A REPORTER AT LARGE AO1lIeg MICRONESIA REVISITED PON my return, ey after an absence of amore chan five years, to the . . vast, alluring, traubling,mo) and politically. SIRT 4 Taiyo| 000 . try MILES STO CTee ‘, . MARATANAS vapan , gone ta India i the same proportion to that country’s population, woroiuer wi D> they would have been POCO wILES seventeen ind a half nullion strong. complex stretch of PaGUAM MAR s; Norsincee Magellan's ed, Ne, MO ‘ a EnIWoTOK, 4. aay TPs, Micronesia day has just newth islandsSer cific . ae sue pwr svat mates? Sead . 1 SLANDS equator tecommon of thecau been ruled by anv of its permanent inhabitly called Micronesia, [ Cc.AROLINES ants—mostly Chamorstopped in at the high ros, Palauans, Yapese, school in Koror, the KAPINGAMARANGI* Trukese, Ponapeans, principal municipality of. the Administrative and Marshallese. BeDistrict of Palau, in the tween 1521 and 1944, West Carohnes, .\1the area was occupied, though it Wats midsuccessively, by Spain, morning, the hands of an clectric clock very few roads paved since the Secand Germany, and Japan, which took over on a classroom wall stood at two-fif- BEST COPYAVAILABLE teen, “Tes runing, all right,” the teacher said. “But in the last three months ivs gone forward only three hours, Oh, well, things may sall move slowly out here, buc ac least, for a change, they’re moving.” During the last quarter of a century, Micronesia has given the United Stuarrtes a rare opportunity practice enlightened colo- nialism, but many of the regien’s peaple think that the American record hits been disappointing—much promise, litde performance. [T had come back to get same idea of the changes since my Jast visite, in 1965, and T found cercun aspects of Micronesia discourayingly stane. On Yap, Poan inte the bishapdesignate of the Vieauiate of the CaroJing and MTarshall fslanads. Fle had juse come from ALajuro, the administrative hub of the Adarshalls, where there bad peronniily been, and sail was, a giev- ous water shortage. Ino arder ta wast at the hotel there, he told me, he and the other guests had had form st bucket World War. Nonetheless, one of the most visible marks of Americanization is the automobile, which, in this largely watery expanse, has proliferated as wildly as the tangantangan bush. Tn 1965, there were a thousand cars in Micro- nesia. Now the number has more than quadrupled. The tiny island of Ebeye, parcofthe Kwajalein coll, in the \arshalls, has only two miles of roads and can easily be traversed on foot, but ata recent count there were two hundred cars there, for twenty-seven hundred residents. On some of the islands, car awners, having no paved reads on which to test their vebhicles, use airstrips. Mi- cronesiad, In many respects a backwater of the lobe, may rank Arse in head-on crashes on anport runways. UN?!SR othe formal name of the Prust Verritory of the Pacifte Is- lands, three million square miles of Microtiesia have been’ the responsibility af the Onited States, acting on behalf of the United Nations, since 1947, The ULN. chrective for the area tne ae . structs the United States to promote brigade. Ac Prok, Doran inte the retring bishop, and he sind that the dirt votd fron the diserign center to bis di- tte development of the inhabitants of osesin headquarters was as bad as [ ‘the ‘Prust ‘Territory toward self-govremembered it. “ON woman drove out ernment or independence? Among the to visit me a few weeks ago and com- steps that the Gaited States has taken to plained thac shed hada terribly jolting Carry oUt ALS Aassion in yecent years has ride, and Dowas delighted to learn that been the injection into Micronesia of her husband was in Public \W orks? he massive doses of Peace Corps volunteers, Since £966, the hundred thausald, “Miybe thar means the road will vet fixed one of these yours.” (Several sand inhabitants of the "Trust. “Terrie 1 . mmoenths liter, Tohieared chat same work fOUV Ss osIN Administnaive Districts have nepe ltd deen done om att tibute, pel phaved host te atmiest thie thoisund haps, te the cMieacey of prayer) En al Peace Carps volunteers, of whom near the two thousand-odd islands of \icra- ly dhree hundred are there today. Nonesta, Chere are net much more than Where else has the Peace Corps been five diemedred miles of rands ofc kind, adiminiserarnye eatot the whol gies, there bite been and outside Suan, the 5013238 doploved in renter concentiauen with relation to th e host population. [over the Last tise years Peace Corpsimen had by force in 1914 and was evicted the same way thirty years later. Guam, which hes within the geographical bounds of Micronesia bue has been a United States territory since the Span- ish-American War, is in the Mariani Islands, as is Salpan, thirty minutes away by atv. Just after takeotf from Saipan, one usually flles over Tintin, from which were launched the 1B-29s that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first B-52s to bomb North Vietnam were launched from Guam. Since the Second World War, eur Depare ment of Defense has looked upon ATi croncsht as an area that, regardless at what the United States might aspire to use IL for, should under ae preventable circumstances again he forufed bv auv other uaden. In deference to that con cern, the United Nations, at the outses, conferred on the Prust Territory a peculiar status: it is a Strategie “Cruse Territory—the only one in history. What this means, in cfect, as thac antl the trusts cerminaacted the United States has the right to use the islinds for mith- tary purposes. Except in the Miarr- at Kavaqalein, Bikini, and Pine wetok-—there has been noe consequential Amenecan military presence, bat still we reGun eur options, Some of the mitives, most notably some of the fifty chousand who live on small islands outside the Vorrnory’s distiict centers, find it hard to grasp the strategic impleauons af the trusteeship. For one thing, in seve eral oof ther ten ar oso distinctive liaeures there is no word D voce” Laterpreters whe uy lar“ sthate= te render ihanto Palauan or Yapese come up with something nearly synonymous yvidh ety " Saphistie: ted Micronesians whe do andes some the matte of a stitteeic trustderive no comfort from ther cour