WASHINGTON -- State Department officials told a House panel Thursday the Compact of Free Association for the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia preserves U.S. security interests despite a growing Soviet Pacific presence.
Asked about the increased Soviet presence, William Brown, deputy assistant of state for Far East Asian and Pacific affairs, and department lawyer Edward Derwinski, a former House member, told the subcommittee the compact would preserve U.S. security interests in the area.
'The first goal of the compact negotiations was to protect U.S. security interests and maintain our strategic position there,' said Derwinski, adding that the administration feels the compact and its associated agreements 'accomplish that objective.'
Defense Department witnesses are expected to testify further about the security provisions of the compact in hearings Aug. 7 and 9 before the House Interior Committee's subcommittee on public lands and national parks, the panel before which Brown and Derwinski appeared, subcommittee aid Tom Dunmire said Friday.
The compact, if eventually endorsed by Congress, would make the affected areas self-governing after being a U.S. trusteeship since 1947.
Because the House and Senate eventually are expected to develop differing versions of the compact, there is no estimate on when differences might be resolved and compact eventually approved.
Various congressional committees have held months of hearings on the matter, and several more months are hearings are expected. The extensive hearings are necessary because various portions of the compact cross the jurisdiction of as many as 21 different government agencies.
The House Foreign Relations Committee is expected to start its hearings on the compact Sept. 18.
The administration submitted the compact to Congress March 30, and there is no time limit within which Congress must act.
The compact also contains provisions to set up a trust fund for the former residents of Bikini Atoll, who were moved out nearly 40 years ago to provide a place for U.S. atomic tests.
They have been lobbying Congress for a separate measure to require the government to cleanse their island chain of radioactivity so they can return home.
