AThe Vancouver Sun Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Thursday, July 06, 1972
Reykjavik, Iceland (TPS) — “We like Americans here, not Russians,” the pretty telephone operator said. ([What kind of question is that? Why wouldn't a normal, free western nation “like Americans”? With 10% of your population professing Soviet Bolshevism as their party affiliation spreading myths in their Anti-American publications, I can buy how ‘You like Americans,’ or so you say. Does that include black American service men who were forbidden on your racist soil?])
“But we don't like your Mr. Fischer. We will be rooting for Spassky.” ([Of course you will root for the Soviets.])
The Lincoln Star Lincoln, Nebraska Tuesday, November 08, 1955
“Olafson said that about 10 per cent of the 160,000 Icelandic population are [Soviets], and as a result there are very many small weekly communistic [Soviet] papers which have much anti-American propaganda.”
The Birmingham News Birmingham, Alabama Sunday, March 27, 1960
Treated as virtual enemy--GI's leaving Iceland won't shed any tears. By James Elliott, Norfolk Ledger-Star Military Affairs writer
Keflavik, Iceland, March 26—(AP)—American servicemen at this bleak, frigid outpost are living behind a glacier curtain—an invisible wall as high and as strong as the Iron Curtain.
It is a barrier behind which Americans silently suffer from indignities, restrictions and embarrassments that few persons back home ever hear about.
U.S. forces were invited to Iceland as protectors nearly 10 years ago by a government afraid of being invaded by Soviets. The Icelandic government asked them to “go home” in 1956, then changed its mind suddenly during Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolt.
The Army contingent of 1200 men is now being pulled out. It's unlikely the GI's will shed any tears.
The Army says the withdrawal is part of a normal redistribution of troops, a plan which has been under consideration for some time. However, it was announced last year at a time when bad feeling between U.S. military forces and Iceland civilians was at a peak.
TREATED WITH SUSPICION
Approximately 5000 Navy, Air Force and —up to now—Army men in Iceland brave blizzard weather, standing their posts in knee-deep snowdrifts, below freezing temperature and howling, relentless winds. They fly through all types of miserable weather and battle seas that would terrify Neptune. They spend monotonous hours over radarscopes that scan the Arctic horizon toward Russia for unfriendly aircraft.
They are treated with suspicion.([Interesting that Bobby was criticized for his justified distrust of reporters and Soviets, yet, the Soviets find the Icelandic “suspicious” character an admirable quality … enough so to bring their World Championship to Icelandic soil.]) They are searched when they leave the base and restricted in their movements around Iceland. The men are required to be in uniform at all times.
Only 130 a day are permitted passes. The liberty period is limited. The men hardly have time to leave the base, drive over the treacherous, winding 35 miles of ice-covered road to Reykjavik and eat a meal before they must be off the streets.
The Icelanders have imposed a 10 p.m. curfew on American servicemen. On Wednesdays they can remain on the streets until midnight, but on Wednesdays all bars and night clubs are closed.
MORALE LOW
Morale is about as low as Iceland's subterranean hot springs.
The base, Icelanders insist, is not a base but an international airport 100 per cent a part of Iceland.
For that reason Icelandic police have authority throughout the area. They seem extremely zealous in arresting servicemen leaving the clubs at night on charges of drunken driving.
Iceland has very strict drunken driving laws and mandatory blood tests where a person is suspected of being under the influence of alcohol. The test criterion is very low.
“You can have a drink the night before and have one of their blood tests the next day and be declared drunk,” said one officer.
STRANGE CONTRABAND
American dependents living off the base cannot take home items purchased in the base exchange or commissary. Icelandic police search American cars leaving the gate.
A bottle of hair tonic … six rolls of lifesavers and a candy bar … a 65-cent baby's toy … a box of chocolates … two packages of c*gr*ts … and a good old American picnic lunch.
These items are contraband. According to records in the provost marshal's office here, they are among items confiscated from Americans by the Icelandic police.
The Icelanders call it smuggling. They fear the doors will be open to black marketing. Americans often have to face criminal charges in Icelandic court because they had these inconsequential articles in their cars.
Hardest hit by these restrictions are the dependents who are here at their own expense because their husbands chose to serve only one-year tours in Iceland. Approximately 200 families live off the base in apartments or houses rented from Icelanders. They cannot take items purchased in the base exchange or commissary off the post.
Air Force Staff Sgt. James G. Warner of Buckhannon, West Virginia with a wife and two children, rents an unfurnished three-bedroom apartment in Keflavik for $64 a month. Utilities cost an additional $16 a month. Food, however, soars to approximately $125 a month, which is not hay on a sergeant's pay.
The Warners have found that their dietary habits have to conform to Icelandic menus. They eat lots of fish.
ANOTHER CONCESSION
A small party of servicemen left on the countryside without food or water in a survival exercise were condemned as “poachers” in the press. Rather than starve they had attempted to fish in a stream.
This resulted in another American concession. There are no more survival tests.
Maintaining military security on this base seems about as easy as keeping water in a sieve.
The Icelandic government—not the military authorities—issues the passes. Until just recently an estimated 12,000 uncontrolled passes were at large among the Icelandic population. The Americans did not know who had them. And the Icelanders wouldn't tell them.
Recently, however, the Americans on the defense council won a long-standing battle to have those old passes invalidated and new passes issued.
The defense council, composed of four representatives of the Icelandic government and four representatives of the military forces here, administers the 1951 agreement under which American forces are in Iceland.
IMPROVEMENTS?
Invalidating the old passes was one step which Col. Benjamin G. Willis, the Air Force officer who is commander of the Icelandic defense force, feels is pointing to improvements in American-Icelandic coexistence.
The local Icelandic judge, Bjorn Ingvarsson, the Americans feel, has been more lenient in recent months, particularly with “hold orders.”
In the past some accused Americans were forced to remain in Iceland as long as five months beyond their normal tour of duty because the judge had issued an order holding them for court action.
More important, in the eyes of the Americans, has been the appointment of two new Icelandic representatives on the defense council. They are Ludwig Gizurarson and Tomas Tomasson, both young, dedicated men who have been educated in the United States.
With last Summer's elections over, the newspapers have toned down their anti-American campaigns. ([Really? Does that include African Americans?])
