Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (42 page)

2
. A comparative study of maritime empires notes, “navies, like their governments, regard any political upheaval as dangerous to imperial stability. Rebels cannot be tolerated if order (or ‘peace’) is to prevail.” Clark G. Reynolds,
Command of the Sea: The History and Strategy of Maritime Empires
(Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing, 1983), 7.

3
. Bezboruah,
U.S. Strategy in the Indian Ocean
, 52, 54, 58, 60.

4
. Ryan, “Diego Garcia,” 133.

5
. UKTB 4-132.

6
. Secretary of State for the Colonies, telegram to Commissioner, British Indian Ocean Territory, February 25, 1966, UKTB.

7
. Brooke-Turner, “British Indian Ocean Territory.”

8
. Ibid.

9
.
Queen v. Secretary of State ex parte Bancoult 2006
: para. 27, emphasis in original.

10
. Ibid., para. 27.

11
. Anthony Aust, “Immigration Legislation for BIOT,” memorandum, 16 January 1970.

12
. The British Government also acquired the islands of Desroches from Paul Moulinie (the primary owner in Chagos), and Farquhar from another private owner (Aldabra was already Crown territory belonging to the Queen).

13
. Some may have been prevented from returning prior to this date.

14
. The contract also established the number of workers allowed on the islands, working hours, and wages.

15
. See also Mauritius Ministry of Social Security, letter, July 19, 1968, PRO: FCO 31/13. This history of the expulsion process builds on Vine et al.,
Dérasiné
, and is drawn from several sources. Many published accounts of the expulsion exist: see, e.g., Ottaway, “Islanders Were Evicted for U.S. Base”; Winchester,
The Sun Never Sets
; Madeley, “Diego Garcia.” Most provide a broad overview of the expulsion. To document the expulsion accurately and verifiably and with more detail than previous histories, this history draws almost exclusively on primary sources: interviews and conversations with Chagossians and others in Mauritius and the Seychelles who witnessed events; court documents; and contemporaneous British Government documents describing many of the events of the expulsion as
they occurred. Although I have relied on Chagossians’ eyewitness accounts, I have tried to verify their accounts with published sources as cited.

16
. UKTB 5-578. In January 1969, a joint State Department–Defense Department message indicated the U.S. Government’s displeasure with a new request by the BIOT administrator to rehire fifty “Chagos-born laborers” in Mauritius for work on Diego Garcia. See William P. Rogers, telegram to the U.S. Embassy London, January 31, 1969, NARA: RG 59/150/64–65, Subject-Numeric Files 1967–1969, Box 1551, 4.

17
. A. Wooler, letter to Eric G. Norris, August 22, 1968, attachment to Eric G. Norris, note to Mr. Counsell, September 9, 1968, PRO: FCO 31/134.

18
. John Todd, “Tour Report—Chagos May 1967,” report, May 1967, British Indian Ocean Territory, PRO. 5.

19
. John Todd, “Chagos,” report, British Indian Ocean Territory, September 1968, PRO, 4.

20
. Todd, “Tour Report—Chagos May 1967,” 3; Todd, “Chagos.”

21
. The school later seems to have briefly reopened before closing permanently.

22
. Todd, “Tour Report—Chagos May 1967,” 3; Todd, “Notes on the Islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory,” 33; “Notes on a Visit to Chagos by the Administrator, British Indian Ocean Territory,” 3; “Notes on a Visit, July 17th to August 2nd,” 1970, PRO, 2.

23
. Draft contract between the Crown and Moulinie and Company (Seychelles) Limited, 1968, PRO: WO 32/21295.

24
. See, e.g., Madeley, “Diego Garcia,” 4.

25
. K. R. Whitnall, letter to Mr. Matthews, Miss Emery, May 7, 1969, UKTB: 6-755.

26
. David Greenaway and Nishal Gooroochurn, “Structural Adjustment and Economic Growth in Mauritius,” in Rajen Dabee and David Greenaway, eds.,
The Mauritian Economy: A Reader
(Houndsmill, UK: Palgrav, 2001), 67; Ramesh Durbarry, “The Export Processing Zone,” in Dabee and Greenaway,
The Mauritian Economy
, 109.

27
. Wooler, letter to Norris, August 22, 1968.

28
. E.H.M. Counsell, “Defence Facilities in the Indian Ocean; Diego Garcia,” letter to Mr. Le Tocq, 1969, PRO: FCO 31/401.

29
.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968
, 21:103–5.

30
. Fred Kaplan,
The Wizards of Armageddon
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), 254–55.

31
. Ibid., 257.

32
. Cohn, “‘Clean Bombs’ and Clean Language”; also Gusterson,
Nuclear Rites
.

33
.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968
, 21:108.

34
. James W. O’Grady, memorandum for the Secretary of the Navy, September 19, 1967, NHC: 00 Files, 1967, Box 74, 11000/2.

35
. F. Pearce, “An Island of No Importance,”
New Scientist
, February 7, 2004, 48.

36
. Ibid. Stoddart has long been troubled by his role in saving Aldabra and inadvertently helping to clear the way for the Diego Garcia removals. Since the 1970s, he has expended large amounts of his time and money collecting documents about the creation of the base and the expulsion, provided assistance to the Chagossians’ struggle to return, and written detailed letters to politicians in the United States and United Kingdom advocating on their behalf. See also Charles Douglas-Home, “Scientists Fight Defence Plans for Island of Aldabra,”
Times
(London), August 16, 1967.

Chapter Six
“Absolutely Must Go”

1
. Kaplan,
Wizards of Armageddon
, 138.

2
. Ibid., 140, 139.

3
. Ibid., 141; Bob Thompson, “Arsenal of Words,”
Washington Post
, 29 October 2007, C2.

4
.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968
, 21:92–93, 109–17; Bandjunis,
Diego Garcia
, 30.

5
. FRUS,
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968
, 21:109–12; James W. O’Grady, memorandum to Op-002, May 2, 1968, NHC: 00 Files, 1967, Box 74, 11000/3.

6
. O’Grady, memorandum to Op-002, 3.

7
. Alain Enthoven, memorandum for Secretary of Defense, May 10, 1968, NHC: 00 Files, 1967, Box 74, 11000/3.

8
.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968
, 21:113–14.

9
. Earl C. Ravenal, “American Strategy in the Indian Ocean: The Proposed Base on Diego Garcia,” Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, March 14, 1974.

10
. Bandjunis,
Diego Garcia
, 35–36.

11
. U.S. Department of State, “Senior Interdepartmental Group, Chairman’s Summary,” December 24, 1968, NARA: CIA records, 7.

12
. Ravenal, “American Strategy in the Indian Ocean.”

13
. Dean Rusk, telegram to U.S. Embassy London, August 7, 1968, NARA: RG 59/150/64–65, Subject-Numeric Files 1967–1969, Box 1552.

14
. Ibid. At times the U.S. Government has argued that it did not know there was an indigenous population in Chagos and that it thought the population was composed of transient workers. This argument is difficult to believe. Any cursory inspection of writings on Chagos (most importantly Scott,
Limuria;
Blood, “The Peaks of Lemuria”) would have revealed the existence of generations of Chagossians living on the islands. Even without reading a word, it is hard to imagine that the Navy’s first reconnaissance inspection of Diego Garcia in 1957 would have overlooked hundreds of families (unusual in the case of migrant workers) and a fully
functioning society complete with nineteenth-century cemeteries and churches and people tracing their ancestry back as many as five generations in Chagos. The British were clearly well aware of the indigenous population, as their extensive discussions on the subject in memos and letters throughout the 1960s reveal. A secret 1969 letter from the U.S. Embassy in London to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Department confirms U.S. knowledge of “Chagos-born laborers” (Gerald G. Oplinger, letter to Richard A. Sykes, February 3, 1969, PRO).

15
. U.S. Embassy London, telegram to Secretary of State, August 9, 1968, NARA: RG 59/150/64–65, Subject-Numeric Files 1967–1969, Box 1551, 1.

16
. R. S. Leddick, memorandum for the Record, November 11, 1969, NHC: 00 Files, 1969, Box 98, 11000.

17
. R. S. Leddick, memorandum for the Record, December 3, 1969, NHC: 00 Files, 1969, Box 98, 11000; Bandjunis,
Diego Garcia
, 37.

18
. Tazewell Shepard, memorandum for Harry D. Train, January 26, 1970, NHC: 00 Files, 1970, Box 111, 11000.

19
. Robert A. Frosch, memorandum for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, February 27, 1970, NHC: 00 Files, 1970, Box 111, 11000; John H. Chafee, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, January 31, 1970, NHC: 00 Files, 1970, Box 111, 11000.

20
. Throughout the development of Diego Garcia and BIOT, U.S. and U.K. government officials sought at least in public to describe the military activities there not as a “base” but as a “station,” a “facility,” or a “post.” They usually linked these terms with adjectives like “austere,” “limited,” or “modest.” From early in the development of Diego Garcia, however, the Navy and later the Department of Defense and the Air Force had large visions for the island: first, for naval communications in the Indian Ocean (including the coordination of nuclear submarines newly deployed there to strike the Soviet Union and China); second, as a large harbor for Navy warships and submarines, with enough room to protect an aircraft carrier task force; and third, as an airfield intended first for Navy reconnaissance planes and later for nuclear-bomb-ready B-52 bombers and almost every other plane in the Air Force arsenal (see Bandjunis,
Diego Garcia
, 8–14; U.K. Colonial Office; J. H. Gibbon et al., “Brief on UK/US London Discussions on United States Defence Interests in the Indian Ocean,” memorandum, March 6, 1964, PRO: CAB 21/5418, 81174, 1–2). Faced with the potential for growing opposition, U.S. and U.K. officials insistently avoided describing plans for Diego Garcia as a “base.” With the British soon committing to withdraw its troops east of the Suez Canal by 1971, the U.K. Government did not want to be involved in any development perceived to be a new base. See Mewes, 1. U.S. officials faced opposition to their expansion into the Indian Ocean in Congress, from nations around the Indian Ocean like India, and even within the Pentagon. This opposition was especially intense in reaction to the escalating war in Vietnam; as in southeast Asia, this would also be a move into a region almost entirely without a prior U.S. presence.

21
. See attachment, Op-605E4, “Proposed Naval Communications Facility on Diego Garcia,” briefing sheet, [January] 1970, NHC: 00 Files, 1970, Box 111, 11000.

22
. Walter H. Annenberg, telegram to the Secretary of State, July 12, 1970, library of David Stoddart (see also NARA: RG 59, Subject-Numeric Files, 1970–1973 1970); Greene, telegram to the Secretary of State, December 16, 1970, library of David Stoddart (see also NARA: RG 59, Subject-Numeric Files, 1970–1973).

23
. F. J. Blouin, memorandum for the Chief of Naval Operations, December 28, 1970, NHC: 00 Files, 1970, Box 115, 11000.

24
. William P. Rogers, telegram to the U.S. Embassy London, June 19, 1970, library of David Stoddart (see also NARA: RG 59, Subject-Numeric Files, 1970–1973).

25
. Ibid.

26
. Walter H. Small, memorandum for the Chief of Naval Operations, December 11, 1970, NHC: 00 Files, 1970, Box 115, 11000.

27
. William P. Rogers, telegram to the U.S. Embassy London, June 19, 1970, library of David Stoddart (see also NARA: RG 59, Subject-Numeric Files, 1970–1973).

28
. Greene, telegram to the Secretary of State, December 16, 1970, library of David Stoddart (see also NARA: RG 59, Subject-Numeric Files, 1970–1973).

29
. Bandjunis,
Diego Garcia
, 46.

30
. William P. Rogers, telegram to the U.S. Embassy London, December 14, 1970, NARA: RG 59/150/67/1/5, Subject-Numeric Files 1970–1973, Box 1744.

31
. Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr.,
On Watch: A Memoir
(New York: Quadrangle, 1976), 17–19. Matching his own elite background, Zumwalt married Mouza Coutelais-du-Roche, a woman of French and Russian parentage, whom he met at the end of World War II among the White Russian community-in-exile in Harbin, Manchuria.

32
. Ibid., 203–4.

33
. Ibid., 27–29.

34
. Ibid., 34.

35
. Ibid., 28.

36
. U.S. Naval Institute, “Reminiscences by Staff Officers of Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., U.S. Navy, vol. I,” Annapolis, MD, U.S. Naval Institute, 1989, 311–12.

37
. Ibid., 313.

38
. J. H. Dick, memorandum for the Chief of Naval Operations, December 18, 1970, NHC: 00 Files, 1970, Box 115, 11000.

39
. I. Watt, letter to Mr. D.A. Scott, Sir L. Monson, and Mr. Kerby, January 26, 1971, PRO: T317/162, 1–2.

40
. Blouin, memorandum for the Chief of Naval Operations, December 28, 1970.

41
. Attachment to Walter H. Small, memorandum for the Chief of Naval Operations, January 11, 1971, NHC: 00 Files, 1971, Box 172, 11000. See also Walter H. Small, memorandum for the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, January 28, 1971, NHC: 00 Files, 1971, Box 172, 11000.

42
. Small, memorandum for the Chief of Naval Operations, January 11, 1971, 1.