German membership, 143 Navy. See United States Navy Navy Wives Club of America, 63 Nelson, Daniel, 142 Newsweek (magazine): on Christianity among Okinawans, 177, 189; evacuation from Vietnam, 229; on Okinawans, 175 Nixon, Richard: “kitchen debate,” 116, 190, 191; Nago Shop project, 178 Non-Commissioned Officers’ and Enlisted Men’s Club (West Berlin), 144
280 Index
“Noncombatant Evacuation Operation,” 127 North Atlantic Treaty Organization. See NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) NSC-68 report, 45 Nye, Joseph S., Jr., 4, 50–51, 96 O’Brien, Lawrence, 161 Office of Dependency Benefits, 21 Okinawa: acceptance of American military presence by locals, 168, 171, 190, 232; American control of, 169, 171, 173; author’s childhood, 1; bars/brothels/nightclubs, 28, 171, 229; brothels, 28; burial practices, 186, 254n69; democratization of, 55; differences between Okinawan and Japanese culture, 176–177, 193– 194; economic growth, 56; encouragement of traditional arts, 176; funding for bases in, 169; gender relations in, 192–193; International Club, 181, 185, 187; international women’s club in, 185–186; Japan’s “residual sovereignty” over, 252n6; jobs for local nationals, 174; justification for bases in, 168; Kadena Chapel Guild, 181, 189; Kadena Officers’ Wives Club, 181; in Korean War, 169; land shortage, 170; Life on, 174–175; Life on military presence in, 27; living conditions, 254n56; material and social progress, 167; noise from military aircraft, 170, 171; population, 252n3; population density, 170; poverty, 196; prostitution in, 171, 178, 196, 254n48, 255n91; race in reinforcing American dominance, 5; race in reinforcing stereotypes of Okinawans, 10; religion in, 171, 188–190; reversion to Japan, 170, 175–176, 194, 197; right to vote in, 184; rock-throwing incident, 1; “Ryukyuization” campaign, 176; schools for dependents, 1; seizure of farmland from Okinawans, 168, 170– 171; service families in (see Service families in Okinawa); Status of Forces Agreement, 194; strategic importance, 169; in Teahouse of the August Moon, 55–56; Time on, 174; venereal disease, 28, 171, 178, 254n48; Vietnam War, 229–230; “Yumiko-chan Incident,” 177–178 Okinawa, Battle of, 167, 169, 174 Okinawa Leper Colony, 181 Okinawa Women’s Federation, 173
Okinawan Maid School, 181, 183 Okinawan Women’s Federation, 181 Okinawan Youth Association, 170 Operation Kinderlift, 73 Operation Vittles (cookbook), 103 Organization of Intellectual Cooperation, 55 ¯ shiro, Tatsuhiro, “The Cocktail Party,” O 193–196 Oswald, Lee Harvey, 165 Out of the Shelter (Lodge), 156–157 Overseas bases: before 1941, 19; acceptance by locals, 73, 75; anti-communism, 46; containment of communism, 46; in Europe, 46; funding for bases in Okinawa, 169; necessity for, 3; number of (1945), 46; Okinawan animosity toward, 168; in Pacific theater, 46; purpose of, 8; seizure of farmland for, 168, 170–171; significance in Cold War, 45, 57 Pacelli, Ario, 14 Pacific theater, American bases in, 46 Panama Canal Zone, flag rivalry/riot in, 224 Paris: Army Overseas Dependents School, 214, 220; servicemen’s charity work, 49 Paskarbis, Gudrun, 146 Paul, Saint, 111 Peace Corps, 81, 126–127 Pennington, Mrs. Bob, 81–82 Philippines: employment of domestic servants in, 109; guidebooks for families in, 74, 77; housing for service families, 36 Phillips, Hudson “Bill”: on friendships between service children and local children, 221–222; guidance on how to behave, 201; high school excursion, 216; service children in East Germany, 223 Pizer, Vernon, 141 Plummer, Brenda Gayle, 122 A Pocket Guide to France (military guidebook), 51–52 A Pocket Guide to Korea (military guidebook), 52, 53 A Pocket Guide to the Philippines (military guidebook), 51, 52, 53 Politics, gender and, 3–4 Pompidou, Georges, 215 Pope, Josephine, 115 Powell, Adam Clayton, 121–122 Prostitution: in Japan, 28; in Okinawa,
171, 178, 196, 254n48, 255n91; in West Germany, 28 Rabson, Steve, 176 Race relations: Americans’ displays of racism, 157–158; friendships between Germans and African-American families, 158; interracial marriages, 59, 122; mixed-race children fathered abroad, 122–123, 146, 250n46; poisoning of relations with host countries, 12–13; racial differences between Okinawans and Americans, 196; racial identity of most Germans and Americans, 168, 228; racism in military communities, 121, 123; racism in the armed forces, 121–122; racism toward mixed-race children, 122, 146; reinforcement of alliance with Germany, 5, 10; reinforcement of American dominance in Okinawa, 5; reinforcement of cultural and racial stereotypes in Okinawa, 10; scrutiny of African Americans, 256n36; in U.S. Lady (magazine), 123 Ramsey, Forest, 206, 223–224 Ramsey, Sally, 100 Reader’s Digest (magazine), 123 Red Cross: American, 72; British, 78; German, 136 Redmond, Catherine, Handbook for Army Wives and Mothers, 19 Reeves, Liz, 219 “Reorientation” (short story in U.S. Lady), 219–220 Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany: African Americans in, 158; service families in, 6, 153 Richards, Aurelia, 106, 123 Richardson, Barbara, 110 Rigel, Kenneth, 60 Rigel, Kureha, 60 Roberts, Luke, 254n55 Robertson, A. Willis, 162 Rockwell, George Lincoln, 94–95 Rockwell, Norman, The American Way, 53, 54 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 208 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano: Selective Service Act (1940), 18; voting for, 137; Yalta conference (1945), 16, 17 Rosenberg, Emily, 3–4, 173 Rossini, Daniela, 41 Roucar, Lisetta, 58 Russo, Carmela, 58
Index 281
The Ryuku Islands at a Glance (U.S. Civil Administration of the Ryuku Islands), 173–174, 175 St. Ann’s Society for Catholic Women (Turkey), 111 St. John’s Ambulance Association, 78 Saling, Ann, 101 Sand, George, 216 Sarkar, Chanchal, 229 Saturday Evening Post (magazine), 90, 122, 137 Sawada, Miki, 29 Sawyer, Mary, 145–146 Schmaltz, William, 95 Schmidt, Ernestine, 151 Schwartz, Henrietta, 200 Scotland, service children in, 212, 213, 224 “Scots, Wha Hae” (Burns), 212 Scott, Joan Wallach, 3 Selective Service, 18, 21 Senate Military Committee, 21 “Service children,” 12 Service children (overseas), 198–225; acquisition of local languages, 199, 204– 205, 251n68; as advocates of American military and foreign relations goals, 7; affection of local people, 221; benefits of living abroad, 218–221; conflicting demands placed on, 11, 199, 217, 225; contacts/interaction/relations with locals, 11, 77–78, 201–207, 211, 213–214, 217; demonstrations of American good will, 2, 70–71; discouragement from appreciating local cultures, 217; early return from overseas, 120; in East Germany, 223; as embodiment of “world citizenship,” 198, 210–212; evacuation during Berlin blockade, 72, 139–140, 161; expectations placed on, 77–78, 218; fathers’ careers, 200–201; in France, 213–214, 221; friendships with local children, 221–222; guidebooks for, 74–78; hostility toward, 221, 223; initiating interactions between adults, 202– 204; as intercultural, international representatives, 212; involvement in community organizations, 78; in Japan, 212, 222; Life cover depicting, 211; longterm effects of overseas life on, 257n56; misbehavior by, 199, 200–201, 223– 224; as natural internationalists, 198– 199, 220, 225; number living abroad, 84; in Okinawa, 1, 224; participation in
282 Index
the Cold War, 208–209; postwar concerns about, 19–20; prescriptions for behavior, 199–201; relations with domestic employees, 206; relocations and interruptions in education and friendships, 218, 220; school-community projects, 216; schools, off-base, 212–213; schools for dependents (see Department of Defense Dependents’ Schools); in Scotland, 212, 213, 224; sense of American identity, 220–221; soft power, 4; in Turkey, 222; Vietnam War, 230–231; in West Germany, 202–203, 223, 224 Service families (overseas): 2001 terrorist attacks, 232; acceptance of American military presence by locals, 73, 75, 142, 147, 168, 171, 196, 232–233; adoptions by (see Adoptions by service families); as advocates of American military and foreign relations goals, 7, 61–62, 182, 227–228; American tourists compared to, 164; America’s commitment to defend Western Europe, 5; anti-communism, 2, 6, 39; appreciation of nonAmerican cultures/customs, 9; awareness of expansion in U.S. global involvement, 39; belief in superiority of the American Way of Life, 6, 9; Berlin blockade and airlift (1948-1949), 159–165; children of (see Service children (overseas)); conflicting demands placed on, 9, 225; contacts/interaction/relations with locals (see Contacts/interaction/relations with locals); countering criticisms of Americans/American society, 76; decision to send, 8–9, 15, 21–25; decline in number of, 230; demonstrations of American good will, 48–49, 70–71, 232; demonstrations of American sensitivity to foreigners, 2, 51, 53, 75; departures from overseas locations, 226–227; domestic servants, 78, 102, 107–110, 131; during/after World War II, 18–20; in Europe, 249n22; evacuation of, 72, 139– 140, 161, 226, 228–229; exclusion of African Americans from certain areas abroad, 85; expectations placed on, 3, 39–40, 46, 50, 60, 63, 74, 77–78; expense of maintaining, 124–125, 141, 163, 231; first families sent to occupied Japan, 32; focus on, 11; in France (see Service families in France); friendships with local people, 114–116, 152–153, 158, 203, 232; gender relations and, 83–
84; housing for (see Housing for service families); as integral parts of the military, 38–39; in Japan (see Service families in Japan); locals’ view of, 156–157, 201–202, 232; military leaders’ fears about, 8; monetary allowances during World War II, 19; “National Military Families Recognition Day,” 231; in Okinawa (see Service families in Okinawa); orientation programs for, 38–39, 90; outflow of gold reserves, 76, 124–127, 230; overseas concentrations of, 11; participation in the Cold War, 2–3, 4, 13, 60–61, 246n68; permission to join, 2; population of, 2, 11t, 73, 170; portrayals of, 57; ports of embarkation, 31; postwar international responsibilities, 15; preparations for going abroad, 30– 31; promotion of occupation goals, 39– 40; racial demographics, 84, 85t; rank in determining overseas assignments, 30, 85–86, 239n93; reconceptualization during Cold War, 61–64; reinforcement of American dominance, 2–3; representation of peaceful intentions, 71; as representatives of the American Way of Life, 2; scholarship about, 5–6; servicemen’s morale following end of World War II, 15, 26–27, 37, 238n88; side taken by military establishment in marital disputes, 119–120; significance of, 8; soft power, 4, 227; sources of information about, 6–7; in South America, 101; “sponsors” of, 30; tolerance of family separation and domestic hardships, 20; travel to overseas assignments, 29–32; in United Kingdom, 25; as unofficial ambassadors, 2, 9, 12, 40, 70–79; during Vietnam War, 228–231; as wartime impediments, 125–126, 227, 228–229, 231; in West Germany (see Service families in West Germany); wives of servicemen (see Service wives (overseas)) Service families in France: attending religious services with locals, 110; friendships with local people, 115; guidebooks for, 74, 77, 78; housing for, 30, 36, 117–118; school-community projects, 216; school excursions, 215–216, 217; schools for service children, 213–214, 216, 217; service children in, 213–214, 221 Service families in Japan: first families, 32; fraternization with Japanese women,
158; housing for, 30, 32–33, 34, 118; orientation program for, 38; promotion of occupation goals, 39–40; schools for service children, 214, 220; service children, 212, 222 Service families in Okinawa, 167–197; as advocates of American military and foreign relations goals, 182; assumptions about Okinawans’ dependency on Americans, 178; attending religious services with locals, 189; charitable work, 49– 50, 189, 196; contacts with local children, 180; contacts with locals, 182, 185–193, 214; demonstrations of American good will, 189; employment of domestic servants, 183–185, 206, 254n55; housing for, 33–34, 116–117; kidnapping by servicemen, 177–178; military guidebook for, 177; morale of occupation forces in, 26; Nago Shop project, 178–180; population of, 170; reinforcement of cultural and racial stereotypes, 10; schools for service children, 214; service children in, 224; service wives as maternal figures, 10, 129, 168–169, 177–185; shortness of Okinawans, 172, 173–174, 179; showcasing American homes, 180–181, 190–192; view of Okinawans as inferior, 168, 172–177, 182–183, 184, 190, 228 Service families in West Germany, 131– 166; attending religious services with locals, 147–148; charitable work, 49, 71, 103, 132, 135–136, 144–145; Christmastime celebrations, 148–149; contacts/interaction/relations with locals, 48, 147–149, 154; contacts with local children, 136; criminal acts by servicemen, 27; cultural commonalities with Germans, 10, 146–152, 166, 228; demonstrations of American good will, 136; first families, 32; fraternization with German women, 24–25, 28, 29, 47–48, 97–98, 134, 153, 158–159; friendships with local people, 152–153, 158, 203; housing for, 6, 30, 32, 34, 118, 137–139; learning German, 152; locals’ view of, 156–157; marriages of servicemen and local women, 48; offbase excursions by, 155; orientation program for, 38, 134, 137, 147, 199; promotion of occupation goals, 39–40; racial identity of most Germans and Americans, 168; in Rhineland-Palatinate,
Index 283
Service families in West Germany (cont’d) 6, 153, 157–158; in rural vs. urban communities, 153; school-community projects, 216; schools for service children, 210, 216–217; sense of participating in a grand struggle, 141; service children in, 202–203, 223, 224; showcasing American homes, 150, 157; softening of U.S. occupation policy, 6; view of Germans, 6, 47, 141–142, 166, 210 “Service wives,” 12 Service wives (overseas): advice literature by, 90, 93–94, 99–100, 128; assistance to women who had given birth to children fathered by American servicemen, 145; belief in superiority of the American Way of Life, 83, 128, 157; calls for return home of soldiers following World War II, 8–9, 14, 20–22, 25, 29, 36–37; charitable work, 49–50, 71, 102, 103– 104, 132, 135–136, 144–145; conference of, 245n46; conflicting demands placed on, 102, 128–129; contacts/interaction/relations with locals, 77–78, 80, 83, 93–94, 102–118; containment of communism, 65, 82; as “cultural imperialists,” 129–130; “Culture Vultures” among, 112; disdain for local peoples among, 123–124; domestic problems, 83; dressing/dress codes, 76–77, 100; early return from overseas, 120; Embassy Wives’ Speakers Bureau, 247n91; employment of (paid work), 19–20, 231, 244n19; etiquette books for, 86, 87–88; evacuation during Berlin blockade, 72, 139–140, 161; evacuation during Cuban Missile Crisis, 226; expectations placed on, 60, 63, 72, 87, 88; feminist movement, 230–231; guidebooks for, 74–78; as helpmates in husband’s military career, 88, 96; involvement in community organizations, 78; jobs provided to local nationals, 87; “ladies” vs. “wives” in military communities, 96; legal and economic power of, 119; locals’ impression of, 100, 119; as “maternal imperialists,” 129, 168–169; militarization of, 61–64; military strength, 65; of Naval attachés, 25; number living abroad, 84; “Officer-Wife Team,” 89; officers’ wives, 9, 82, 83, 86–90, 96; official recognition of their importance, 63; participation in the Cold War, 2–3, 4, 60; Peace Corps, suitability for, 81–
284 Index
82; recognition of cultural diversity, 128; reinforcement of rank and class hierarchies, 89–90; as social workers, 136; soft power, 82–83, 96; Taylor on, 72; as teachers (see Teachers, service wives as); teaching jobs, 72, 105; teaching jobs in armed forces schools, 72; as “Twentieth Century Pioneers,” 64–65; as unofficial ambassadors, 9, 83, 123–124, 228; Vietnam War, 230; volunteer (unpaid) work, 87, 88, 105, 230–231, 232; as wartime impediments, 125–126, 227; wives born locally, 99–100 Servicemen (overseas): as advocates of American military and foreign relations goals, 7; calls for their return home following World War II, 8–9, 14, 20–22, 25, 29, 36–37; charitable work, 49–50; children fathered by, 29, 145–146, 250n46 (see also Service children (overseas)); contacts/interaction/relations with locals, 98; criminal acts by, 26, 27–28, 168, 170, 171, 177–178, 194–195; in “Dear Lady” advertisements, 70; demobilization of fathers following World War II, 237n46; dependents of (see Service children (overseas); Service families (overseas); Service wives (overseas)); discipline problems, 26, 27, 37; drunkenness, 51–52; extramarital activities, 158; families of (see Service families (overseas)); as “fathers” and husbands, 57– 60; fraternization with German women, 24–25, 28, 29, 47–48, 97–98, 134, 153, 158–159; fraternization with Japanese women, 158; hard power, 4, 53; interactions with children and women, 48, 57; marriages with local women, 48, 59–60; morale following end of World War II, 15, 26–27, 37, 238n88; murders by, 177–178; number (1950-1960), 46; offensive acts by, 168; orphanages, 58– 59; percent African American, 84; percent married, 73; percentage during World War II, 19; during period prior to arrival of families, 9; popular cultural depictions of, 57; problems maintaining them abroad, 26–28; projections of American power, 2; recruitment/retention of, 26, 117, 227; reduction in, 124– 125; sexual assaults/rapes by (see Sexual assaults/rapes by servicemen overseas); soft power actions, 4, 228; as “sponsors,” 30; spouses (see Service wives
(overseas)); venereal disease rates, 28, 238n81; wives (see Service wives (overseas)); during World War II, 15 Servicemen’s Wives and Children’s Association, 21–22 Sexual assaults/rapes by servicemen overseas: military-supervised prostitution, 178, 254n48; by servicemen in Okinawa, 27–28, 171, 177–178, 254n48 Shea, Nancy: advice books for service wives, 245n29; etiquette books of, 86, 87–88; on rank among service wives, 89 Shea, Suzanne, 148–149 Shelley family, 34 Siegen, Miyazato, 175–176 Sikes, Bob, 161 Smith, Margaret Chase, 24, 117 Sneider, Vern. See The Teahouse of the August Moon Soft power: contacts/interaction/relations with locals (see Contacts/interaction/relations with locals); highlighting of, 53; in military guidebooks, 50–53; Nye and, 4, 50–51; paternalistic protectiveness, 53; service children, 4; service families, 4, 227; service wives, 82–83, 96; servicemen overseas, 4, 228; showcasing American homes, 116, 150, 157, 180– 181, 189, 190–192; in Teahouse of the August Moon, 56; United States foreign policy, 4–5 South America, service families in, 101 South Korea: disapproval of American employers’ apparel, 110; gender relations in, 109–110; “houseboys” in, 109–110; international women’s club in, 113; occupation of, 16–17; relations with United States, 53; Vieman (Dorothy House) on experiences in, 91 Soviet Union: atomic bomb, 45; establishment of East Germany, 141; relations with United States, 16, 42–43; strength relative to NATO forces, 162; West German fears of, 143 Spain: guidebooks for families in, 77; housing for service families, 36; schools in Madrid, 212 Spanish American War (1898), 45 Special Occupational Planning Board, 29–30 “Sponsors,” 30 Stacker, Josephine Galbraith, 164–165 Stalin, Joseph, 16, 44, 163 Stanton, R. G., 46–47
Stars and Stripes (newspaper): calls for return home of soldiers following World War II, 21; on charitable work, 49; families’ ambassadorial duties, 201; on families joining servicemen overseas, 30; rank in sending families overseas, 239n93; on uncertainty about the length of occupation of Germany, 17 Staton, Thomas, 219 Stimson, Henry, 24 Stuttgart, Germany: Phillips in, 201; requisitioning of homes in, 138; StuttgartLudwigsburg American High School, 205 Sundberg, Grudy, 100 Taira, Koji, 176 Taylor, Maxwell, D., 64–65, 72 Teachers, service wives as: in Department of Defense Dependents’ Schools, 72; in local schools, 105–106, 218, 255n76; reliance of armed forces upon women’s work, 72; volunteer (unpaid) work, 105 The Teahouse of the August Moon (Sneider): enactment of U.S. postwar goals, 54–56; evolutionary model of social progress, 55; Morris on, 242n60; Okinawans as “natives,” 177; Okinawans’ shortness, 172; play based on, 253n21; soft power in, 56 Thomas, Charles, 62, 63 Thomas, Elizabeth, 205–206 Time (magazine), 171, 174 Tito (originally Josip Broz), 163 Townswomen’s Guild, 78 Truman, Harry S.: aid for Greece, 43; on calls for return home of soldiers following World War II, 14, 20, 25; on demobilization, 26; desegregation of the armed forces, 121, 158; development of hydrogen bomb, 45; MacArthur’s call to reduce personnel in Japan, 17; remilitarization of the United States, 44; termination of pregnant women in the military, 84; U.S. occupation of foreign lands, 36; Vaughan and, 24 Truman administration, 42–44, 126, 142 Truman Doctrine, 43 Turkey: charitable work in, 111; foreign aid to, 43; Garrison Community about, 5; housing for service families, 118; international women’s club in, 113; Izmir, 111, 113; off-base excursions in, 111; service children in, 213, 222
Index 285
Turkish-American Association, 113 Twining, Nathan F., 64–65 The Ugly American (Lederer and Burdick), 91, 179–180 Ulbricht, Walter, 161 United Kingdom: guidebooks for families in, 74, 76–77, 78; service families in, 25. See also England; Great Britain United Nations, 41, 44 United States Air Force: as an organization of fathers and husbands, 65–66, 70; budget, 44; guidebooks for spouses and children, 74–78; housing for service families, 34, 117; military communities in Germany, 138; percent African American enlistees, 244n14; percent African American officers, 84; recognition of service wives’/families’ importance, 63; retention of personnel, 117; service families as integral part of, 39; service wives in, 64–65; at Templehof Central Airport, 144 United States armed forces: calls for return home of soldiers following World War II, 8–9, 14, 20–22, 25, 29, 36–37; demobilization following World War II, 21, 26, 45–46; dependents (see Service children (overseas); Service families (overseas); Service wives (overseas)); exclusion of African Americans from certain areas abroad, 85; as family-centered organizations, 65–70; number of women serving in the military in World War II, 84; number overseas, 230; overseas bases (see Overseas bases); percent active-duty married men, 62, 120; percent white, 84; racism in, 121; reconceptualization vis-à-vis families, 61–64; segregation of, 121; servicemen (see Servicemen (overseas)); side taken by military establishment in marital disputes, 119– 120; single enlisted women in, 84; termination of pregnant women in the military, 84; under-representation of blacks as officers, 84 United States Army: active duty personnel (1939), 45; Central Billeting Office, 145; encouragement of learning foreign languages, 152; guidebooks for spouses and children, 74–78; manpower crisis, 46; percent African American enlistees, 244n14; percent African American officers, 84; Procurement and Separation
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Branch, 46; recognition of service wives’/families’ importance, 63; rejection of inferior applicants, 46–47; service families as integral part of, 39; Special Services Division, 131 United States Army Europe (USAEUR), 50, 238n88 United States Civil Administration of the Ryuku Islands, The Ryuku Islands at a Glance, 173–174, 175 United States Department of Defense: Berlin blockade and airlift, 162; guidebooks produced by, 51; schools run by (see Department of Defense Dependents’ Schools); termination of pregnant women in the military, 84 United States Forces European Theater (USFET), 48 United States foreign policy: American race relations, 5, 10; awareness of expansion in U.S. global involvement, 39; bad behavior of Americans abroad, 52; during Cold War (see Cold War); commitment to bases in Ryuku Islands, 169; commitment to defend Western Europe, 5; cultural/social dimensions, 3; food aid, 41; gender and, 3–4; hard power in, 4–5, 230; isolationism in, 40–41; masculine and feminine dimensions of, 2, 51; occupation of Germany, 6, 10, 16–17, 17, 39–40, 41, 47, 129, 131–132, 133– 139, 142; occupation of Japan, 10, 16– 17, 32, 39–40, 71, 180; occupation of Korea, 16–17; opposition to communist expansion, 2; positive views of U.S., 91– 92; prevention of foreign aggression, 2; rearmament of West Germany, 143; relations with France, 53; relations with Italy, 53–54; relations with Japan, 169; relations with South Korea, 53; relations with Soviet Union, 16; relations with West Germany, 132, 139–144, 147, 152, 163, 165–166, 196; representation of peaceful intentions, 71; soft power in, 4–5; storage of nuclear weapons in West Germany, 143–144; in The Ugly American, 91; willingness to aid postwar European recovery, 40–41; Yalta conference (1945), 16, 17 United States Information Agency, 100, 119 United States Information and Education Service, 134, 152 United States Information Service, 150 U.S. Lady (magazine), 94–101; accounts of
interactions with locals, 90, 101; adoptions reported in, 106, 123; advice about appropriate feminine dress and conduct, 100; advice and examples in, 97; advice literature by service wives, 90, 99–100, 128; Andrews in, 97, 98; “Au Revoir, Mike” (short story), 106–107; audience for, 58; Berlin blockade and airlift, 162– 163; Burke in, 63; cartoons in, 127, 155; charitable work in Germany, 135–136; child psychologist in, 219; “Christmas at Sea” (short story), 150–151; comparison of East Berliners and West Germans, 159–160; “Dear Lady” advertisements, 66–70, 67, 68, 69; depictions of antiAmericanism, 108; “Domani” (short story), 203–204; domestic violence in service families, 120; editors, 81, 94; on family-centered armed forces, 65–70; founder, 94; “How to Be Perfectly Miserable Overseas” (article), 98–99; illustrations in, 97–98; informal contacts with locals, 155–156; Kennedy and, 127; “ladies” vs. “wives” in military communities, 96; on locals’ impression of American women, 119; marriages of servicemen and local women, 59–60; “May Day” (short story), 108–109; Merritt and, 181, 188; on “Mrs. United States Navy” contestants, 64; official status, 94; outlook of, 95; profitability, 94; publication period, 7, 59; on race relations, 123; “Reorientation” (short story), 219–220; Rockwell (George Lincoln) and, 94–95; service children in Japanese parochial kindergartens, 212; service wives as helpmates in husband’s military career, 96; service wives as soft power resources, 96; servicemen as “foster fathers,” 58; servicemen’s fraternization with German women, 97–98; “U.S. Ladies-of-the-Month,” 95–96, 106, 145, 181; U.S. Ladies-of-the-Month Selection Board, 95; “U.S. Ladies-of-the-Year” feature, 106; “A U.S. Lady’s World” (article), 97, 98; “When Mrs. Biddle Poured” (article), 135–136; white officers’ wives as model, 96 United States Marine Corps: 1st Marine Air Wing, 57–58; active duty personnel (1939), 45; first families sent to occupied Japan, 32; percent African American enlistees, 244n14; percent African American officers, 84
United States Navy: active duty personnel (1939), 45; first families sent to occupied Japan, 32; married men in, 62; “Mrs. United States Navy” contest, 63–64; “Officer-Wife Team” in, 89; percent African American enlistees, 244n14; percent African American officers, 84; personnel assignments, 88–89; recognition of service wives’/families’ importance, 63; sending spouses of attachés overseas, 25; service families as integral part of, 39 United States War Department: announcement of families joining servicemen overseas, 30–31; demobilization of fathers, 237n46; Eisenhower’s (Dwight David) proposal to send military wives abroad, 24; funding for schools for service children, 209; transportation expenses for families going abroad, 31 U.S. News and World Report (magazine): on Guantanamo during Cuban Missile Crisis, 226; on housing for service families, 30, 33; social problems resulting from mixed marriages, 242n68 University of the Ryukyus, 190 Unofficial ambassadors: service families as, 2, 9, 12, 40; service wives as, 9, 83, 123–124, 228 “A U.S. Lady’s World” (Andrews), 97, 98 USS Ainsworth, 32 USS Capricornus, 58 USS Carroll, 32 Vann, John Allen, 31 Vann, John Paul, 31, 158–159 Vann, Mary Jane, 31, 88, 158 Vann family, 33 Vaughan, Harry, 24–25 Verona, Italy, 59 Vieman, Doc, 109 Vieman, Dorothy House: experiences in Korea, 91; “houseboys” employed by, 109–110; international women’s club in Korea, 113; outbreak of Korean War, 226; teaching at Ewha Girls’ High School, 105 Vietnam War, 46, 226, 228–231 Vittrup, R. L., 164 WACs. See Women’s Army Corps (WACs) Walker, John, 205 War, gender and, 3–4 War Department. See United States War Department
Index 287
Watson, Marvin, 126 WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), 97 Welcome to Itazuke (pamphlet), 35 West Berlin: American Women’s Club, 103, 145; as a bastion of freedom, 161; charitable work in, 144; domestic servants in, 131, 137; East Berliners compared to West Germans, 159–160; Kennedy in, 166; locals’ view of Americans, 201– 202; Non-Commissioned Officers’ and Enlisted Men’s Club, 144; during the occupation, 131; Operation Kinderlift, 73; providing milk for babies in, 140–141; as a showcase, 252n92; Templehof Central Airport, 144; Wives’ Club of the Sixth Infantry, 145 West Germany: acceptance of American military presence by locals, 142, 147, 196, 232–233; African Americans in, 157–158; American race relations, 5, 157–158; anti-communism, 132–133; Bad Godesberg, 216; Bad Kreuznach (see Bad Kreuznach, Germany); Bad Nauheim, 72; Baden-Wuerttemberg State Homemakers Fair, 150; Berlin (see West Berlin); Bremerhaven, 32; children fathered by servicemen, 29, 145–146; Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in, 143; Christmastime celebrations, 148– 149; Communist Party in, 143; democratization of, 16, 49, 132, 137, 210; denazification, 16, 137, 138; economic reconstruction, 16; fears of Soviet intentions, 143; feelings of being an occupied and subordinate nation, 142; food aid to, 41; Frankfurt (see Frankfurt, Germany); Fürstenfeldbruck, 224; gender relations in, 151; German attitude toward fraternization of servicemen and German women, 153; Heidelberg (see Heidelberg, Germany); housecleaning, 150; image of Americans and Germans as “shoulder to shoulder,” 133; impression of American women, 100, 119; international women’s club in, 136, 149; jobs for local nationals, 155; Kastel, 34; locals’ view of Americans, 156–157; locals’ view of United States, 92, 93; Mannheim, 145; Marburg (see Marburg, Germany); military communities in, 138, 154; Munich, 136; NATO membership, 143; “Noncombatant Evacuation Operation,” 127; nonfraternization laws, 134;
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nuclear weapons storage, 143–144; occupation of, 6, 10, 16–17, 39–40, 41, 47, 129, 131–132, 133–139, 142; “offset payments” arrangement with, 163; People-to-People project in, 144; postwar reforms, 2; prostitution in, 28; race in reinforcing German-American alliance, 5, 10; rearmament of, 143; relations with United States, 132, 139–144, 147, 152, 163, 165–166, 196; requisitioning of homes in, 138–139; return of residences to German owners, 137–139, 154; Rhineland-Palatinate (see Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany); service families in (see Service families in West Germany); sovereignty of, 236n17; Stuttgart (see Stuttgart, Germany); venereal disease rates of servicemen, 28; Vietnam War, 229; Wiesbaden (see Wiesbaden, Germany) Westmoreland, William, daughter of, 229 “When Mrs. Biddle Poured” (article in U.S. Lady), 135–136 Wiesbaden, Germany: charitable work in, 49; churches in, 147; German-American Club, 152; Officers’ Wives Club, 144; school excursion to, 215 Wilby, Routh Trowbridge, 96, 104–105, 108 Wilson, Charles, 178 Wilson, Woodrow, 41 Wine, James, 164 Wives Club of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 208 Wives’ Club of the Sixth Infantry (West Berlin), 145 Wolf, Charlotte, Garrison Community, 5 Wolf, Dick, 127, 155 Women’s Army Corps (WACs), 49 Women’s Institute, 78, 115–116 Women’s Voluntary Service, 78, 136 “World citizenship,” embodiment of, 198, 210–212 World War II: American plans for occupation enemy nations, 16; calls for return home of soldiers following, 8–9, 14, 20–22, 25, 29, 36–37; casualties, 15; demobilization following, 21, 26, 45– 46; effect on family formation, 18; effect on family life, 18; employment of women, 18, 19–20; ending of, 15; idealized version of domesticity, 20, 36–37, 60–61; marriage and birth rates, 18; number of servicemen, 15; number of
women serving in the military, 84; percentage of fathers inducted, 18; percentage servicemen serving overseas, 19; tolerance of family separation and domestic hardships, 20; women’s responsibilities during, 19–20 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 33 Wright, Marilyn, 219
Yalta conference (1945), 16, 17 Yergin, Daniel, 45 Yoshihara, Mari, 187 “Yumiko-chan Incident,” 177–178 Zabilka, Gladys, 214 Zama Town Women’s Club, 113 Zink, Harold, 153–154
Index 289
About the Author
Donna Alvah is Assistant Professor and Margaret Vilas Chair of U.S. History at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.
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