Antinuclear

Mr Fraser said. “The Cold War was still in progress. It was a different world. “We’ve gotten far too close to the Americans.”……

In 1985, the then PM Bob Hawke withdrew support for the missile tests after a meeting with US Secretary of State George Shultz.

US planned to fire missile at Australia, secret Cabinet papers from 1980s reveal  By Samantha Maiden  The Sunday Telegraph January 01, 2012 

• Fraser agreed for US missiles to be fired at Australia
• Were to be fired into Tasman Sea off Cape Pillar

A SECRET US plan to test MX missiles by firing them from California to the coast of Australia was signed off on by then prime minister Malcolm Fraser. And it can be revealed that the federal Cabinet agreed to keep the intercontinental ballistic missile tests secret because it was “preferable for the matter not to become an election issue”.
Details of the extraordinary plan, signed off by the most senior
members of the Federal Government, are revealed in Cabinet papers
released today by the National Archives.
Titled “United States Proposal Regarding Test Launch of MX Missiles”,
the file is marked “SECRET” and was presented to Cabinet by the
defence minister James Killen.
The file notes that in June 1981 Cabinet had decided, after a verbal
briefing from Mr Fraser, that there was “no objection in principle to
the United States proposal”.
Ronald Reagan, who was pursuing the strategic theory of Mutual Assured
Destruction (MAD) against the Russians, was seeking a firm date and
Cabinet discussed the plan again.
Mr Fraser had outlined the US proposal “for two test launchings of the
new MX missile to the Tasman Sea off Cape Pillar”……
Thirty years on, in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Fraser
has revealed he would never agree to such missile tests today.
“If it was in today’s world I wouldn’t have agreed to it,” Mr Fraser
said. “The Cold War was still in progress. It was a different world.
“We’ve gotten far too close to the Americans.”……
In 1985, the then PM Bob Hawke withdrew support for the missile tests
after a meeting with US Secretary of State George Shultz.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/us-planned-to-fire-missile-at-australia-secret-cabinet-papers-from-the-1980s-reveal/story-e6frfkvr-1226234112967#ixzz1iKUWNryy

January 2, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, history, secrets and lies, weapons and war | secrets and lies