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\ Few Victorians realise the American Omega 'navigation' station just inland from Ninety Mile Beach is the only directional device in Australia capable of providing American ballistic missile submarines with position fixes accurate enough to launch a second strike nuclear 'attack against Russia. The station is so critical for Ameriean sub marines, there can be little doubt two high-yield Russian lthennonuclear ICBMs are penna nently targeted on Vktoria in case World War'III breaks out. Perhaps worse, Omega emits potentially catastrophic levels of electromagnetic pOllution from its invisible, buried Earth aerials. During May 1975, just six months before Gough Whitlam was unceremoniously marched out of government by the Governor-General, the Commonwealth Government published a report from the Joint Committee of Foreign Affairs and Defence. Listed as Parliamentary Paper No. 96, "Omega Navigational Installation", the small booklet revealed very little about the true dangers of the Omega transmitter to Australians in general, and to Victorians in particular. Dissenters included Sen. Gordon McIntosh, John Dawkins, MP, and others suspicious of the Omega installation but unable to pinpoint its real purpose. From the outset itaa was obvious that Omega would be of little use to Australian ship ping in the east, due chiefly to the VLF (very low frequency) signal being so powerful the station was unusable as a navigation aid within 700 kilometres df East Gippsland. It was only beyond this range that the Omega signals could be decoded into a useful navigation fix. Out of the eight Omega transmitters which comprise the global navigation chain, only Australia's station is located close to densely populated towns and cities. The fact that the massive ground wave signal might later cause Victorians health problems was either unknown during 1975, or was ignored by the committee during its deliberations. What was also unknown at the time was the critical requirement {or a VLF navigation system to provide accurate missile launch infonnation for American nuclear ballistic sub marines positioned in the southern hemisphere ready for a counter-strike against Russia-a task that could never be achieved from the northern hemisphere. In the event of nuclear war in the northern hemisphere, devastating electromagnetic pulses from the rm;t nuclear weapons which explode in the stratosphere will completely wipe out all radio channels over the country in question, apart from very low frequency ground waves-an established fact proved beyond doubt by the recently completed American GWEN (Ground Wave Emergency Network) of VLF stations spaced across the entire USA at 250-mile intervals, constructed solely for use after the first thermonuclear weapons have destroyed all other radio channels and burned out the circuits of orbiting navigation satellites. Worse still, the stars will be hidden by huge dust clouds hurled up into the stratosphere and beyond by thennonuclear ground-bursts, making stellar naviga tion impossible for submarines, aircraft and missiles alike. There ,is only one place in the world where an accurate second nuclear strike could be launched-from submarines located in the southern hemisphere where Omega signals alone will remain stable for position fixing. Back in 1975, this concept probably escaped the committee because the only viable submarine-launched missiles available, Polaris and Poseidon, both had a restricted range of around 2,500 nautical miles. The implication was obvious. Russia could only be attacked from the northern Pacific or Indian oceans, so an Omega station based in East Gippsland was of no obvious importance in a global ther monuclear war between the superpowers far away to the north. Clearly the committee gave no credence to Russian concern about Omega. On 4 October 1973, Krasnaya Zvezda, the Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper, commented in an editorial: "The Pentagon continues the construction of a system of long range radio navigation, the so-called 'Omega', designed to provide coordinates for American ,strategic nuclear attack forces, missile-carrying submarines and strategic bombers." 34·NEXUS OCTOBER -NOVEMB6:R 1993