Foundation Sees U.S. Interest Drowning in the Pacific

The Pacific Ocean is a vast sea of American ineptitude and ignorance.

That’s the daunting vista that presents itself to members of the newly formed Foundation for the Twenty-First Century when they consider the world’s largest body of water.

Wherever they look, they see American economic and political interests awash in a rising tide of foreign competition and competence--highlighted just last Friday by announcement of a record $18-billion one-month trade deficit.

And that’s why the foundation, based in San Diego but with some operations in Los Angeles, has been formed--to find ways to promote American interests in an area that, members say, has slipped from American dominance and could some day slip from American influence.

“It is getting stylish to demonstrate interest in the Pacific area,” said founder and president Glenn Dumke, former chancellor of the California State University system. “It’s fashionable, but nobody knows much about it.”

In fact, Dumke believes things aren’t much different from 30 years ago when he wrote a textbook on the history of the Pacific. Then, the publisher found plenty of experts on China and Japan but couldn’t find any with “the broad view” of the region’s history to comment critically on the book before its publication, he said.

Dumke apparently isn’t alone in thinking that Americans have operated from a position of ignorance in Pacific affairs for too long.

Joseph Harned, who is executive vice president of the Washington-based Atlantic Council of the United States and a board member of the new foundation, said in a telephone interview that private groups concerned about U.S. foreign policy in the Pacific and elsewhere have been springing up around the country.

Many of these groups have established relationships with the council, a private group that develops and proposes long-range policy, particularly regarding the Soviet Union, he said.

“For many years there has not been a coherent and engaged constituency on foreign policy and international affairs,” Harned said. But such a constituency may be developing, he added, noting that groups comparable to the foundation recently have been formed in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

“The role of the United States in the world is changing and people west of the Hudson River and west of the Potomac River are probably more aware of that than people east of those two rivers,” Harned said, referring to New York and Washington, D.C.

An Important Factor

Most of these groups are motivated by “a desire to weigh in (on foreign affairs) as something more than objects of international terrorism,” Harned said.

And while the Atlantic Council will continue to devote most of its energies to U.S.-European relations, the Pacific region is becoming an important factor in those relationships, Harned said.

Besides Harned, the Atlantic Council will be represented on the foundation’s board by council vice chairman U. Alexis Johnson, a former undersecretary of state and ambassador to Japan, who will serve as chairman of the foundation’s executive committee.

The foundation will hold its first formal gathering in November in Los Angeles to discuss Pacific issues confronting the next American President. Conferences on the influence of the U.S. Constitution on Pacific nations and strategic and economic aspects of U.S.-Taiwan relations are planned for next spring.

Over the long run, Dumke said he hopes the foundation will help teach Americans to use more finesse in their conduct in the Pacific.

As an example, he cited the growing--and generally tactful--Soviet presence in the Pacific.

In the newly independent former Trust Territories of the central Pacific, American fishermen are taking a high hand by “paying no attention to the local regulations, the local fees,” Dumke maintained. “The Soviets are going down there and paying full attention to the regulations, being warmly welcomed and are laying the foundation for naval bases and everything else.”

Both Harned and Robert Scalapino, a professor of government and director of East Asian studies at UC Berkeley, said the foundation will have to perform a balancing act if it’s to stay away from political extremes--especially at a time when resentment of Japan’s penetration of the American economy is high. For instance, Harned said he agreed to join the board only after receiving assurances that the foundation would be “bipartisan and politically balanced so that it’s essentially centrist.”

Scalapino, who was consulted about the formation of the foundation but is not affiliated with it, said, “I certainly think there’s room for such a program . . . provided it doesn’t run to extremes.” He added, “Perhaps (the foundation) is in line with a mood in this country that we have to give a new priority to American needs.” U.S. aid and expertise were instrumental in rebuilding the Pacific after World War II, he said, and now there is widespread anger over “dumping” of goods and products and “industrial espionage” against American companies by the countries the U.S. once helped.

Dumke said the foundation’s emphasis on American interests may be its strongest asset.

Respect for America

“I think that’s our unique approach,” he said. “I think we’re the only group that has taken that approach. What we’re talking about is enlightened self-interest and I don’t think enlightened self-interest turns anybody off. . . . Nations don’t make friends, you know, they just have common interests.”

In a statement on its formation, the foundation said it hopes to include on its board “some leaders of Pacific nations who have unquestioned respect for America and American values.”

However, the foundation is being careful to cater to the sensibilities of its foreign guests. When the foundation decided to hold a conference on the influence of the U.S. Constitution on Pacific governments, it picked a new conference center on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

Foundation board member Colin Cameron, whose Maui Land and Pineapple Co. developed the center, said the islands are viewed as “semi-neutral ground” by residents of many Pacific nations. “It’s not as foreign as Chicago for Japanese and Koreans,” he added.

Warren Titus, chairman of San Francisco-based Royal Viking Lines and a board member of the foundation, said he hopes the organization will do its part to reduce the “lack of in-depth understanding” about societies and cultures of the Pacific. This country “will never reach its potential in the Pacific until we understand how the rest of the countries do business,” he said.

Whatever it does, Dumke said, the foundation will try to do it briefly. With some exceptions, the foundation will package its products in short conferences and short papers, he said, explaining that book-length studies and long conferences are unlikely to catch the attention of busy people.

“What we’re going to try to do here is have brief, readable presentations of expertise via newsletters, via short conferences, which will get to multinational corporations, CEOs, legislators, congressmen and, if nothing else, tell them, ‘Look fellows, here’s something that you ought to be thinking about, otherwise you’re going to pay a heavy price for it,’ ” he said.

Harned, Dumke and Robert Breunig, the foundation’s executive vice president, said one goal will be to encourage a long-range outlook. All three maintained that American interests abroad traditionally have been handicapped by short-term, reactive policies.

“We abhor planning. . . . This is a country of the moment and a lot of our activity is based on what might be called crisis management,” Breunig said.