Word: simonstown
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...Commodore Dieter Gerhardt, 47, seemed the very model of a modern military man. Tall, balding and highly intelligent, with an intense, abrasive manner, the Berlin-born naval officer moved in high South African defense circles and was personally acquainted with Premier P.W. Botha. Gerhardt's home at the Simonstown Naval Base near Cape Town was the envy of his neighbors; it was expensively decorated with Persian rugs and works of art. When visitors asked how he managed to live like an admiral on a commodore's income, Gerhardt had a ready reply: he had received a small inheritance...
Gerhardt may have first been recruited by the KGB while receiving advanced naval training in Britain two decades ago. He is alleged to have been paid $250,000 for his information. Because the Simonstown base is located on one of the world's busiest maritime routes, around the Cape of Good Hope, it serves as a vital Western surveillance post. Gerhardt thus had access to secrets of international strategic importance. At the very least, as commodore of a dock that refitted and refurbished most of South Africa's fleet, he was in a position to provide Moscow with...
...Soviet spies have been prosecuted there since 1967. Though he is described by authorities as a highly skilled operative, Gerhardt was tripped up on a bureaucratic technicality. When South African military personnel travel abroad they are required to fill out a routine form for their superiors. After officials at Simonstown noticed that Gerhardt had neglected to turn in the documents, they placed him under surveillance. Finally police moved in last week to detain the Gerhardts and conduct a meticulous search among the silver and the Persian carpets. If found guilty, Gerhardt could face a firing squad...
...used by the regime's utilities, military forces and police. For example, IBM computers are used by the South African army and the regime's Atomic Energy Board. The West German company. AEG-Telefunken--of which General Electric (G.E.) owns about 15 per cent--supplied the regime's Simonstown military tracking system with sophisticated electronic equipment. ITT also provided equipment and recruited and trained engineers for the base...
...feelings of non-white Commonwealth members, and acknowledging resolutions of the United Nations against apartheid, Harold Wilson banned the sale of British arms to South Africa in 1964. The Tories indicated that, if elected, they might agree to resume arms sales for "external defense," as provided for by the Simonstown Agreement of 1955. Under that pact, Britain had sold some $50 million worth of warships in return for naval base facilities on South Africa's strategic coast...