Cold War covert activities on Saipan, elsewhere in the region

(Second of a two-part series)

Nationals from several Asian countries were trained covertly on Saipan by the NTTU. The Marianas, as part of Micronesia, was only one group within the eleven United Nations’ trusteeships that had evolved out of the flames of World War II and, as such, technically fell under the purview of the U.N.

Unlike the other ten trusteeship areas, the Northern Marianas and the rest of Micronesia were administered by the United States through the Security Council where the U.S. not only had veto power but could conveniently observe the Counsel’s monitoring efforts of American stewardship of one of its several wards.

One might wonder what the U.N. had to do with the issue since some would consider United States presence in the islands following VJ Day the undisputed privilege of the victor in war. Simply and basically stated, the U.S. point of view was: You can’t take something from someone if you never recognized they owned it in the first place.

This reasoning resulted from the fact that the U.S. government never recognized the islands as a permanent possession of any nation since they were taken from defeated Germany by the allied powers during World War I. Subsequently assigned to Japan under a mandate from the League of Nations, the islands’ status did not change after they were occupied by U.S. armed forces in 1944. Indeed, since their purchase by Germany from Spain in 1899, and their assignment to Japan for administration in 1920 by the League of Nations, the Northern Marianas had no political identity among the countries of the world.

From the time of Germany’s loss of the islands they were never regarded as a permanent colony within the exclusive sovereignty of any nation, except of course, by Japan when it left the League before the outbreak of war—but the U.S. never acknowledged Japan’s sovereignty.

At the conclusion of the war in the Pacific, the United States, not desiring to appear as having annexed the islands by virtue of “victor’s rights,” placed the islands under the supervision of the Security Council since the Marianas where considered to be within a strategic area of the western Pacific they were to be overseen through the Security Council where the United States had the power of policy rejection (i.e., interference).

This must not have been not lost on the CIA, also known as the “Company,” which eventually arranged for the construction of a base where trainees were later flown to Saipan at night by aircraft operated by Air America. As John Prados describes in President’s Secret Wars, the arrivals were blindfolded before being transported to the base and had no idea as to where they were and therefore could tell no one where they had been trained.

At the time the accommodations of the NTTU staff on Saipan resembled a transplanted California suburb. These accommodations are still very much in evidence. Compared with the standard of living and style of construction on the island 50 years ago, Army Hill’s (now Capitol Hill) facilities of concrete, typhoon-proof houses bore little resemblance to the rest of Saipan where the majority of structures were of wood and rusted corrugated metal roofs, many of which were situated along pot holed coral roads.

There were occasional crisis for the CIA personnel when NTTU activities had to be temporarily closed or disguised for the visits of United Nations trusteeship’s visiting inspection delegations. When they left, training was resumed and once completed, personnel would be returned to their respective operating stations for mission assignments. These included sabotage strikes at selected targets and commando raids according to what limited information that’s available.

During the 1950s a number of people were assigned to Taiwan to provide guerrilla training, engage in radio broadcasts and propaganda. The CIA operated in Taiwan under the cover of Western Enterprises, a front company.

Several thousand guerrillas were trained to carry out raids and acts of sabotage in China. Their aircraft dropped millions of anti-communist leaflets.

It has been alleged that in the early 50s, Chinese agents were also trained on Saipan and then parachuted into several Manchurian provinces to attempt to encourage Manchurians to revolt. While CIA-trained rebels were believed by some to be operating in China, the agency began focusing its attention on Tibet in 1956 and actively backed the Tibetan cause with arms, military training, money, and air support. The American Society for a Free Asia, funded by the CIA, attempted to gain American support by lobbying against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. In October 1957 the first of numerous two-man teams of CIA-trained Tibetans parachuted into the mountains of Tibet. After China annexed several Tibetan provinces, an uprising failed in 1959, and the Dalai Lama escaped to India.

In 1993, CIA Director R. James Woolsey told Congress that the files on the agency’s activities in Tibet and several other of its covert operations during the Cold War would be opened. But the CIA has so far failed to do so.

In 1997 during the 50th anniversary of founding of the CIA, the organization’s former director, (the former President) George H.W. Bush stated: “To those who say we no longer need a CIA, I say you’re nuts. To those who want to dismantle CIA or put it under some other department…you’re nuts, too. And to those who feel the right to know takes precedence over legitimate classification of documents, or over protecting our most precious asset, our people, the same to you. You’re nuts, and so’s the horse you came in on.” (William H. Stewart)

(1) Prados, John, “President’s Secret Wars”, William Morrow Company, New York, 1986. Mr. John Wilson, Sr., NTTU-1959 – ‘62 and various unidentified sources from internet web sites

Editor’s Note: During the 1955-‘67 period of the Cold War, the author studied the “economics of national security” at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (now National Defense University) and is the recipient of the Cold War Certificate of Recognition from the Defense Department for service with American embassies in Africa and Asia. He later served with the Trust Territory and NMI Governments and is an occasional contributor to this paper.