[On July 31, 1876, the U.S. Revenue Cutter School of Instruction—now known as the Coast Guard Academy—was founded. So this week for its 150th anniversary I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of Coast Guard contexts!]
On three stages of the frustrating devolution of the Guard’s mission.
In March 1952, the Coast Guard launched a unique new ship that embodied an exemplary expansion of the service’s role. The cutter Courier was a transmitting ship, one that had been specifically designed and outfitted to broadcast the Voice of America (VOA) radio program into regions controlled by the Soviet Union and its allies. As Harry Truman put it in a March 4th speech delivered on board the ship, “it will be a valiant fighter in the cause of freedom. It will carry a precious cargo—and that cargo is truth.” As Truman noted, because the ship was unarmed (as all Coast Guard vessels were), it would not be a military target, and could focus instead on that mission of propaganda (in the most positive sense of the word). And along the way, due to the ship’s stationing for many years near the Greek island of Rhodes, the Courier’s crew became part of that community, and helped in its continuing rebuilding efforts after the devastation of WWII. I’m sure the Coast Guard also had to perform more complicated roles during the Cold War, but the Courier certainly illustrates the best of the service in that period.
As this National Coast Guard Museum series on “Drug Interdiction Since 1886” indicates, narcotics enforcement and anti-trafficking efforts had long been part of the Guard’s work (and would of course include the Guard’s efforts during Prohibition, when alcohol was such an illegal and thus illegally trafficked substance). But there’s a reason why that Museum piece really leans into the early 1970s as a pivotal period, as it was with President Nixon’s declaration of a “War on Drugs” (a phrase he first used in a June 1971 speech) that this emphasis became truly central to the Coast Guard’s work. I’m not going to suggest that drug trafficking is necessarily a victimless crime, nor that many of those who take part aren’t hardened criminals who are part of larger organizations like drug cartels that are worth targeting. But it’s worth noting how much of that Museum piece focuses on marijuana, a drug that’s socially (and I believe medically as well) significantly more harmless than alcohol and thus a Coast Guard interdiction that in retrospect looks even more unnecessary than the Prohibition efforts. It makes me sad to think about our most inspiring service organization being so focused on this mission for many decades.
That mission continues to this day, although I profoundly hope it doesn’t target marijuana trafficking any more (and it does seem to be focused on harder drugs these days, at least). But even sadder is the way in which the Trump administration’s policies toward alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean have, as this article traces at great length, replaced the Coast Guard with direct, destructive, highly illegal military strikes. We’ve seen since Monday’s post that included the Quasi War-era origins of the Guard’s predecessor organizations that these federal fleets have often worked alongside the U.S. military, and they have certainly been part of vital legitimate wartime efforts like the WWI rescues I traced in Wednesday’s post. So it’s particularly telling that the Trump administration and its violent military leaders like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth seem to have little use for the Coast Guard as they pursue their illicit military actions and policies. I know we could say this about countless histories these days, but we would do well to remember and return to the best of the U.S. Coast Guard in 2026.
Annual birthday posts start Saturday,
Ben
PS. What you do think?
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