Evening star., 1948-11-14
By George Weller

By George Weller
GUAM-The truth about salvage
in the Pacific lies at the bottom OF
a forgotten heap of remnants OF
war. Nonof1cial observers have in.
vestigated it even less carefully
than the Marshall Plan. Its pur-
pose remains uncertain.
| The story about Pacific salvage
however, is fantastic. 1t shows the
United States starting out by re-
cognizing an isolated debt" te
China and insisting on paying ir
salvage instead Of discounting that
debt" against china's far greater
debt to the United States.
Salvage shows the United States
Government, encouraged by special
business interests, shutting out its
own people from buying surplus
jeeps and trucks while these
vehicles were shipped to China or
left to rot. Thousands Of tons OF
building materials, barred from the
United States have gone to China
while housing in America Jagged in
speed and skyrocketed in cost. .
Piles Up at Shanghai
Salvage shows the United States
giving to China, at % cents on the
dollar, thousands of tons of sup
plies now being bought new with
taxpayers mohey for handout to
Europe and Japan.
Salvage shows most surplus being
shipped to one Chinese port
Shanghai-where it is piled up in
mountains of supplies, not distri-
buted or sold to the population.
Salvage shows the rest of the
wartime surplus being accumulated
I'm Tsingtao, port on the Shantung
Peninsula held by a weak American
naval force, entirely surrounded by
Communist armies and threatened
by the adjacent Soviet bases OF
Dairen and Port Arthur.
Salvage shows the Americans
buying back from the Chinese. at
$50 per cent Of cost, construction
machinery which the United States
Government has sold the Chinese
at % per cent of cost.
Salvage shows the Americans
blowing the guns off tanks and cut
ting the tails off airplanes, both
China bound, to demilitarize them
and then wringing their hands
about doing so.
| Salvage shows the American Gov
ernment agreeing to pay the whole
cost of collecting and sending the
purchased" salvage to China. In
this part of the agreement China
cannot lose and America cannot win
Uncle Sam pays China $4,000, ,00C
to ship its salvage to itself in Amer
ican or Chinese bottoms. If 1t costs
less than $4,000, 900, China gets the
difference.
Fossy Results of Policy
Salvage shows the American
Government agreeing, if the SAL
wage does not come up to the $780,
600, 900 debt" to China, to a re-
sponsibility for the difference. which
now looks like about $40,000.000.
Salvage shows the United States
importing to some Pacific islands,
notably to Guam and Saipan, high
cost American supplies. Identical
wartime supplies are being shipped
out to China, sometimes at the
same dock, at a fraction Of their
value on the island.
Finding out the truth about SAL
wage means dog-trotting over
acres of muddy military dumps, in
Tapping ghost camps on hot remote
islands, amid loose rumors of graft
and pillage.
That truth Is that one billion
bulk tons Of the worlds greatest sea
offensive are in China's hands now
with about 100000 bulk tons still
ticketed in the islands waiting for
China to collect them by next April
And the entire operation was
marked, partly unavoidably by waste.
delay, lack Of political planning, and
the aimless foggy results charac-
teristic of American policy in the
Far Pacific.
Taxpayer the Loser
The losses incurred by the Amer
ican taxpayer in Pacific salvage are
about so per cent due to the blund-
ers of our government in dealing
with China, 40 per cent due to the
greed of American interested groups,
and perhaps 10 per cent due to ad-
ministrative blunders on the islands
themselves.
The American dream of a swarm
of Chinese coolies descending on the
islands and cleaning up the mess OF
war has not been realized. The
Chinese have been purchasers, here
in Micronesia, not scavengers. When
the Americans want to clean up the
islands, which was part of their
original idea but omitted from their
contract, they will have to do it
themselves.
Relations have been smooth in
the islands between tall, busy Capt.
M. M. De Wolfe of the Navy, at
tached to the State Department as
head of the ONCE of Foreign Liqui-
dation, and affable little Gen. T. Y
Ting, director of China's 20 army
officers, 120 Kuomintang officials
and about 1,400 coolies.
The Vinnell Corp. of Los Angeles
brought in by T. v. Soong, Har-
vard-educated righthand man to
Chang Kai-shek, to spend part OF
the s5,OoO,ooo allocated by the
American Treasury for engineering