U.S. station approved?

Press, 21 December 1981, Page 6

U.S. station approved?

The United States Government will spend $1.25 million next year.? on a military observatory at the top of Black Birch Range,’, near Blenheim, according- to the Campaign Against Foreign Control In New Zealand.,

A spokesman for ’• the group, Mr Murray Horton, said that the group had received documentary evidence showing that the United States Congress had approved spending for the project.

The proposal had not been announced officially. Mr Horton .said, “this is disquieting but. about what one could expect.”

The. proposed observatory would, be the first United States military installation to be built in New Zealand for more than 10 years. "The official reason for its construction is that it willaid air forms of naviagtion. Its actual military use is clear: to improve the accuracy of United States, military systems in general and that, of submarine-based Trident missiles in particular,” Mr Horton said.

He said that the proposed observatory would give the United States a “first-strike capability" in New Zealand.' This group would not sit by and let the United States military establish another in-

stallation in New Zealand; It planned protest action in Blenheim and at the site of the proposed observatory in March. ■