September wobbles

 

 

Okay, so things get a bit wobbly in Antarctica in September, but that no reason for the folks at home to lose their nerve, is it? Is it …. Well, back at home the cold war broke out again …

It might be a good idea to remind you why so many nations had set up bases in Antarctica in 1955-1956.

• A 1952 proposal for an “International Polar Year” gathered momentum and the International Geophysical Year (IGY) was the outcome.
• From July 1957 to December 1958, eleven countries funded scientific teams for Antarctic exploration.
• South Africa became the twelfth country to participate, but its involvement in the IGY was restricted to meteorological and oceanographic investigations using ships and aircraft.
• Scientists drawn from sixty-seven different nations cooperated in studies of the earth’s gravitational field and Antarctica’s meteorology, geophysics, geodesy, cosmic ray, and ionospheric physics, glaciology, oceanography, and seismology.
• In 1955 Soviet personnel, ships, and planes set up Mirnyy (“peaceful”) Station in Australian Antarctic Territory.
• The Australian Director of Antarctic Division greeted them as a Godsend: “once the Russians came into Australian territory, my fight for finance was over because the Cold War was on and the government realised they had to neutralise the Russian presence with an Australian presence.”This was the height of the cold war but even though the world was immersed in the catty diplomacy of the cold war, but this model of global cooperation unfolded from a thousand packing crates with feline grace.

In Antarctica, the Australians and Russians got along very well. The Australians had been greeted warmly by the Russians at Mirrny on their way to Mawson and a series of reciprocated visits would take place over the years. The Russians would always be welcomed at Mawson and the Australians would always enjoy their visits to Russian bases.

But Mirrny was right in the middle of Australian Antarctica (it still is) and there has always been deep disquiet about that amongst some levels of political leadership in Australia.

Many of the nations involved in the IGY research indicated early that they would stay in Antarctica only for a couple of years. The Americans, for example, handed Wilkes station established by the United States in 1957-58 over to handed to Australia in 1959. In 1964 that base became a rubbish dump and the Australian base moved to nearby Casey station.

In September 1956, as Syd and his colleagues emerged from the dark winter, there were dark mutterings in Australia that the Russians might not to home after the IGY.

So a storm of disquiet fluttered through the Australian press and then was forgotten. As September’s dark blended into October’s light, the mini cold war was forgotten and the polyarniks in Antarctica began to plan their excursions into the great unknown frozen wilderness beyond the coastline.

 

 

 

 

We’re all looking out for Russians!

23 January 1956.

Melbourne’s Age newspaper ran another story today about the Soviet presence in Antarctica, painting a sketch of an orderly village with orderly streets unfolding in Antarctica. It will be called  Mirnyy (“peaceful”) station. What the Age didn’t say is how anxious Mirnyy  is making political leaders around the world.

Why? Antarctica might be a useless big lump of ice …. although everyone hopes it isn’t.

Our newspapers are sticking to a line that the major rationale for our territorial claiming of Antarctica is exploitable natural resources. There better be minerals in those ice hills or we’ll be pretty grumpy about all the expense … that’s the main line in our newspapers.

But the real reason for the sudden interest in Antarctica is blocking the nuclear-armed Soviet Union from establishing bases on a continent within firing range of the southern tips of Australia, South America, and South Africa.

Already in Farr Bay, a huge diesel-electric ship the Ob has moored at the narrow ice strip, making the first Soviet landing in Antarctica and we’ve received word that, steaming nicely along and soon to join the Ob is the Lena. Both those ships are bigger than the Kista.

We’re all looking out for Russians!

*The Soviet Union sent a much bigger presence than any other nation participating in the International Geophysical Year. We don’t know it yet but Mirnyy will be the first of nine Soviet Antarctic bases built by 1959 and the first of a network of science-city homes for armies of academics and scientists, pushing out the borders of Soviet territorial claims. Later this year the Soviets will establish a little honeymoon village and export young couples to have babies who’ll be the first real Antarctic citizens. They’ll begin a real colonisation of Soviet Antarctic territory, right in the middle of the Australian Antarctic Territory. We’ll hear about it only when it ends in tragedy.