Waltzing Close Again

President Ford had been up most of the night supervising the sea evacuation of Americans from Beirut. His eyes were puffed and squinty. But there was genuine warmth last week when he strode onto a red-carpeted podium on the South Lawn of the White House and welcomed Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser to the U.S. As the last strains of Waltzing Matilda faded away, Ford stressed how "particularly close" Australia is to the hearts of Americans.

Although the Prime Minister has been in office only seven months, the Ford Administration already considers Fraser, 46, a rangy millionaire farmer, one of the U.S.'s best and most reliable friends in the Pacific. The U.S.-Australian relationship, while always close, has had its ups and downs in recent years, especially after Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pulled Australian troops out of Viet Nam. After Eraser's Liberal-National Country party coalition trounced the Laborites last December, the new P.M. immediately moved to bring Canberra more into line with American foreign policy.

Reversing a Whitlam ruling, Fraser opened Australian ports to U.S. nuclear-powered warships and also offered docking privileges at a new port being constructed near Perth in Western Australia. Since Australia's own army and relatively small navy are insufficient to guard its 12,210-mile coastline or ensure control of supply lines across the Indian Ocean, Fraser has enthusiastically supported Washington's opening up a new base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

To show his willingness to continue the 1951 ANZUS Treaty, which commits Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. to counter regional threats with their own forces, Fraser has ordered a $15 billion increase in Australian defense spending over the next five years. But Fraser also wants the alliance with the U.S. redefined to take account of future Russian actions in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Toward that end, he has proposed some sort of four-power Pacific cooperation embracing the U.S., China, Japan and Australia--a form of local detentein Asia.

Touchy Issue. Eraser's talks with Ford, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and other officials centered mainly on common defense interests and trade, with the P.M. pressing the U.S. to import more beef from Down Under. Australia last year bought $2 billion worth of goods from the U.S., which in return spent only $1 billion in Australia. The very size of the overseas economic presence in Australia, where U.S. firms account for 40% of the $14.6 billion total in foreign investments, is also becoming an irritant; with Australian nationalism running strong, Fraser has set guidelines whereby U.S. and other foreign investors will be required to offer Australians the chance of obtaining a 50% share in new projects. Washington in turn has not been able to show the Australians much give on the touchy issue of high U.S. tariffs and import quotas. Shrugs one Administration official: "We have to say we just can't help that much."

After chats with Congressmen, Fraser and his wife Tamara attended a state dinner at the White House, where he had a tete-`a-tete with his favorite author, Novelist Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged), high priestess of individualism. Then Fraser flew to Boston and presented Harvard University a $1 million check as a Bicentennial gift, endowing a chair in Australian studies.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.