Mayaguez

Mayagüez , city (1990 pop. 100,371), W Puerto Rico, on Mona Passage. It is a port of entry as well as a shipping and manufacturing center in an area where sugarcane, coffee, tobacco, and livestock are raised. Sugar, tropical fruits, coffee, and needlework are exported; manufactures include pharmaceuticals, beverages, and electronic components. Mayagüez has long been known for its embroidery. The city, founded c.1760, is also a communications and cultural center with a growing population. It has colleges of liberal arts, agriculture, and mechanics, a center for nuclear studies, and a U.S. government agricultural research station.

Mayaguez Incident (1975) a publicly popular though perhaps excessively dangerous and costly attempt to rescue the crew of the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez. On May 12, Cambodian gunboats had seized the ship and imprisoned its forty crew members on charges of spying. Declining U.S. credibility in the wake of the Vietnam War led President Gerald R. Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to authorize the Marines to attack Koh Tang Island where the Mayaguez crew was believed to be detained. The Khmer Rouge government had been holding the ship's crew on the mainland, and had released them on its own as soon as the attack had begun. The Marines, however, suffered heavy casualties. Although some members of Congress accused Ford of abusing the law by ordering the operation, polls showed that the public largely approved of the forceful response to what the president had labeled “piracy.”

Mayaguez Incident (1975).On 12 May 1975, Cambodian gunboats seized the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez near Cambodia's Koh Tang Island. Claiming the ship was spying, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge government imprisoned the forty‐member crew. President Gerald Ford labeled the action piracy. After the fall of Saigon that year and the unsuccessful end of the Vietnam War, Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believed that only forceful response to the Mayaguez provocation could bolster damaged U.S. credibility. Also, memories of North Korea's 1968 capture of the USS Pueblo, an intelligence‐gathering ship, and the year‐long incarceration of its crew, prompted quick action. Lacking diplomatic relations with Phnom Penh, Washington attempted to communicate demands for release of the crew through Beijing and the United Nations, but received no clear response from the Cambodians.

On 14 May, 179 U.S. Marines used helicopters to assault Koh Tang Island while a Marine boarding party retook the empty Mayaguez; U.S. aircraft bombed nearby military targets. The crew was not on the island, but the Cambodians on their own released the crew from the mainland as the operation began. The Marines on the island encountered strong resistance and could not be extracted until the 15th. U.S. casualties were fifteen killed in action, three missing, fifty wounded, and twenty‐three killed in a helicopter crash.

Heeding the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the Ford administration had notified Congress as it issued its military orders. Some legislators charged that the president had abused the law, and some historians have characterized Ford's use of force as precipitous and excessive. Ford insisted that the operation helped restore America's self‐confidence. Many editorial writers agreed, and the president's public approval rating surged 11 percent.
[See also Commander in Chief, President as; Korea, U.S. Military Involvement in.]

Bibliography

Roy Rowan , The Four Days of Mayaguez, 1975.
David L. Anderson , Gerald R. Ford and the Presidents' War in Vietnam, in Anderson, ed., Shadow on the White House, 1993.

David L. Anderson