Officer in Japan Gets U.S. Support in E-Mail Snafu

The top U.S. Marine in Japan won’t be punished for calling Okinawan officials “nuts and a bunch of wimps” in an e-mail message to his staff, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Marine Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston’s comments became the latest irritant in the touchy U.S.-Okinawan relationship when they appeared Tuesday in Ryukyu Shimpo, the biggest newspaper published on the Japanese island, which is home to 26,000 U.S. troops.

He was apparently expressing frustration that officials on the island weren’t more vigorous in countering local protests over alleged abuses by Marines there.

Many islanders resent the crime, noise and congestion caused by the U.S. military presence on Okinawa. Relations hit a low point in 1995, when three U.S. servicemen were charged in the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl. They were later convicted.

After a Marine was arrested last month and fined $430 for lifting a high school girl’s skirt and snapping photos, Okinawan legislators adopted a resolution calling for the United States to further scale back the U.S. contingent there.

In his Jan. 23 e-mail, Hailston complained that while local leaders privately thanked him for reducing crime among the troops, they made no effort to stop the local assembly from passing an “inflammatory and damaging resolution. I think they are all nuts and a bunch of wimps.”

Hailston later apologized, saying in a statement that he has only respect and admiration for local officials.

“If my remarks in the e-mail are construed as suggesting anything else, then I am deeply sorry and apologize for the misunderstanding,” he said.

Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, the top Pentagon spokesman, said that while defense officials did not think Hailston’s words were “appropriate, . . . there is wide support for his efforts.” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is aware of the incident and also is opposed to the idea of disciplinary action, officials said.

Hailston telephoned Okinawan Gov. Keiichi Inamine to apologize for the incident. Inamine told reporters later that although the e-mail was supposed to remain private, “nonetheless, I personally find it very disconcerting.”

The Pentagon is in the process of moving a huge helicopter base out of Okinawa, and U.S. analysts said the e-mail incident could hurt the difficult negotiations over the relocation of troops in Japan.

Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said Hailston showed “extremely poor judgment” considering the importance of the U.S.-Japanese alliance and the likelihood that e-mail traffic will be leaked.

A decade ago, Pentagon officials rebuked the top Marine in Japan, Maj. Gen. Henry C. Stackpole III, for telling a reporter that the U.S. needed to remain in Japan as a “cap in the bottle” of Japanese militarism.

The Hailston incident is not the first time a Marine officer has gotten into trouble for e-mailed comments. In October 1999, a Marine officer at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms was chastised for using derogatory language about homosexuals in an e-mail message to his staff.