BEING AUSTRALIA AS CHANGES SWEEP THE DISTANT NATION. IT IS BECOMING MORE VITAL TO U.S. INTEREST.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580014-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: September 29, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

" Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-R
ARTICLE AP RED 2 9 September 1985
URPA6
?
Being
Austra
AS CHANGES SWEEP THE DISTANT NATION, IT
IS BECOMING MORE VITAL TO U. S. INTERESTS.
By Seymour Topping
AUSTRALIA ALWAYS SEEMED SO FAR
away and perhaps not so important. Suddenly,
there was Secretary of State George P. Shultz
flying off to Canberra, the Australian capital, to
listen more carefully to what the folks down
under had to say about global defense strategy.
At parties in Manhattan, the learned were talk-
ing about great Australian films and applauding
the Aussies' delightful bravado in snatching the
America's Cup from the stuffy New York Yacht
Club. Business executives were going off ea-
gerly to vibrant Sydney following the Labor
Government's unexpected decision to open the
Australian economy to foreign banks. At home,
my kids were rattling around to Men at Work
and other Australian rock groups.
The urge to find whence all this came was irre-
sistible. So ensued the tedious daylong flight
across the Pacific. I found it was small price for
the joys of rambling through pleasant cities
blessed with glorious beaches, visiting sheep
and cattle stations in the bush, watching kanga-
roos and flocks of pink galah cockatoos and
spectacular sunsets in the awesome emptiness
of the Outback. More important, I became
aware of how little we Americans know about
Australia; of the wrenching changes in the soci-
ety, and of how much the security of the United
States depends on ties to that distant southwest
Pacific nation.
In the three weeks I took to make a 7,400-mile
circuit of Australia, which is almost as large as
the continental United States, there were sur-
prises aplenty. Obscured by secrecy, attributa-
ble more to Washington bureaucracy than to se-
curity imperatives, is the crucial importance of
American bases, hidden in the Outback, to the
defense of American cities. (Box, page 22.) Be-
hind the characteristic Australian swagger, I
sensed a faltering of national confidence. Ac-
cording to one economist, living standards have
declined over the last century from first rank in
Continued
NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
the world to 16th. The leisure-loving Australians
still enjoy a very comfortable life but their lead-
ers question whether such style can endure un-
less the nation becomes more competitive in the
scramble for world markets. While they concede
the urgency of expanding trade with Asia, most
Australians still suffer from an overweening
fear - described by some high Government offi-
cials as paranoia - of being swamped by the
brown and yellow peoples to the north. In the re-
mote, vast continent, the 15 million Australians
are assuming a new identity: Asian immigra-
tion is transforming a white Australia into a
multiracial society and, as the Commonwealth
ties to Britain wither, there is a growing affinity
with the United States. A unique society of the
Pacific basin is emerging.
AMERICAN
INTERESTS
DOWN UNDER
IF AN AMERICAN WANTS TO LEARN HOW
Australians are serving him, one of the best
places to start is Alice Springs in the center of
the continent. In appearance, Alice Springs
could be a town in Wyoming: There is the cluster
of neat, ranch-style houses, the inevitable super-
markets and those ubiquitous honky-tonk signs
inviting you to cafes and, of course, the movie,
all on a main street that meanders out to the
bush where cattle graze. At the Gap Motor Hotel
bar, conversation over beers is about how much
tougher it is nowadays to earn a dollar; the lat-
est television sequence of "Dallas" or maybe
"Dynasty"; the doings of local ball clubs. Once
in a while, there is a shrug about Pine Gap, the
United States military installation 15 miles
down the road, on the other side of the Macdon-
nell Range, and a remark revealing that it is one
of Russia's priority nuclear missile targets.
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Yes, it's just like southeastern Wyoming
where there are intercontinental ballistic mis-
sile launch sites. But there is an essential differ-
ence. Australians know that Russians would
have little interest in their country if it were not
for the pine Gap installation and at least two
other American facilities. Because of their loca-
tion in relation to the Eurasian land mass, these
bases are indispensable to the United States.
Not only do they provide early warning against
Soviet missile attacks, but they gather vital
military intelligence and are communication
links for American naval forces in the Pacific
and Indian Oceans. Standing by secret agree-
ments negotiated by previous governments, the
Labor Government accepts the presence of the
bases and the subsequent nuclear risk, but not
without dissent from its left wing and a strong
grass-roots antinuclear movement.
Sitting in the hot sun on a bench opposite the
little John Flynn Church, named after the
founder of the Flying Doctor Service that treats
isolated communities, Lew Lambert talks about
what it is like living near Pine Gap. "We don't
know much about the base, but everyone tells us
it is a target and the local people worry about a
Russian nuclear attack," he says. "If the base
were hit by a nuclear missile, some of them
think Alice Springs would be protected from the
blast because the base is on the other side of the
mountain, and the prevailing wind might also
take the cloud away. But most of us know it will
be all over if there is nuclear war. We know the
United States will never press the button. It
would be the Russians."
Nonetheless, Lambert is willing to live with
Pine Gap. "We know the United States is a good
ally," he says. A mild-mannered man of 53,
Lambert is typical of many of the 22,000 inhabit-
ants of Alice Springs. He came to Australia be-
cause there was more opportunity than he could
hope for in his native England. He and his wife
own a sandwich shop and a car-hire service.
Lambert says that the several hundred Amer-
icans who work at Pine Gap mix well with the
locals. They live with their families in air-condi-
tioned houses provided by the Australian Gov-
ernment. The Americans even captured a
trophy last year in the annual Henley-on-Todd
Regatta, run by crews in bottomless boats
through a dry river bed. But these are discreet
Americans who do not speak about the nature of
their work amid the huge white bulbous com-
munications radomes of Pine Gap. At the police
post on the road to the carefully guarded base,
there is a deceptive white sign that reads:
"Joint Defense Space Research Facility." In
fact, the facility is a ground station controlling
spy satellites that gather vital Intelligence data
from the Soviet Union. The other key facilities
are Nurrungar, in the state of South Australia,
and North West Cape, on the Indian Ocean.
The need to retain these bases is not the Rea-
gan Administration's sole motivation for the
solicitlous attention it is giving Australia. Wash-
ington is adjusting to New Zealand's decision to
deny its ports to all nuclear-armed and nuclear-
propelled ships. The action effectively bars all
American naval vessels, since the United States,
for security reasons, will not declare which of its
vessels are nuclear.
The New Zealand shock comes at a time when
Washington is worried about the viability of
American bases in the Philippines, in the face of
the political instability of the Marcos Govern-
ment and the Communist insurgency in the rural
areas. Adding to the concern is the increased
Soviet activity in the Pacific, where Russia has
the largest of its four fleets. Its submarines
prowl from the Vladivostok base south to Aus-
tralian waters. Soviet bombers glad reconnais-
sance aircraft range out of Cam Ranh Bay, a
former American base in Vietnam. In time of
war, the Russians could block the passage of
shipping to the Indian Ocean by way of the Indo.
nesian archipelago straits and the Strait of Ma-
lacca. Alternate routes would be through the
South Pacific, making access to Australian
ports even more essential.
The United States' withdrawal from joint mili-
tary exercises with New Zealand has increased
its dependence on Australian ports to host Amer-
ican naval forces. American officials in Aus-
tralia have anxiously watched antinuclear
demonstrations for signs of any trend toward
the New Zealand option. They can even be wor-
ried by the occasional automobile bumper.stick-
er: "I support the NZ stand."
THE AUSTRALIAN
DEFENSE
SO THIS IS PERTH, THE SPARKLING CITY
that is the capital of the state of Western Aus-
tralia, and some of its one million inhabitants
are awaiting the arrival of a United States car-
rier battle group. Antinuclear activists are plan-
ning a demonstration. In the past, as many as
10,000 demonstrators have confronted sailors
with a sea of hostile placards. Here comes the
giant aircraft carrier U.S.S. Constellation, with
thousands of its crew members on deck in ser-
pentine formation spelling out "Connie Loves
Perth." The carrier is accompanied by the guid-
ed-missile cruisers California and Worden; es-
cort destroyers stand off Perth's Fremantle
port. Eight thousand liberty-hungry sailors with
bulging wallets start coming ashore. Behold,
there are only some 150 demonstrators and they
are lost among the welcomers, most promi-
nently women and merchants.
I am in Perth to interview Kim Beazlev. Aus-
tralia's Minister for Defense, who is visiting
parliamentary constituency. In the informal
friendly style of Australians, the heavyset man
of 36 receives me in jogging clothes at his mod-
est, wood-frame row house. He talks about his
new regional approach to defense strategy, re-
garded with some uneasiness by American offi-
cials who are accustomed to the more dependent
attitude of previous governments.
Under Beazley's direction, Australia has
scrapped the last of its two aircraft carriers,
which were symbols of a "forward defensse pos.
ture." Engraved in bronze on the walls of the na-
tional memorial are the names of 122,224 Aug.
tralian war dead. Most died on distant battle.
fields - Europe, the Middle East, Africa, some
in Southeast Asia. Now, with a strategy of m
gional defense, a century-old global commit.
ment of the Australian fighting man is ending.
Continued
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11 1 ?
In the broad strategic framework- Beazley
sees the united States as the defender against
the Soviet Union and as the source of vital intellii-
genre information and modern weaponry. But
he regards the Anzus treaty as less of a security
blanket than is generally perceived by the Aus-
tralian public. The treaty binds the signatories
-Australia, New Zealand and the United States
- to recognize an armed attack in the Pacific
area on any one as a common danger, and com-
mits them to most such an attack in accordance
with their constitutional processes. However,
Australian officials recall private warnings
from Washington in past confrontations with
Indonesia that they were on their own, and Beaz.
ley says there is some doubt as to whether Aus*
tralia could count on the United States Seventh
Fleet to meet any threat to Australia. When X
ask Beasley who might threaten Australia, he
smiles slightly. "I've got a budget of $6.3 billion
-over $4 billion U.S. - in search of a threat."
Beazley has assigned Paul Dibb, a civilian
specialist, to develop the rationale and priorities
of the new defense strategy. Dibb, receiving me
in his office in the Strategic and Defense Studies
Center at the Australian National University in
Canberra, dismisses Washington's suggestions
that the plan is solely for continental defense.
"We are the superpower of the southwest pa-
cific." Dibb says, citing Australian responsibil-
ities for the surrounding island states. Offshore,
Australia will depend on a strike force that even-
tually will include 75 F-18's, 24 F-111's -
equipped with harpoon missiles - as well as six
conventional attack submarines and Lockheed
Orion antisubmarine aircraft.
Privately, Australians in and out of Govern-
ment talk of a possible threat from Indonesia, to
the north. Australian relations with the Suharto
Government are, for the most part, cordial, but
some worry that expansionistic impulses may
develop as Indonesia's population grows to 200
million by the end of the century. Many say such
worries are paranoid, and dismiss the idea of a
seaborne military invasion, not only because of
the vast terrain of desert and mountains in
northern Australia which are an effective bar-
rier to invasion, but also because of the technical
sophistication such an invasion would require.
There are, however, other troublesome signs.
The Indonesian Government is moving millions
of people from the populous islands of Java and.,
Bali to other parts of the archipelago. This,
traasmigration has provoked some resistance,
particularly in the eastern province of Irian
Jaya, where Government troops have been
clashing with members of an independence
movement. For years, refugees have been
crossing into neighboring Papua New Guinea, a
former Australian mandate, and now 11,000 are
in camps on the Papuan side of the frontier.
Pressure is building on the borders, annd al-
though Indonesia claims the problem is an inter-
nal one, Australians worry they might be com-
pelled to go to the aid of Papua New Guinea if it
is seriously menaced by Indonesia.
Beazley promises a ring of air bases around.
Australia and an electronic network to monitor
against clandestine landings on the coast. This
does not dispel a nightmare
commonly shared by the Aus-
tralians of massive influxes
of boat people seeking refuge
if an ecological disaster
should strike Indonesia or an-
other Southeast Asian nation.
Leaving Beazley's home, I
soon find that the people of
Perth are obsessed with an-
other kind of defense. On the
Fremantle waterfront, an
Australian flag flaps defi-
antly over a building with a
sign identifying it as Amer-
ica's Cup Defense Headquar-
ters. And 12 miles away, the
Royal Perth Yacht Club
proudly displays the Amer-
ica's Cup, carried off after
victory in Newport in 1963 by
Alan Bond's wing-keeled Aus-
tralia II.
In 1986, the New York
Yacht Club and some 16 syn-
dicates from six other coun-
tries plan to put 12-meter
yachts into the waters off
Fremantle, braving the stiff
prevailing winds called
"Fremantle's Doctor," to
determine who will eventu-
ally face Australia for the
cup.
Eliminations begin in early
October and the America's
Cup final series does not start
until Jan. 31, 1987, but Aus-
tralian enthusiasm already
has generated business. In
anticipation of a half-million
visitors, 11,000 new service
jobs are projected for Perth
and Fremantle. Since the
Australian victory in New-
port, six hotels have been
built; four more are under
construction, along with a
casino, golf course and an-
other airport. Spoils to the
victor, Bond has profited
handsomely from his tri-
umph: advertising revenues
of his television station are
up, Australia II decorates
Swan beer cans, produced by
his brewery, and the value of
his large real-estate holdings
in the area have soared. Also,
he is chairman of the commit-
tee that is raising $7 million
for Australia's defense.
Fremantle's old pictur-
esque sandstone houses,
which together with the
sturdy pubs testify to the
town's English heritage, are
being restored. Older resi-
dents grumble that at least
all this will endure even if
that mug, beg pardon, mates,
should be snatched away.
IN THE BUSH:
OLD THOUGHTS.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
FROM PERTH, MY WIFE,
Audrey, and daughter, Joan-
na, fly south with me to the
Oceanview sheep farm near
Esperance, a pretty seaside
resort town on the southern
coast. Esperance was in the
world news several years ago
when the American Skylab
burned through the atmos-
phere, showering bits over
the town. Since then, excite-
ment has focused on a woman
who was fatally attacked by a
great white shark ("he came
back for a second bite") and
the lusty doings of vacation-
ing gold miners from Kal-
goorlie, 200 miles to the north.
About 140 million sheep
graze in Australia and 22,000
are on this 13,000-acre farm,
which is owned by two New
Yorkers, Benno Schmidt and
David Rockefeller, and Jim
Elkins, a Houston banker. It
is managed by Tony Moore, a
lean, blue-eyed man of 46
with powerful leathery hands
who wrested the farm from
the and bush. Many would
say he is the quintessential
Australian farmer, born of
British stock, industrious, in-
novative, conservative and
troubled by what is happen-
ing to "his" white Australia.
We spend the afternoon
with Moore in his Land Cruis-
er, jouncing through sheep
paddocks and skidding down
gullies to glimpse kangaroos.
So many `.sons" roam the
Australian bush, devouring
grazing grasses, that farmers
hire hunters to thin the herds.
Moore raises merino sheep
for export to the Middle East.
They are transported live in
air-conditioned ships so that
they can be slaughtered, in
accordance with religious
tradition, by a Moslem utter-
ing "Allah" as he slashes
their throats. We watch as
two of Moore's dogs, respond-
CORNOUV.
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ing to his shouts and whistles,
herd the sheep with astonish-
ing skill. With the dogs' help,
Moore can run the farm with
only two stockmen, plus con-
tractors for shearing.
In his tastefully furnished
home after dinner and a bot-
tle of excellent Australian
wine, Moore discusses his vi-
sion of Australia's future: "I
would say that, almost to a
man, rural Australia favors
bases like Pine Gap because
we believe very nrmly that
we need to be doing our share,
so America will look out after
us. Our defense capacity is
very limited. We live in a sea
of Asians and our huge coun-
try is potentially their bread-
basket. Without the United
States defending us, I think
we would be in very bad
shape."
It is not only military inva-
sion that worries Moore and
others like him. The Austral-
ian policy that encouraged
the immigration of Euro-
peans and restricted the
entry of Asians has been
changing since the early
1970's. In the last few years,
Australia has admitted 88,000
Indochinese refugees and
some of their families are
now following. Asians now ac-
count for 12 percent of the
population. Moore says his
children may have a different
view, but he is concerned
about Australia's being "led
away from a European
base." Unlike Europeans,
Asian communities, he com-
plains, are disinclined to as-
similate. Moore's wife, Phyl-
lis, speaks regretfully of the
way the Asians keep them-
I selves apart in her daughter's
school.
Phyllis is a sturdy woman.
She cares for the immaculate
house and does all the office
work for the farm. At times,
she confesses, she is a bit
lonely in the isolation of the
bush.
Like other Australian
women, she lives in a society
heavily influenced by the
frontier machismo of the Out-
back. The feminist move-
ment is perhaps a decade be-
hind that in the united states,
and advancement of women
lags in the senior ranks of
most professions, industry
and government. It is true
that writers such as Thea Ast-
ley, Elizabeth Jolley, Bar-
bara Hanrahan, Judith
Wright and Shirley Hazzard
have made their marks in
contemporary Australian lit-
erature, and performers such
as the opera singer Joan Suth-
erland have received acclaim
at home and abroad. But, for
the most part, Australian
women - whether in the Out-
back or in the cities - have
not yet been accorded the
same share of opportunity as
have women in Western Eu-
rope and the United States.
Seymour Topping is the managing editor of The
New York Times.
Plastic radomes dot the joint U.S.-Australian base at Pine Gap.
Continued
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ANTARCTICA
DAY VIEW
THE
AUSTRALIAN
CONNECTION
OF THE 20 BASES
THAT ARE USED BY
THE LS.,THREE
ARE SO VITAL
THEYARE SEEN
AS PRIMARY
SOVIET TARGETS
IN CASE OF
A CONFLICT
U NDER VARIOUS
conditions of secrecy,
the United States has
use of some 20 installa-
tions in Australia. These aid in
early warning against Soviet
missile attack; intelligence
gathering, including monitoring
Soviet and Chinese missile tests
and experimental nuclear ex-
plosions; military communica-
tions; naval navigation; satel-
lite tracking, and scientific re-
search. The Australian facili-
ties are strategically significant
because the curvature of the
earth does not allow stations in
the United States to perform the
same functions. American
bases, for instance, simply can-
not directly receive signals
from spy satellites monitoring
the Soviet Union. The three
most important installations -
Pine Gap, Nurrungar and North
West Cape - are so vital to the
United States they are regarded
as certain priority targets for
Soviet nuclear missile attack in
the event of general conflict.
The facilities are jointly oper-
ated with Australia but, in com-
pliance with an agreement with
the United States, the Austral-
ian Government has never pub-
lished a list of the facilities or
described their functions, ex-
cept in general terms. Austral-
ian commentators such as Des-
mond Ball, the head of the
Strategic and Defense Studies
Center at the Australian Na-
tional University in Canberra,
have protested the policy of se-
crecy, arguing that the Austral-
ian people have the right to
know what the Russians have
gleaned from information in the
public domain. Many facts in
this report were obtained in an
interview with Ball, who ex-
tracted most of them from offi-
cial United States documents
and reports to Congress that are
available to the public.
NORTH WEST CAPE is
equipped with one of the most
powerful very low frequency
transmitters. It relayed com-
mands to Polaris missile-firing
submarines before they were
replaced with Tridents. Tri-
dents, which have a longer mis-
sile range than the Polaris and
can operate closer to the United
States, receive communications
from a base in Washington state
and from North West Cape.
North West Cape continues to
relay commands to American
aft"
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and Australian attack subma-
rines and surface naval groups
in the western Pacific and In-
dian Oceans.
NURRUNGAR, about 300
miles northwest of Adelaide, is
one of two key ground-control
satellite stations in the United
States' early-warning system.
Code named Casino, it is the
downlink for the geosynchro-
nous Defense Support Program
(DSP) East satellite that moni-
tors the Soviet Union and
guards against Soviet intercon-
tinental ballistic missile attack.
Another station in Colorado con-
trols the two DSP West satel-
lites over the Pacific and Atlan-
tic that guard against subma-
rine-launched missiles. Every
year, Nurrungar detects the fir-
ing of about 400 tests, including
those of Soviet ICBM's, inter-
mediate range SS-20's and satel-
lite launches. DSP satellites
function by means of infrared
telescopes that record emis-
sions of intense heat in a spec-
trum that can only be produced
by rocket engines. The ground
stations insure that the satel-
lites do not drift away and that
their telescopes are correctly
oriented. Data are transmitted,
or downlinked, to ground sta-
tions and then relayed at high
speed to the North American
Air Defense Command
(NORAD) at Cheyenne Moun-
tain in Colorado Springs. The
United States is developing
relay satellites and a ground
station in West Germany that
will provide alternate means of
receiving data, but Nurrungar
will continue to control position-
ing of the DSP East satellite.
PINE GAP, near Alice
Springs, orients Rhyolite satel-
lites. These antenna-carrying,
eavesdropping satellites suck
up, vacuum-cleaner style, a
variety of communications in
the Soviet Union and China: te-
lemetry data transmitted dur-
ing Soviet ballistic missile
tests; radar transmissions;
telephone, radio and microwave
communications. The station
consists of a large computer
complex and giant plastic ra-
domes that contain monitoring
equipment and transmission
links to intelligence centers in
the mt States.
The Australian Government
recently sought clearance from
the Pentagon to give the public
more information about these
facilities, but was dissuaded for
what seemed to be political
rather than security reasons. In
June 1984, after extended ne-
gotiations with the United
States, Prime Minister Robert
Hawke made a statement on the
installations to Parliament.
Though sketchy, it was the most
comprehensive report since the
facilities were first installed in
the 1960's. Hawke justified the
bases as contributing to the
Western alliance and as deter-
rents against nuclear war. They
are, he explained, indispensible
to verifying compliance with the
SALT and ABM arms-control
treaties. The opposition view
was expressed to me by Gerard
Hand, a leader of the left wing of
the Labor Party: "We are
locked into an arms system that
we have absolutely no control
over. We don't want any early-
warning systems here. In Eu-
rope, there are those sort of in-
stallations and a whole defense
mechanism built up around
them. Here, they sit in the mid-
dle of the desert with absolutely
no defense. Through no fault of
our own, we are a nuclear tar-
get." - SEYMOUR TOPPING
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