Dian Olson Belanger's history of the 1957–58 International Geophysical Year (IGY) in Antarctica and the US military's ‘Deep Freeze’ operations that supported it is a highly informative and readable narrative account of perhaps the single most striking international scientific endeavour of the twentieth century. That the IGY emerged from and was implemented by an international community riven by Cold War tensions and rivalries makes the story all the more remarkable.
The IGY was, from the beginning, an often-tense mix of science, exploration, occupancy, strategy, and politics. Its decentralised nature (relying exclusively on national programmes), the increasingly obvious value of suspending political rivalries between claimant and non-claimant states, and the small, inexpensive bureaucracy (CSAGI) that assisted in programmatic coordination and data exchange substantially abraded the rivalries and suspicions that each participant brought to the enterprise. As the global value of Antarctic research became obvious, the way was paved to an international treaty ‘based on the scientific cooperation of the IGY’ (page 371). That instrument guaranteed to the present day Antarctica's unique status as, in effect, a world park beyond and separate from an international community that remains committed to the maintenance of its unique peaceful status.
Five themes dominate and structure the book. First and foremost is the recurrent friction between the US Armed Forces charged with logistically supporting the IGY and an Antarctic scientific community chronically suspicious and fearful that the service people, and the Navy in particular, were pursuing their own separate and antithetical agendas. Such fears were not groundless. Some in the Navy wanted to use the IGY as a front or cover to pursue strategic interests, including further cold-weather training, mapping, and especially exploration for important minerals. Admiral George Dufek, Deep Freeze commander during the IGY, proved to be deeply committed to the IGY. But during the critical build-up period, he ‘always. . .focused on the establishment and safe maintenance’ of each of the seven US scientific stations scattered around the continent. Worrying about the scientific programmes of each station ‘could come later in his view,’ and as a consequence, scientific equipment ‘became the last priority’ (page 175). Early misunderstandings and suspicions led to several wounding incidents, notably Dufek's insistence that only naval personnel would make the first aerial landing at the South Pole, excluding long-time Antarctic scientist Paul Siple from sharing in the glory (page 159).
The second theme revolves around the widespread fear within the Antarctic community that Moscow might dominate the IGY with all the strategic and political implications involved. Soviet occupation of the most valuable portions of the continent, particularly the Pole itself, could not be discounted. Only the Americans possessed the treasure and resources to deflect such a possibility. Belanger tells in suitably dramatic terms the story of what it took to enjoy the ‘political and emotional coup’ of getting the United States established at the geographic bottom of the Earth (page 186).
Third, America's IGY servicemen and scientists were able to exploit the lessons of a decade's work in the Arctic, especially Greenland. Belanger might have laid a bit more emphasis on the construction of the Distant Early Warning [Radar] Line across Arctic Alaska, Canada, and Greenland during the summers of 1955 and 1956, which provided the icebreaker navy (including this reviewer's ship, Staten Island) with invaluable experience in what was characterised at the time as ‘ice seamanship.’ But she does recount instance after instance where Arctic-trained people and Arctic lessons were enlisted with great success to resolve Antarctic problems.
A fourth, largely implicit, theme is the striking similarities between the IGY and earlier Antarctic expeditions, especially those of Admiral Richard E. Byrd. The IGY programmes that developed during and from Deep Freeze I and II were in many, if not most, respects logical continuations of Byrd's two private expeditions between 1928 and 1935, his personally directed US Antarctic Service Expedition of 1939–41, and Operation Highjump, 1946–47, in which he was overall commander. The use of aviation support; the establishment of weather and relay stations, together with emergency caches of food and fuel at various points at the foot of the Transantarctic Mountains; the establishment of supply caches on various trails; and, indeed, the very notion of surface ‘traverses’ to do on-the-ground science were either developed or greatly elaborated by Admiral Byrd and his colleagues. Only in three instances did the early Deep Freeze operations break more or less decisively with the past. By 1956, the usefulness of dog teams for Antarctic transportation was clearly at an end, as motorised, tracked vehicles now possessed far greater power if not reliability. Aircraft, too, had reached sufficient size and reliability so as to become essential elements in the construction of ‘inland’ stations, including Byrd and Scott-Amundsen at the South Pole. Finally, the pressing matter of liquor and drunkenness, which had be-deviled Byrd on his two private expeditions, was largely, though not completely, dissipated throughout the Deep Freeze years by the presence of naval officers charged with enforcement of a strict ‘uniform code of military justice.’
From beginning to end, the success of the US IGY programme depended on cooperation among a remarkable group of men. Initially often at cross purposes, Larry Gould, Paul Siple, Lloyd Berkner, Hugh Odishaw, Harry Wexler, Albert Crary, George Toney, Dick Bowers, George Dufek, and a host of others in Washington and on the ice were all committed to making the US IGY a success. An increasingly bewitched Congress and a clear-eyed President Eisenhower added critical support. Skill, grit, self-discipline, and restraint were the chief qualities that carried individuals and groups through to remarkable success during and after IGY.
Any good story or set of stories has to have a villain, and in this instance, Finn Ronne, the sole base commander at Ellsworth Station and a turbulent, mistrustful character, fills the bill. Censoring all outgoing communications, even of the most personal kind; preventing some men from direct contact with the outside world as a form of ‘punishment’ for perceived slights or infractions; denying a deep traverse party critically needed radio equipment because he had not received explicit permission from Dufek, Ronne comes across here, and elsewhere (see Behrendt Reference Behrendt1998; Passel Reference Passel1995) as a petty martinet more to be pitied than censured, although living with him was evidently hell.
Belanger concludes her tale with a riveting account of the often tense and stressful negotiations among the 12 nations that ultimately created an enduring regime for Antarctica, then goes beyond the 1961 Treaty to outline the political and scientific history of humans in Antarctica to the present day. In so doing, she makes a signal contribution to the slowly developing scholarship on polar, and especially Antarctic, history. Thanks to her work, we now have an essential link between the Heroic Age of dashing adventure and small science and the contemporary era of permanent occupancy and probing inquiry across the entire spectrum of Earth and atmospheric sciences.
