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Quietly State Dept. Turns Over American Islands to Russia, Others
Stephan Archer
May 8, 2000
In recent years several U.S. islands have been ceded to Russia and other countries, without congressional approval or public debate.
These islands, many uninhabited, are significant because they hold potential mineral, gas, oil and fishing rights ? not to mention potential strategic military value.
So where exactly are these disputed islands?
The Arctic islands, which lie west of Alaska and north of Siberia, include the islands of Wrangell, Herald, Bennett, Jeannette and Henrietta.
The islands in the Bering Sea make up the westernmost point in Alaska?s Aleutian chain and include Copper Island, Sea Otter Rock and Sea Lion Rock. These islands together have more square mileage than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
Though the United States had staked claim to these islands for more than a century, the State Department has been anxious to turn them back to Russia.
The tranfer would have gone unnoticed were it not for State Department Watch, a Washington-based group that monitors State Department acitivities.
Retired U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Carl Olson, who heads State Department Watch, recently checked with the Census Bureau, asking if it had plans to count the inhabitants of these disputed islands in the current census.
Olson was stunned by the response he received from the Census Bureau.
"Census Bureau officials were informed by the U.S. Department of State that these islands remain under the jurisdiction of Russia," wrote Kenneth Prewitt, director of the Census Bureau in a letter to Olson.
"Without confirmation and appropriate documentation from the Department of State to the contrary, the Census Bureau cannot include these islands as part of the State of Alaska," Prewitt concluded.
Americans Become Russians
Olson notes that the Census Bureau, with the approval of the State Dept., has just stripped Americans of their citizenship.
Consider the inhabitants of Wrangell Island, the largest of eight disputed islands ? five lying in the Arctic Ocean and three in the Bering Sea.
Geographically speaking, the island?s inhabitants would also be citizens of the state of Alaska since no other American state comes even close to the proximity of the islands.
But if anyone desired to visit Wrangell Island, they would be greeted not by the Stars and Stripes waving proudly in the brisk air but by a Russian military tower.
According to Olson, the islands including Wrangell have 18 Russian soldiers and one officer and 50 to 100 inhabitants.
Olson insists these people have been made to endure foreign occupation by the Russian military and believes the U.S. government should do something about taking the islands back.
NewsMax.com zcontacted Mark Seidenberg, a former senior traffic management specialist within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and asked him if he believed the United States should pursue its sovereignty on the islands. Seidenberg, without hesitation, said "yes."
U.S. Territory for Long Time
U.S. claims for these islands are strong.
When the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, the impending treaty included all of the Aleutian Islands, including Copper Island, Sea Otter Rock and Sea Lion Rock.
A number of years later, in 1881, U.S. Captain Calvin L. Hooper landed on Wrangell Island and claimed it for the United States. One of the landing party was famed explorer John Muir. (cont)
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