IS THIS OIL TAX CONSTITUTIONAL? Senator Bill Ray, D-Juneau

　

No state debt shall be contracted unless authorized by law for capital improvements and ratified by a majority of the voters of the state who vote on the question.

— The Alaska State Constitution

Today (Sept. 15, 2013) I read in Sheila Toomey's  weekly  "Alaska Ear" column -  consistently the most interesting feature in the Anchorage Daily News - of the death of former longtime Juneau legislator Bill (not William) Ray.  He served several  terms in the House of Representatives  before winning election to Juneau's only Senate seat.

Though virtually unknown to most Alaskans outside Juneau today, Ray was the power to be reckoned with during his heyday in the upper chamber where he ruled with an iron fist, usually as a ranking member or chair of the Finance Committee. He's a sure candidate for Alaska's mythical Legislative Hall of Fame. He was best known for his fierce defense against repeated efforts to move Alaska's capital from Juneau to anywhere else, . 

　

 At the opening of the Tenth Alaska Legislature in Juneau in January 1978, Senator Ray unexpectedly raised an issue not in concert with his strictly southeast Alaska constituency. It was a remarkable moment in a remarkable career, one which had far-reaching and profound implications for the state’s financial condition. .

 Senator Ray’s query centered on the oil and gas reserves tax passed by the legislature in 1975, which had poured nearly half a billion dollars into the state treasury in 1975 and 1976, at the same time plunging the state that far into debt.

In 1975, the state treasury’s balance was shrinking alarmingly, with completion of the trans Alaska oil pipeline—and the massive revenues its operation would bring to the state—still at least two years away. The oil and gas reserves tax was devised as a means of covering the enormous budget deficits that would occur in 1976 and 1977 as a result of both the governor’s and the legislature’s spending excesses and the two-year delay in the pipeline’s completion. It simply imposed a 20-mill tax on the value of oil and gas deposits still in the ground for the two-year period, and was calculated to bring in approximately a quarter of a billion dollars each year, mainly from oil and gas reserves in the Prudhoe Bay field.

But there its simplicity ended. A further provision, in effect, required the state to repay the revenues it received, once oil production began at Prudhoe Bay and oil began to flow through the pipeline. But rather than require the state to repay the reserves tax receipts in hard cash, the act gave to the companies producing the oil a tax credit against future oil production, which is subject to the state’s severance tax and royalty interest.

In effect, the state received during 1976 and 1977 the revenues from the reserves tax that it needed to balance its budget those two years. Then after the pipeline went into operation in mid-1977, the oil companies were able to deduct from the severance tax they would normally pay to the state a credit equal to the reserves taxes they paid during 1976 and 1977, or roughly half a billion dollars. Based on a beginning flow of 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, it was expected that the half billion dollars received by the state in advance reserves tax payments would be fully repaid to the companies owning and producing the oil over the next five years.

But then fate intervened. When first enacted in 1975, the reserves tax assumed that production from Prudhoe Bay would begin in 1977 at the rate of 1.2 million bpd. It also assumed that the tariff which the owners of the pipeline would charge, or be allowed to charge, for transporting oil through their pipeline would not exceed $4 per barrel.

But both those assumptions were knocked in the head, first by the explosion which put Pump Station No. 8 out of commission in the summer of 1977, thus limiting oil production to six hundred thousand barrels per day until spring of 1978. Then, both the federal government and courts granted the pipeline owners authority to charge much higher tariffs than the state anticipated, thus further reducing future state revenues significantly, unless the state were to win a reversal on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Together, these two setbacks—coupled with an impending glut of North Slope oil on the U.S. West Coast which would require up to one million bpd to be shipped through the Panama Canal to more distant markets at a much higher cost—reduced the state’s revenue expectations by several hundred million dollars over the next few years.

In order to make up the impending deficits, it seemed likely that the governor and the legislature would move to extend the reserves tax for at least another year, possibly longer. Which brought to the fore Senator Ray’s rude but relevant question, and one which state as well as industry officials—for their own reasons—had nervously ignored for two years. Was the reserves tax legal under the state constitution, which forbids the state to go into debt beyond the end of current fiscal year without the express consent of the voters, and then only for capital improvements?

Clearly, the state was into its future earnings (and the oil companies’ pockets) for nearly half a billion dollars, which had to be repaid by one means or another. If that wasn’t a debt, I don’t know what constitutes a debt. Yet, it was neither “ratified by a majority of voters,” nor was its expenditure limited to “capital improvements.” While he admittedly voted for the reserves tax when it was enacted in 1975, Senator Ray acknowledged in 1977 that he did so because the state was in an otherwise unsolvable financial bind. He had felt the tax could be justified then on a one-time basis, particularly since rosy predictions of optimum oil flow and minimal tariff charges promised an early end to what even many of its supporters suspected may have been an end-run around the state constitution. And, as noted below, the oil industry in Alaska didn’t oppose it.

But in the aftermath, Ray said, he was no longer prepared to suffer the prospect of extending what was, at worse, an unconstitutional practice and, at best, an unwise one, which would put the state even further into hock to the oil companies. And while I suspect that at least one of Ray’s unspoken motives for raising this question belatedly might have had something to do with the financial issues surrounding proposals to move the state capital from Juneau to Willow, near Anchorage, he should be applauded for asking it nonetheless. For there was not, and never has been, any doubt in my view that the oil reserves tax was as flagrant a violation of Alaska’s state constitution as one can find.

Curiously, the oil companies subject to the reserves tax didn’t vigorously oppose it, as they normally would any other new oil tax proposal. While that may seem out of character, consider their options. They could either accede to the reserves tax, a temporary measure which was really a loan to the state which the state was committed to repay. Or they could suffer a stiff and permanent increase in the state oil severance tax, the cost of which would be irretrievable. Which would you choose?

Needless to say, the proposed extension, briskly promoted by then-Gov. Jay Hammond, was enacted. But it was Bill Ray's first vote against an oil tax increase.

Howard Weaver’s Memoirs: Fiction or Non-fiction

By JOE LaROCCA

Former Anchorage newspaperman Howard Weaver wrote a volume of memoirs published about a year ago by Kent Sturgis’s Epicenter Press entitled Write Hard, Die Free. Howard is a former Anchorage Daily News reporter, later managing editor, then news executive with the ADN’s parent organization at McClatchy Newspapers in Sacramento. Howard,who now lives in California, revisited Alaska last year for a book and lecture tour.

Because of his Alaska celebrity status as a member of Daily News staffs which won two Pulitzer Prizes for public service back in the 1970s and 80s, Howard was deservedly accorded something akin to a hero’s return by virtually all of the news media in Alaska.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, for example, published not one, but two rave reviews of Howard’s book. And the Alaska Dispatch, an ambitious online newspaper, ran a long, adoring review written by a former Daily News colleague of Howard. There were many others like them.

Not so deserved, however, was the unanimity of high praise awarded by reviewers and editors who pretty much accepted Howard’s auto-hagiographical version of certain events as he recollected and wrote of them.

After reading Howard’s fascinating memoir, which tells, in part, of the leading role he played in the 20-year “Great Newspaper War” and other epic conflicts in Alaska during the latter part of the 20^th century, I couldn’t decide whether to store his book on my fiction or non-fiction shelf. Certainly there are manifest elements of both within. But Howard is such a clever writer, it’s hard to tell where.

I’m one of the few newsmen still around who personally remembers Howard’s stints as a reporter and editor during his Alaska heyday. Not all is as it seems.

Howard’s tome is cast in bold allegorical terms: St. George (The Anchorage Daily News) versus The Dragon (The Anchorage Times). Would that it were that simple. To the dispassionate observer standing on the sidelines, it was often difficult to distinguish the saint from the dragon. Their parts were interchangeable.

Howard paints the Times and its legendary publisher, Bob Atwood as hard core conservatives who never saw a development or oil prospect they didn’t like, nor an environmental or social cause they could espouse.

The Daily News, on the other hand, especially under Howard’s tutelage, was Atwood’s evil twin, taking the diametrically opposite tack to the same extreme as the Times did, with concomitant offenses against ethical and balanced journalism on behalf of environmental and social causes to the detriment of the broader community.

Weaver’s book puts on full display his erratic and undisciplined genius. He is a devotee of the Bob Woodward school of journalism, fond of quoting protagonists after they’re dead or gone with little or no risk of contradiction, rebuttal or refutation. Witness, for example, his buffoonish portrayal of a job interview early in his career with the late Times Editor Bill Tobin who is characterized as an apoplectic goon. Though it makes good copy, I don‘t buy it. If nothing else, Bill Tobin was a gentleman, whatever one might think of his journalistic slant. As it happens, I , too, was interviewed for jobs by both Tobin and Atwood, although I didn’t get (or want) them, probably for some of the same reasons Howard didn’t, namely professional incompatibility. In my case, both Tobin and Atwood conducted themselves with genial affability. (Full disclosure: they did ask me - and I agreed - to write a weekly Sunday column for the Times, acknowledging up front that it probably would - and did - usually offend their entrepreneurial sensibilities).

Howard is skilled at covering his tracks when reciting transformative events adducing to his credit for which there is no evidence to support his self-centered version except his credibility with readers, or lack thereof. But in some cases enough doubt prevails to cast a shadow of suspicion on his journalistic integrity. In at least one compelling case - and there are others - the known facts forcefully reject his version, more redolent of hypocrisy than integrity. On that occasion, described herewith, I happened to be a firsthand and disinterested observer.

On Page 109, in one of many disparagements of Bob Atwood and The Times sprinkled ad nauseum throughout the book, Howard writes: “His paper clung to its identity as the voice of the Anchorage establishment. Its news coverage was deeply biased in favor of downtown commercial interests and for years it even refused to run letters to the editor critical of the paper or its friends (my emphasis).

And on Page 151, he writes: “Meanwhile the Times was running the same operation it always had, distant, arrogant, aloof. It wouldn’t run letters critical of the paper.” (my emphasis).

Way back on Friday, March 21 of 1986, while Weaver was managing editor of the Daily News, by then the largest newspaper in Alaska, it ran a news story from the state capital of Juneau during the annual legislative session written by the Associated Press correspondent Bruce Scandling.

His article focused initially on speculation that Native leader Al Adams, a Democrat from Kotzebue, chair of the House Finance Committee; Senator John Sackett, another prominent Native, co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Republican of Ruby, and Ray Gillespie, Governor Bill Sheffield’s chief of staff ,had traveled to San Francisco ostensibly to attend a computer conference, but secretly to put the finishing touches to the state budget away from the prying eyes of the Alaska news media.

All three principals later flatly denied they were there to work on the budget, and the AP could produce no proof to the contrary. The article also stated that a lobbyist for the computer company, Kim Hutchinson had paid for Adams’s trip to California.

The following day, Saturday, the Daily News published an article by its Juneau correspondent John Lindback essentially reiterating and expanding upon the AP story reporting that the lobbyist had paid Adams‘s way. Then in its Sunday edition, the Daily News published a scathing editorial condemning Adams for his supposed role in the matter and for pressuring a lobbyist with legislation pending before his, other committees and the legislature to pay his travel fares.

Upon his return to Juneau from San Francisco the following Monday morning, March 24, a furious Adams learned of the two stories and the editorial, told this reporter in Juneau that both the AP and Daily News had erred in reporting that Hutchinson had paid for his travel expenses, and produced a copy of a state “TR” (travel request), and later a credit card receipt indicating the state had paid his way.

He then composed a letter to the editor addressed personally to Weaver which he transmitted electronically to the legislative office in Anchorage, which in turn hand-delivered it to the Daily News that same morning and placed it on Weaver‘s desk.

In the letter Adams told Weaver, among other things, that “your facts are erroneous. While it is true,” he said, “ that Tandem’s lobbyist, Mr. Kim Hutchinson, did make the arrangements for the trip, it is not true that he paid for my expenses. The trip was paid for with state funds, and I would be happy to provide you with a copy of the State Transportation Request if you so desire.”

Adams also explained at length in the letter why he believed his trip at state expense was “entirely justified,” and concluded by telling Weaver “My only regret is that the Daily News failed to verify their facts prior to publishing their stories and editorial.”

However, Weaver was on vacation, and the letter languished unread on his desk. He did not see the letter until his return nearly two weeks later, on April 16. Even then Weaver failed to publish the letter until nearly two weeks after his return from vacation, accompanied by a glib editor’s note asserting - as though to hold the Daily News harmless - that the erroneous articles and editorial were based upon the lobbyist’s alleged but debunked statement to the AP that he had paid for Adams’s travel.

I contacted Howard and asked him why he suppressed Adams’s letter for so long, pointing out that the adage “justice delayed is justice denied” applies to newspapers as well as to jurisprudence. To make matters worse, when it finally published Adams’s letter, the Daily News deleted the date from it, making it appear that Adams had delayed his response to the erroneous coverage for more than a month, not the Daily News. I was left with the indelible impression that Weaver wouldn’t have published Adams’s letter at all if I hadn’t prodded him into it.

There was no apology for the long delay in publishing Adams’s letter correcting a monumental Daily News error, tantamount to not publishing it at all; no apology for engaging in scurrilous “gotcha” journalism by not contacting Adams for comment before running the false stories and errant editorial. Now that’s what I would call “arrogant, distant and aloof.”

The dilemma this narrative presents is whether or when Weaver is credible. He is not at all credible with respect to the treatment of letters to the editor under his management because I had firsthand knowledge of his duplicity in this key case. Yet there are scores of situations in his book where his credibility is crucial to his integrity and where he’s the sole arbiter of the facts. Given his conduct in the Adams case, is he believable in others? Readers must decide for themselves on an ad hoc basis.

In his book Weaver dwells at length on the two Pulitzer Prizes for public service awarded to the Daily News during his tenure. While he bestows lesser credit upon other colleagues who contributed to the award-winning dispatches - one in 1976 purporting to expose corruption and abuses of power within the powerful Teamsters Union in Alaska during the oil pipeline construction era; another in 1989 on the alarming suicide rate among young Native males in Alaska attributable primarily to alcoholism - clearly, he claims the Pulitzers as his personal triumphs.

Page 61: “When you win a Pulitzer at 25, many people think it’s cute to ask, “What will you do for an encore?” Page 61: When told he wouldn’t be getting an expected pay raise: “What do I need to do for a full raise?” I asked friends. “Win a Nobel Prize?” Page 63: “Can you believe it. Twenty-five years old with a Pulitzer Prize in my pocket.”

Weaver’s book is larded with self-congratulatory rhetoric and arm-busting pats upon his ample latissimus dorsi for Pulitzer Prize plaudits based not on merit but on narrow political cultism involving affluent eastern and midwestern liberal elites committed to shield the nation’s unique natural resource values in Alaska from Alaska’s predatory parochial interests symbolized by the Anchorage Times.

The Teamsters’ Pulitzer in 1976 had little to do with journalistic achievement, but was instead aimed by influential antagonists outside Alaska at undermining Atwood’s influence and the dominance of the Anchorage Times in the ongoing imbroglio over the fate of Alaska’s vast natural resources and environmental treasures. The Daily News and the Pulitzer board were merely dupes in that wider universe.

The Daily News’s 1976 Pulitzer purporting to expose Teamster corruption represented a triumph of packaging over performance. Much of the content had already been published over time by other news media.. In ”Write Hard,” Weaver co-opts Teamster misdeeds already widely reported by other news media or common knowledge, implying they were exclusive Daily News disclosures.

For example on Page 53, he writes :”Even more noteworthy were the thugs and felons we discovered working at North Star Terminals, a Teamster-controlled pipeline distribution warehouse in Fairbanks…the warehouse was actually run by the Teamster hierarchy. The number one union official there was Fred Dominic Figone, known to Alaska law enforcement as “Freddy the Fix.” His number three, Bernard House, had been convicted of murder but later was pardoned…The union’s number one yard man was Peter Rosario Buonmassa, another convicted murderer. Teamster boss number four in the terminal was Jack Martin, who had been convicted of violating the Mann Act, better known as the White Slavery Law against interstate tranportation of women for prostitution. About six months after our reporting, Martin’s badly decomposing body would be found not far from a rural roadway near Fairbanks. He had been shot twice in the head.”

Heady stuff, guaranteed to pop the eyes of Pulitzer Board judges when viewed in the vacuum fabricated by Howard, rather than the body of general knowledge from which it was drawn.

The Daily News merely pulled it all together under its imprimatur into a cohesive, be-ribboned bundle and presented it to the Pulitzer committee, whose members had no conception of the considerable work others had done in exposing the Teamsters in Alaska, or the relative role each had played in that process.

But that really didn’t matter. The fix was already on. The Daily News would have been awarded Pulitzer’s public service medallion if it had submitted the Anchorage phone directory. Did Daily News Publisher Kay Fanning, now deceased, with close ties to the Chicago Fields newspaper dynasty and fortune, foster frentic behind-the-scenes lobbying of the Pulitzer board through her connections with prominent eastern and Midwest liberals instrumental in bringing the prize to Alaska? If so, nowhere in his book did Howard mention, much less acknowledge it.

Howard’s erratic genius enabled him to disguise that fact that his, and by reference, the ADN’s contribution to Alaska journalism during his tenure by and large, was negative and corrosive. He sneered at prevailing journalistic conventions, writing and playing by his own rules, a glaring exemplar of the “new journalism,” where no rules applied. This is no idle speculation. Weaver freely admits it.

Howard dismissed as a meaningless bore what is one of the news media’s most important `responsibilities, accurate and comprehensive coverage of the state’s legislative function. It certainly would be boring, given Howard’s disdainful and mindless approach to legislative coverage.

Again, in his words; The Pulitzer “didn’t change my work in Juneau though. I hated it. Covering that legislative session remains the least satisfying newspaper assignment I have ever had,” a betrayal at age 25 of his professional immaturity. Like a kid in a candy shop, Howard craved instant gratification, unwilling to forebear interminable legislative floor sessions, endless committee meetings and elusive legislative politics to bring crucial information about the actions of key political operatives to the Daily News readership.

Howard’s ennui with conventional newspapering relentlessly led to personal successes at the highest level of his trade, but did little to ennoble it.

Joe LaRocca lived and worked in Alaska as a newsman for 20 years, during the ‘60s, 70s and 80s. Joe is the author of “Alaska Agonistes: The Age of Petroleum - How Big Oil Bought Alaska” published in 2003. He now resides in his hometown of North East (Erie County), PA. He may be contacted at jlar5553@verizon.net and 814.725.8926.

Longtime Fairbanks newsman Cole leaves News-Miner for Alaska Dispatch

With a  self-generated drumroll and fanfare, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner's longtime columnist Dermot Cole announced in his August 28 column  he has decided to leave the News-Miner after  35 years, and take a  job with an online paperless news medium, the Alaska Dispatch, based in  Anchorage. Cole, however, will work from his home in Fairbanks, one of the perks of the cyber revolution, as what he calls a "state" reporter, whatever that is, and columnist.

Curiously absent is any word from the News-Miner's publisher expressing any level of regret for Cole's departure from the only newspaper for which he has ever worked since graduating from the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a journalism degree back in the mid-70s.

He did mention, however, that the publisher "has asked me to stay, but I decided to make a change... No one at the newspaper is pushing me out, waving at the exit or suggesting that the jig is up."

Cole's long tenure at the News-Miner - 35 years, 21 of them as a columnist, perhaps the longest such stint in Alaska newspaper history  - was interrupted only by a brief  hiatus in 1988-89 to take a job with the Associated Press in Seattle. But that quickly ended when "My wife and I made the return trip after reaching the belated conclusion that (Fairbanks) would be a better place to raise our children. We have never regretted that decision."

In announcing his departure, Cole wrote in his farewell column: "An illness in the family and the approach of a pivotal birthday (his 60th, next month) have prompted me to take stock of my situation and start out on a new adventure.  This is something I have to try," adding: "Leaving an institution where I have had the pleasure of working for more than 35 years is not easy, but I’m at an age where if I don’t try something a little different now I may never get the chance.

"I began working here at age 22 in 1976, a callow youth who expected to stay a year or two before moving on to bigger and better things." He added: "I attribute my longevity at the News-Miner to a good working environment and readers who encouraged me at times, tolerated me on many occasions and allowed me the privilege of becoming a small part of their daily routine.

"I have long been grateful that my ambition to leave Fairbanks gradually turned into a more focused desire to do the best job I could at something I loved in Alaska. And I wanted to learn how to write." Self-deprecatingly, he adds:" Millions of words later, learning to write remains my overarching goal."

In the comment segue to his column, 63 readers bade Cole goodby. About two-thirds of them expressed regrets at his leaving and reflected sentiments like this: "Best wishes Dermot! I'm going to miss your column. I didn't always agree with you, but appreciated your perspective and attention to important community and State issues. I loved the recognition you gave deserving individuals and the warm human interest stories."

Or:"Dermot, I want to thank you for your integrity, clear writing, and community-building all these many years. You exemplify the kind of qualities that I seek out when perusing a local paper.
Although my family and I hitched ourselves to some migrating geese a few years ago (for the tropics of Whidbey Island), Fairbanks in many ways will always be home. Thank you for helping to make it such a good place to grow up.

 Or: "Dermot's column was the one thing everyone in Fairbanks read out of the NM. Agree with him or not, you always stopped to read him. Rarely a day went by that I didn't have a conversation with someone that included the line, 'did you see Dermot's column today?' 
He was a great source for answering those nagging little questions like what is that new building going to be? He was always quick to give a pat on the back to those who helped make the community a little bit better place to live. He also was willing to call those out that needed to be.
I wish him all the best in his future endeavors. I know he will be great there. I also know the NM will be truly be the news minus without him.

A few others were not so kind, even cruel. RextrailBigfoot, for example, dissing Cole's perceived liberal, anti-corporate bent, sarcastically commented: "If I was Dermot I would apply for jobs with Al Jazeera or Pravda and get away from the US corporate controlled media."  

Or: "It's too bad that Dermot never had any real-world job experience. He would have been more well-rounded. A newspaper tends to have the viewpoint of the Collective because news must appeal to the community as a whole. Dermot never saw a problem that didn't have a government solution. He will fit in well at the Alaska Dispatch."

Or: "This proves what we've always suspected: Alice doesn't have a brain. "State reporter?" Nope. Dermot cannot "report" anything except his neurotic feelings on a given subject."

Dermot and I have a shared history. I toiled as a reporter, editor and columnist at the News-Miner in the late 1960s and early '70s, and later at Tom Snapp's All-Alaska Weekly. During his student days at the UAF where he was on the staff of the campus newspaper, I wrote a column disparaging what I perceived to be the poor quality of the journalism department at the university. I've forgotten the details, but I recall that Dermot indignantly wrote back demanding to know my qualifications for making those judgments.

There's no question that Cole served a valuable purpose at the News-Miner, despite a pronounced tilt to the left. His talents and prolixity as a journalist, despite his shortcomings, are undeniable. He'll be impossible to replace. Most News-Miner readers regret that, a few others applaud it. After I left Alaska, I relied heavily on his reporting and writing to keep abreast of public affairs in Alaska, while occasionally correcting his historical and, sometimes, grammatical perspective.



 

 

THE ALASKA HIGHWAY HOAX: An exercise in mythlogy

　
 A recent article in the Anchorage Daily News, “Unsung heroes built WWII lifeline through Canada” by Christopher Cussat, correctly portrays Henry Geyer of Pittsburgh, PA and others who helped build the Alaska Highway (initially known as the Alcan Highway) as courageous pioneers and heroes.

But Cussat strays into mythology when he writes that “President Franklin D. Roosevelt stressed the need to construct the highway after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.” Cussat wrote that the Alaska Highway was “one of America's earliest and most dramatic efforts to increase national security. With reasonable fears of a Japanese invasion through Alaska and Canada, the United States felt that our distant military contingent in the northern territories desperately needed a highway to connect air bases to one another and to fundamental resources.”

The article perpetuates the persistent myth that construction of the Alaska Highway was essential to the military defense of western America and Canada after the bombing of Pearl Harbor precipitated war between the U.S. and Japan. This erroneous notion also pervades the PBS documentary, “The Construction of the Alaska Highway,”  first aired in February, 2005. It continues to spawn one of the more enduring hoaxes in U.S.-Canadian history.

Contrary to longstanding and widespread misconceptions, which have been driven by official but misguided sources, the Alaska Highway, financed mostly by the U.S. and built primarily with U.S. military labor and equipment, was not vital to national defense nor security in the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and declaration of war with Japan.

Indeed, the U.S. War Dept. was opposed to construction of the road for military purposes. Though subsequently used extensively for military and civilian purposes, in 1942 it was mainly a hidden pretext for prospectively opening up and developing northwestern Canada's and Alaska’s rich natural resources on behalf of special entreprenuerial interests, and to provide the U.S. with terrestrial access to its far-flung territory.

U.S.. military forces, along with a handful of civilian contractors and Canadians launched an heroic, even sacrificial effort to complete the road in less than a year to accommodate its alleged military necessity. But their Herculean efforts and sacrifices were squandered on the political pretensions of some of America’s top government leaders.

Foremost among them was President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Commander-in- chief, he ordered construction of the highway against the recommendation of some of the nation’s key military officers, and despite deeply expressed skepticism by Canadian officials.

Alaska's late U.S. Senator Ernest Gruening. discussed the genesis of the highway, which he proposed and justified on grounds of national defense, in his autobiography, Many Battles:  (Liveright, 1973),  In it, he addressed on-going negotiations with Canada government officials. They hinged on whether the Canadian government would permit and support construction of the proposed highway through Canada to Alaska. Gruening had already won support for the highway by President Franklin D. Roosevelt BEFORE Roosevelt consulted with his military leaders.

Gruening wrote: "(In late 1940), Negotiations were reopened, and several months later when I was in Washington again, I had a phone call from Assistant-Secretary (of state) Adolph Berle, who had been conducting the negotiations.. He was one of the ablest men in our foreign service. “The Canadians really don’t want us to build that highway.” he said, “but if we can assure them that it has military value, they’ll let us go ahead.”
(Gruening): “Well, it’s obvious that it has military value.”

“You may think so, and I may think so,” Berle said, “but the Canadians will not accept that unless we can get the Army to say so.”
“Of course I can,” I said confidently.”

"I reported this conversation to (U.S. Senator, D-Washington) Warren Magnuson and together we drafted a letter to the secretary of war, Henry L. Stimson. It gave a detailed description of both the A and B routes with the arguments for each, stating our preference for the former, and asked that the War Department express an opinion as to which of the routes would be preferable from the Army’s standpoint. Two weeks later on April 26, 1941, the reply came.

“The War Department considers that the construction of such highway cannot be justified on the basis of military necessity. Because of that view , it is believed that it would be inappropriate to comment upon the relative merits of the two suggested routes.” The letter was signed “Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War.” "We were momentarily stunned, Gruening wrote.

Gruening attributed the War Department’s continuing opposition to construction of the highway to military “ignorance.” Nevertheless, he wrote in Battles, “the Alaskan highway was brought up at the next Cabinet meeting and the President appointed a committee of three - the Secretaries of War (Stimson), Navy (Knox) and Interior (Ickes) - with instructions to proceed at once with the construction of the highway.”

Ironically, however, the Canadian government vetoed both Routes A and B proposed by the Americans, ordering one instead which substantially deviated from both and better accommodated Canada’s commercial rather than U.S. military objectives, robbing the highway of much of the U.S. sponsors’ alleged grounds for military necessity. Gruening wrote in Battles that Senator Magnuson “denounced the new route as a 100-million dollar blunder.”

One Canadian historian, Captain M.V. Bezeau , a specialist in the study of the highway’s history,　has speculated that Roosevelt seized the opportunity to capitalize on the moment to obtain concurrence from Canada for construction of the road through its territory at a time when there may have latent wartime concerns among the Canadians not extant during peacetime.

Although the PBS characterized the construction of the highway as "the first step" in America's defense strategy, the project wasted unfathomable resources - natural, military, human and monetary - which could arguably have been more productively and strategically deployed elsewhere, and significantly shortened the war against Japan, saving countless thousands of lives.

The highway was largely irrelevant to America's overall defense strategy except to detract from it. 　
An unimpeachable authority for this position may be found in "The Alaska Highway: Papers of the 40th Anniversary Symposium,"　 Kenneth. Coates, editor; Captain M.V. Bezeau, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 1985.

The　 U.S. War Department, Capt. Bezeau wrote, "repeatedly examined these suggestions　 (to build　 the highway on grounds of national defense) and rejected them." The Canadian-American Joint Board on Defence concluded from the outset that the defensive value of building the proposed highway to Alaska was "negligible," and construction on the basis of military necessity alone was "unjustified and unsupportable." Nevertheless, in the end, a political rather than a strategic agenda prevailed, and the road was built and paid for mostly by U.S. taxpayers.

Bezeau concluded that the highway was “a magnificent achievement carried out as a military project in time of war, but it was not needed for defence. The highway was actually planned and built for other reasons.”