https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/96f794e94c1a4bf1ddab54fcec12c635.pdf 614828ce92277a46b39c363e468b1669 PDF Text Text (fijy^ I DocuvfttSucpclosed undet the fifcekitcf Information Act Documeimdlyulgue en vertij de la Loi sur Tacces a Tinforma \formati m D E P A R T M E N T OF E X T E R N A L AFFAIR £.MA Subject. Date. M§X...3..»...I.969 Publication V*j. I^GlobeJt^M^l, K> Another U.S. missile base pops AUSTRALIA from a cloud of secrecy and discontent \ By IAN MOFFIT SYDNEY T HE SHADOW OF U.S. Missile defense over Canada also seems to be spreading over Australia as the United States quietly buttons the county into its global military cloak. A controversial space communications station planned for Australia might also be the latest link in a secret U.S. space chain. Prime Minister John Gorton has revealed agreement in principle on the latest base, which has sparked a furor here. Washington has made no statement about the base. Mr. Gorton briefly announced the agreement in Canberra's House of Representatives last week. And this week he mastered a half-hearted Labor Opposition urgency motion attacking the excessive secrecy surrounding U.S. defense installations in Australia-and the dangers of nuclear retaliation. The new base will be at Woomera in South Australia, and it will be a key communications station in the U.S. satrest grows over, his compliant Liberalellite military reconnaissaribe program, Country Party coalition Government. with perhaps extra nuclear functions. But it is more likely that the divided ' Labor Opposition and an unquestioning It may be locked in with the public will accept the idea of the base, TAC-COMSAT satellite system linking and that Australia will house another U.S. combat units on land, sea and in joint U.S.-Australian facility which will the air. have only token Australian participation. It also could be part of the manned orbiting laboratory program, as could The Opposition cut short its attack on be the secret U.S. base taking shape at the secrecy surrounding the proposed Pine Gap, near Alice Springs in Austrabase to prevent opening rifts in its lia's Red Desert heart. It might even beranks on the issue, even though Governcome part of an early warning arc ment members taunted the opposition to guarding against any Soviet orbital continue. They, were trying to 'lure the bombardment system aimed over the Labor Party into a debate which would South Pole at the United States. crack it open, like the debacle that afThe Government here has not in- flicted .Labor over the acceptance of the U.S. naval communications base at formed the Australian public what it is Northwest Cape in Western Australia. in even broad terms, and it tried to justify the base under pressure this^week Woomera's role in testing large-scale as an accepted part of the ANZUS treaty space rockets is rapidly declining, and of co-operation. its geographical relationship with China . and the Soviet Union now assumes sigMr. Gorton, who will start talks in nificance as a spot from which to track Washington on Monday, may suffer and control satellites. some\political.damage this year as.un- Pentagon officials have denied that Woomera will take over the role of the U.S. base in Pakistan, now being dismantled. Pakistan has refused to renew the lease. Australia's Minister of Defense, A. Fairhall, has evaded questions about the purpose of the station beyond the ' assurance that it would make a contribution to free-world defense.. "But I wish you would not ask me- how," he coyly told the House. The project will be the latest in about nine U.S.-Australiah space and communications stations in Australia, and U.S.-Australian. agreement is reported to be close on a Project Omega station site in Tasmania. Omega is a series of strategicallyplaced stations around the world which enables ships to fix their positions. A lecturer in international relations at the Australian National University in Canberra, R. J. Cooksey, is preparing a paper analyzing the significance and purpose of the Pine Gap base. "It is de- sirable for the Government to explain and justify the functions of the many U.S. aerospace and communications stations in this country, both individually and collectively," he said. Mr. Cooksey added that the three central questions that should be answered are: , .• ..What are the risks for Australia in th'e various kinds of nuclear war? • Is there any greater probability of U.S. protection against any conceivable threats to Australia and do the nuclear risks outweigh the protection? • Do these U.S: installations help sustain the delicate balance of deterrence between the two super powers, or do they possibly contribute to a foreseeable U.S. superiority, and thus increase the chances of world nuclear war? Mr. Gorton will not have to answer these questions in Washington or while relaxing in the Canadian Rockies after his talks. But the answers are still being sought here. 000217 �Mt/t- AitAt disclosed ul der t b e Ackess't64n}'ofmotion ur ation divulgue en v< rtu rfjf\a Ini sur I'qtfgS ft I'infnrtr DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS— • » Subject Date /AfMmxZ.,.. m..l>..l?®. Publication »™S!i Senate Critics See Radar as Key ABM Weakness \ y« in with the more political ap the Senate Armed Services a 2.5-mile, fea'nge, would be too Special to The New York Times prdach. advocated by other Re Committee. far-away in the 250-mile-Wide WASHINGTON, April 30 Senate critics believe they have publicans, such as Senator EdIt will also be emphasized in Minuteman base to help defend pinpointed a weakness in the ward W-. Brooke of Massachu- a book on the issue to be. pub- the radar.; Furthermore, he ar proposed Safeguard defense setts and Senator Charles H. lished shortly under the spon- gued, the Soviet Union could , system that could provide a Percy of Illinois.. technical excuse for political The Brooke-Percy proposal sorship of Senator Edward M. use its smaller, less accurate SS-11 missiles to knock out the compromise in the-missile de- would call upon the United Kennedy. States and the Soviet Union to Essentially, the critics' objec- radar, saving its larger SS-9's fense controversy. enter into a moratorium on tion is that the radar is highly for the Minuteman silos. The . alleged weakness in- both testing of missile war- vulnerable to the blast of a nu- Questioned Tuesday by revolves the missile site radar, a heads arid deployment of offen- clear explosion, far more' so porters on the Panovsky objeckey component in the Safe- sive, and defensive weapons than the Minuteman missiles tions, Deputy Defense. Secreguard antiballistic-missile sys- systems while they attempted the Safeguard is supposed to tary David. R. Packard did not tem, which the Nixon Adminis- to work out an arms limitation defend. They argue that to1 deny that the radar was "soft" tration has proposed to defend agreement; During this mora- nullify the Safeguard defense and vulnerable. But he exMinuteman intercontinental mis- torium, the'United States could of Minuteman, the Soviet plained that the radar had to sile bases. ' . proceed with research on an Union would have to knock out be large—and thus vulnerable The radar, which is one of improved missile radar. —because "it has to handle • a only the radar. the most Gostly, complex comlarge number of objects.", '.. No-Compromise Posture During the hearing . it was ponents in the Safeguard sys If the radar were made While the White House is asdisclosed that the radar could tem, would furnish guidance to smaller and simpler, as sugsuming ano-compromise poswithstand about 20 pounds per the long-range Spartan inter gested • by Dr. Panovsky, "it ceptor missiles as well as to ture on the ABM issue, oppo- square inch of blast overpres- wouldn't work as well." Dr. nents cling to the belief that sure from an atomic explosion Packard said. the short-range Sprint missiles providing the crucial terminal the Administration will be, driv- about enough to demolish a Implicit in the Packard stateen to a compromise by the substantial concrete buildingdefense for the Minuteman substantial opposition in the while the . "hardened" Minute- merit was the fact that if the bases. were made smaller, it man silos, with their layers of radar The technical question raised Senate, could ;no longer handle the White House officials express concrete, could withstand 200 by ABM opponents is whether Spartan missiles,, which are or not the radar-is so vulner- confidence they will have the to 300 pounds per square inch. designed, to provide an area votes when the Safeguard proDr. Wolfgang Panovsky of able to nuclear explosion that defense, :in contrast to the terthe whole Safeguard system gram comes to a showdown on Stanford University one of the minal : or point defense prothe Seriate floor, probably in world's leading authorities on vided by the Sprint missile. If would collapse in the event of June. ;. radar, observed: ( a large-scale attack. > that modification were made, But "nose counts" by the "Clearly an enemy in plan- therefore, the Safeguard would Compromise Suggested opposition show 49 or 50 Sen- ning a first strike would attack no longer have the potential of Some critics, such as Senator ators firmly committed against primarily the more vulner- growing into the nationwide John Sherman Cooper, Repub the Safeguard system; 44 or 45 able radar and thereby to- population-defense system long lican of Kentucky, have sug Senators favoring deployment tally deny the effectiveness of advocated by the Joint Chiefs gested that the radar may pro- and about six Senators uncom- the defense . . . since the Safe- of Staff. vide the technical grounds for mitted. The opposition is con- guard system contains only a fident it can win over two or few very large radars, the ofa political compromise. They suggest that the Nixon three of the uncommitted, while fense needs to destroy only a Administration, rather than the White House would have to few targets to defeat the forcing the deployment issue pick up all the uncommitted system." in the Senate and risking a to win. Defense of Radar reversal, could announce a de- The potential vulnerability of Dr. George W. Rathjens, a lay in deployment while an the radar was one of the prinimproved, less vulnerable, mis- ciple technical objections raised former Pentagon weapons anaby scientific critics of the Safe- lyst who is now professor of sile radar was developed. This approach to a compro- guard system in two days of political science at the Massamise, they say, could be tied public hearings last week before chusetts Institue of Technology, observed that the .Safeguard system would have to allocate a very large-fraction of its efforts" just to defend the radar. Estimates prepared by scientific critics "of the ABM system show that if the Soviet Union aimed 100. warheads— about the number*of.multiple, warheads expected to be carried by 30 of its-Iarge'SS-9 inter-: continental missiles—it would require 310 Sprints—or about all that are planned for a Safe guard site—to provide a high degree of assurance that the radar would not be destroyed. Dr. Rathjens said some Sprint missiles, which have 000218 � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CDBM00244 Title A name given to the resource Transcript from Globe and Mail Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/3/1969 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG25-A-3-c, file 27-11-7, "DEFENCE - CONVENTIONAL AND NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS - ANTI - BALLISTIC MISSILES (ABM) = DEFENSE - ARMEMENTS DE TYPE CLASSIQUE ET NUCLEAIRE - ENGINS ANTIMISSILES (ABM)," vol. 10357, part 6, Library and Archives Canada, (LAC). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource External Affairs Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Canadian Crown Subject The topic of the resource Anti-ballistic missiles Description An account of the resource Another US Missile Base Pops from a Cloud of Secrecy and Discontent Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource en