Opposition to observatory urged

Press, 24 June 1981, Page 1

Opposition to observatory urged

Defence reporter Owen Wilkes, the New Zealander convicted this month of endangering Norwegian security by publishing military secrets, has urged Christchurch peace groups to oppose the construction of a United States Navy observatory near Blenheim. In a letter to the Christchurch Peace Collective, Mr Wilkes said that “it is time to put a stop to United States military projects that come to us dressed up as benefits to all mankind.” Contained in the corres- ■ pondenee was an eight-page report on the implications to New Zealand of the Transit Circle facility which the

Americans want to build at Black Birch Ridge near Blenheim. The report was based on 2’.a years research by Mr Wilkes. With a Norwegian peace researcher, Mr Wilkes was fined SNZI9O9 and given a six-month deferred prison sentence by an Oslo court for collecting and publishing material about military installations. A public affairs officer at the American Embassey in Wellington, Mr C. L. Bell, has said that the observatory would be used for purely scientific purposes, and “definitely not military.” "The basic purpose of the facility is to improve the international community’s knowledge of the position

and motion of stars in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Mr Bell.

He accused peace groups and “a few individuals” of attempting a disinformation campaign to undermine public support for the good relations between New Zealand .and the United States.

“The effort to improve the stellar reference frame in the Southern Hemisphere, of which the Transit Circle project is a vital part, has been endorsed by the Soviet Union and other Communist nations, making the disinformation efforts of local communists rather absurd and almost amusing,” Mr Bell added.

During its 10-year lifespan, the proposed observatory

would seek to expand the number of Southern Hemisphere navigational stars from 20,000 to more than 200,000. Such expansion would refine the celestial coordinate system and increase the accuracy of navigation and geodesy (the science concerned with measuring the shape, size and gravity field of the earth). The data obtained would be available- to the international astronomical community. Mr Bell said that information from Transit Circle would significantly improve navigation systems used by Air New Zealand, the Royal New Zealand Air Force and Navy, and airlines and shipping lines serving New Zealand.

Approved by the New Zealand Government in 1978, the project would consist of six temporary buildings to be erected adjacent to New Zealand's Carter Observatory on Black Birch Ridge. Two telescopes and other scientific and electronic equipment would be installed at the site. Staffing would include up to eight astronomers and an electronics technician. All would, be civilians and at least two would be New Zealanders.

The peace groups’ suspicion was fuelled by a reference to the Blenheim Transit Circle Station in the 1982 financial year military construction budget hearings of the United States Congressional Committee on Appro-

priations. It stated that the mission or major function of the station was to “operate an observatory to obtain locations of stars in the Southern Hemisphere with the increased accuracy that is required for military purposes.”

Mr Bell explained last evening that data obtained from the station would be used by “everybody, including the military.” He 'added, however, that the military use would be restricted to navigation and the data would not be used for weapons targetting.

Mr Robert - Aldridge, an American peace campaigner who spent 16 years designing United States submarinelaunched strategic missiles,

had advised the Christchurch Peace Collective that airlines and ships could work very well with only 20,000 navigation stars. He said that 200,000 is overkill for commercial uses, but not for military purposes where missiles have to travel thousands of kilometres and hit smack on an enemy silo." The proposed Blenheim station was "convincing evidence that Trident submarines will be operating in the Southern Hemisphere?

In his report, Mr Wilkes conceded that Transit Circle observations were important in geodesy, but added that geodetic information was particularly important for calculating missile trajectories which had to be tailored

to fit the curve of the earth and its gravitational pull. ' He said that New Zealanders faced a moral question rather than one of selfinterest. Black Birch would not pose a direct threat to New Zealand and there would be no reason why a nation that felt threatened by American power would choose to destroy the installation. New Zealand had to decide whether it could tolerate an installation which, while not

a direct threat, contributed to a developing United States strategic capability which a large part of the world believed was immoral, dangerous and destabilising. Mr Wilkes thought such a station intolerable.