As
students of the history of bills favoring statehood for Alaska are aware,
I testified in 1950 that I, personally, was in favor of statehood. At
that time, I was commander in chief of the Alaskan Command, and I spoke
only on the general proposition of statehood, as distinct from the specific
provisions of any Alaskan bill, as such. My personal views that statehood
should be granted when the time was ripe have never changed. I am happy,
therefore, to be able to say in my official capacity, in this month of
March 1957, that, in my opinion, the time is ripe for Alaska to become
a state.
-Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Nathan Twining testifying before
the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, March 11, 1957
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