Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

Back in 1935, airpower champion Billy Mitchell had testified before Congress that Alaska was the most central place in the world for aircraft. “He who holds Alaska will hold the world,” the unconventional general proclaimed. “I think it is the most important strategic place in the world.”19 Mitchell assumed that he was speaking with regard to the Japanese threat in the Pacific and the coming Second World War, but his prediction would prove even more prescient with regard to the confrontation looming in the postwar era. What William Mungen had predicted on the floor of Congress upon the 1867 purchase of Alaska had come true. Russia, now called the Soviet Union, and the United States were the two great powers on Earth. But they were no longer friends.