Two Samoas 'Renew

An Old Friendship'

Closer political links between Western Samoa and American Samoa seems to be one of the results of the reappointment of Mr H. Rex Lee as Governor of American Samoa.

Governor Lee held the office as a Kennedy man from 1961 to 1967 and in that time made radical changes to the territory. He has been reappointed to the post by the United States Interior Department to prepare the groundwork for local elections for governor and other high political posts.

Late in July, Governor Lee flew to Western Samoa to meet Prime Minister Tupuola Efi “basically to renew an old friendship.”

Relations between American Samoa and Western Samoa have not been especially good recently, although Governor Lee told a press conference in the Prime Minister’s office that he was not aware of the current state of relations.

“If they are rock bottom they are going to improve very rapidly. I have pledged to your Prime Minis ter and to the people of American Samoa to do everything I can to im prove relations between Western Samoa and the Pacific and Ameri can Samoa,” Governor Lee said.

He said he did not like the word “colony” being used to describe the political status of American Samoa.

He preferred the term “self-govern ed.” He said the upcoming elections for a local Samoan government was one more step towards self-govern ment.

“I think that it is long overdue,” he said.

Governor Lee said the United States-American Samoa relationship was undergoing change. He did not know whether American Samoa would ever become completely in dependent, nor did he know what kind of relationship it would have with the United States after local elections.

He added that while there had been talk of possible integration of American Samoa into Western

Samoa, not much of this talk took place today.

One of the subjects discussed bet ween Governor Lee and Prime Min ister Tupuola was television.

During Governor Lee’s first term he established a local television system, KVZK-TV, which was in tended as a pioneer in educational television. Since its establishment the nature of the service has chang ed until today American soap dramas such as “Police Woman” rate as the most popular pro grammes.

“The Prime Minister and I talked about more locally-produced pro grammes, seeing that your people receive our television. The time I left 10 years ago we had a lot of

locally-produced programmes,”

Governor Lee said.

“I am not satisfied with the quali ty of television today. I personally feel that our television has deterio rated and can be improved. I’ve ask ed the Prime Minister for his sugges tions.”

Governor Lee said he wanted to return to the days of more locally produced programmes, and in this he was looking for Western Samoa’s co-operation. There are more television sets in Western Samoa than in American Samoa.

Governor Lee called for closer relations between the two Samoas, saying this was one way of improv ing the lot of the peoples of both. He also wanted closer Pacific co-opera tion, and in this American Samoa was prepared to work.

All areas of the Pacific must prosper together and if one nation suffered a depression, other Pacific nations would also suffer, he said.

Left: Governor Lee and Prime Minister Tupuola Efi during a press conference in Apia.