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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 14, 1985
chine tools--component parts and our m1n1ng--are increasingly
moving offshore to the far end of vulnerable shipping lanes.
By that Mr. Overton implied first of all the dangerous overreliance on
southern Africa for key minerals such as chrome, manganese and cobalt.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union--the only other possessor of such key minerals
in quantity--continues both to expand its mineral base and to move danger
ously close to being able to interdict vital mineral exports to the U.S.
Continuing to quote Mr. Overton:
While we have been increasing our reliance on Zambia, Zaire,
South Africa and other nations that are marked by social, politi
cal and economic instability, and at the far end of vulnerable
shipping lanes, what have the Soviets been doing? The Soviets
have spent billions of rubles to develop their mineral mother
lode in Siberia, and recently completed a new 2,000-mile railroad
to connect it with the heartland of its military manufacturing
complex.
At the same time, we now see some 90 percent of our essential min
eral imports enter our country through the extraordinarily vul
nerable shipping lanes of the Caribbean. And athwart those sea
lanes is Cuba--that unsinkable "aircraft carrier"--manned by a
large number of Soviet personnel today: 7000 civilian advisers, a
2800-man combat brigade, .2800 Soviet military advisers, 2100
technicians--at the Lourdes electronic intelligence facility,
where the KGB operates the surveillance system which oversees our
east coast and the sea lanes of the Caribbean and the Atlantic.
How dangerously dependent is the United States now on foreign sources?
Just recently the Secretary of the Army testified before Congress
that the United States is more than 50 percent dependent on for
eign sources for 23 of 40 critical materials essential to the
U.S. national security, while the Soviet Union is totally inde
pendent of foreign sources for 35 of these same critical 40
materials.
When the Secretary of the Army speaks of critical materials, he
means materials that are absolutely essential to the making of
tanks, jet engines, planes, armor-piercing shells, missile con
trol systems and other weapons and armored transport in the ar
senal of defense.
Some people assert, said Mr. Overton, that Japan and West Germany seem to
get along quite nicely without much of a domestic minerals base. Why, then,
can't the U.S. do the same?
The answer, of course, is that these two nations and our other
allies are sheltered by the umbrella of America's military might,
which is held up by our economic strength. And among the sinews
of that strength is our ready access to a plentitude and variety
of minerals.
The United States does not have the luxury of being able to look
to others for its own defense and that of the Free World, and we