American Provisional Administration (1983: Doomsday)

The government-in-exile for the United States established after the mainland US was deemed uninhabitable and ungovernable.

Establishment
On April 23rd, 1984, US President Ronald Reagan gave the order that he and Vice President George Bush should be evacuated from North America due to a complete breakdown in civil order and a debilitating lack of supplies. They were to be flown from their separate facilities - Reagan from Mount Weather and Bush from Greenbriar - to take refuge in the US's strongest surviving ally, Australia. Reagan and Bush left the US on May 5th, 1984. Reagan landed safely at General Lyman Field near Hilo, Hawaii. There he briefly toured the last functioning state in the US, under the iron rule of labor leader Louis Goldblatt. The conservative President was somewhat shocked at the Communistic turn Hawaii had taken, but he was glad that the islands were surviving.

Due to electro-magnetic interference and residual radiation left over from Doomsday, the President's plane became unresponsive to the pilot's controls and was horribly off course a few hours after leaving Hawaii. Running out of fuel and unable to land, the Boeing E-4 lost altitude and crashed into the South Pacific.

Vice President Bush reached Brisbane safely after stops in Mexico, Hawaii and Auckland, New Zealand. Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke welcomed Bush, but informed him that the RAAF had lost contact with Reagan's plane. After it became clear that Reagan's plane had not made it, Bush had a local Australian judge swear him in as President of the United States on May 8th. The American Provisional Administration was soon established in Canberra. Its goals were twofold: first, to garner intelligence on the situation, both in the US and across the world; and secondly, to provide cohesion for the community of American survivors.

ANZUS and the Gathering Order
The USA was a government without a country, but it had one great asset: the United States military scattered across the world. In order to avoid future threats by third parties utilizing the superior US military technology, the already existing ANZUS defense pact between the United States, Australia and New Zealand was modified and extended in 1985. The most important part of the new agreement was that all remnants of the American and - as far as possible - the NATO Army, Navy and Air Force were immediately placed under corporate ANZUS command.

So, on June 1st, the ANZUS Order 001/1985 was given by the joint ANZUS Head Command set up in Brisbane. This order – today famous as the "Gathering Order" - was sent to all reachable U.S. (and NATO) units. It ordered all units capable to do so to set course for Australian, New Zealand and Hawaiian waters. If this could not be realized, all surviving units in defined geographical areas were routed to the nearest suitable gathering point to which ANZUS supply convoys were sent. The first units to report were several nuclear submarines. They set course for ports in ANZUS territory.

Satellite communication proved impossible,so several scattered naval units reported slowly from the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They were ordered to assemble at several points considered suitable, mainly intact British, French and U.S. naval bases on remote islands. The bulk of the regrouping flotillas consisted of submarines, frigates and destroyers from NATO countries and remnants of American Carrier Groups. Civilian freighter convoys also gathered at the specified destinations.

On November 6th, the USS "Benjamin Franklin" (SSBN-640) became the fifth American nuclear submarine to arrive in ANZUS territory. Nearly out of food, the “Franklin” entered the harbor of Cairns.

On November 18th, a great relief accompanied the return of the American carrier USS “Nimitz” and a small accompanying fleet from the harbor of Papeete, Tahiti. It had been feared that all carrier groups had been destroyed by direct nuclear attacks. But apparently due to malfunctioning ICBM’s the Nimitz carrier group was not destroyed and was able to set course south to escape the radiation in the Northern Hemisphere. On December 8th the Nimitz Group arrived in Brisbane.

Keeping the Peace
The Provisional Administration kept its authority over surviving U.S. Insular Areas in the Pacific, namely American Samoa, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. In theory, its authority also extended to Hawaii, but with the vastness of the ocean and the difficulty of maintaining control, Bush was content to let Governor Goldblatt maintain the islands in his own heavy-handed way. Alaska posed a similar problem as well, but again Bush was comfortable with allowing the emergency government to maintain control.

In 1987, however, Goldblatt was assassinated. Bush personally visited Hawaii months later and found the islands torn by civil war. The Australian and US troops accompanying him restored order, with the help of those federal troops still in Hawaii, most of whom rushed to join their Commander in Chief upon his arrival. The leader of one faction was the leading survivor of Hawaii's royal line, 23-year-old Andrew Piikoi Kawānanakoa. He ordered his supporters to lay down their arms and submit to US authority "for the good of our islands." A military committee responsible directly to the President was placed in charge of the state. A small detachment was also sent to Alaska where the APA took over control of the emergency state government.

Two years later the APA supervised Hawaii's first free elections since Doomsday. The Administration had become an important link between the American remnants and their ANZUS benefactors. For the next seven years Bush's government coordinate food and medical supplies shipped from Australia.

In 1991 the APA lent Australia the Franklin to conduct its famous mission of exploration and intelligence gathering. Hawaii was the natural starting and end point for this and subsequent voyages that explored the shattered west coast of the former USA. In 1992 the APA sponsored a mission to restore the LORAN radio navigation station on Marcus Island, a Japanese island 1800 km southeast of Tokyo that had been maintained by the US Coast Guard. The Coasties had left the station intact when they fled to Hawaii shortly after Doomsday. The refurbished Marcus station helped allow for modern navigation for reconnaissance voyages to Japan and East Asia.

End of an Era
By 1994, it was becoming clear that the American Provisional Administration was beginning to outlive its usefulness. Although it maintained a strong government over areas of the Pacific, it maintained little to no control over the territory it claimed to govern in North America. The former states of Alaska and Hawaii had begun acting independent of the Provisional Administration, often rejecting control outright on several different issues. Further more, the areas where it had governed had done so because of large scale Australian and New Zealand involvement. Some even began seeing these areas as subdivisions of Australia rather than the U.S government.

The Provisional American Administration formally ended on May 1st, 1995. President Bush, together with Prime Minister John Howard, issued a short statement to the American expatriates and forces in Australia, stating that it would be best if they "become part of the Australian life and culture". Bush went on to act as an adviser to Howard, primarily on development of Australian oil production in Indonesia. This marked the end of the 219–year-long history of the United States of America. However, one of the last acts of the APA was the Continuity Act, which prepared the way for a legitimate successor to take up the former superpower's mantle. The Act declared the United States' sovereignty and Constitution “temporarily suspended until a legitimate successor – continuing the US traditions of Freedom and Democracy - is elected by the American people”.

The successor emerged soon after, on August 15. Australia and New Zealand declared their formal unification as the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand" (commonly known as ANZC or ANZ). On the basis of a third ANZUS-Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the APA, all military forces and material (ships, submarines, bases, personnel) that had reported to “the Gathering” were formally integrated into the ANZC military. The Nimitz would soon be rechristened as ANZS "Commonwealth" (ANZ-01), the new Flagship of the combined ANZ Navy.

The remaining territories under the Provisional Authority held a series of referenda to decide their future status and relationship with the ANZC. American Samoa, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands decided to be fully incorporated into the ANZC, while Hawaii and Alaska voted to become independent but associated territories. On January 20, 1996, the traditional swearing-in date of the old US government, Andrew I was crowned King of Hawaii and opened the First Congress of the Free State. This ended Hawaii's century of allegience to the US. On March 30 the ANZC formally annexed Samoa, Micronesia, and the Marshalls, and the Stars and Stripes were lowered on those islands for the last time. The remaining offices of the American Provisional Administration were absorbed into the ANZC bureaucracy shortly after.

Not all Americans were supportive of this arrangement. A group of American expatriates in Australia founded the Committee to Restore the United States of America in response.

Countries in the Former USA
The large area of the United States of America now consists of regions of lawlessness, and also new countries, many based on former US states.

Also, controls about half of Alaska, and the  controls the northern coast of former Washington state.