NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 25B; MALTA; COUNTRY PROFILE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: NIS
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP01-00707R000200080032-2
• Release Decision: RIF
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• Sequence Number: 32
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CONFIDENTIAL
258/GS /CP
Malta
July 1973
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY
CONFIDENTIAL
NO FOREIGN D/SSEM
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tistical data found in the Survey. An unclassified edition of the factbook
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GENERAL SURVEY CHAPTERS
COUNTRY PROFILE Integrated perspective of
the subject country Chronology Area Brief
Summary Map
THE SOCIETY Social structure 0 Popul:tion
lAbo.r Health Living conditions Social
problems Religion Education Public 'in-
formation Artistic expression
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Political evolu-
tion of tre state Governmental strength and
%tability Stricture and function Political
dynamics National policies Threats to stability
The [Aice Intelligence and security
0)unter%abver%ion and counterinsurgency capa-
Witie%
THE ECONOMY Appraisal of the economy Its
%tructure� agriculture, fisheries, fuels and ptHer,
metals and minerals, manufacturing and constrne-
titwl Dome%tic trade Economic policy and de-
vel,,ment International ewnomic relations
TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICA-
TIONS Appraisal of %%stems Strategic mobility
highway% Port% Merchant marine C;vil
air Airfield% The telecom s%%tem
MILITARY GEOGRAPHY Topography and climate
Military gci graphic region Strategic area
Appnw4w sea, air
ARMED FORCES The defense establishment
f:awrnd fort" Paramilitary
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Malta
The Dilemma of Independence 1
The Eye of Europe
Molding a Nation
The Question of Viability
Chronology II
Area Brief l
Summary Map follows 1
This Countnj Profile was prepared for the NIS by
the Central Intelligence Agency. Research was
substantially conipleted by April 1973.
CONFIDE.NTI L No FOREIGN DISSI�:V
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The Dilemma of Independence (c)
Since Malta became an independent member of the
British Commonwealth and of the United Nations in
1964, its people have clearly established their national
identity and their ability to rule themselves. Thanks to
their long, close association with central and %western
Europe from the time of the Crusades, the Maltese are
comparatively well educated and sophisticated. In
other respects, however, they face in acute form it
dilemma familiar to other small emerging nations
today: can their tiny state be both fully independent
and economically viable? In trying to shake off the
remaining vestiges of foreign control, they risk rup-
turing vital pipelines of revenue from the West �prin-
cipally the rental payments For the British military
bases without .which their shoestring economy may
falter.
Three small islands, totaling only 121 square miles
and almost completely .without natural resources,
provide a poor base for an independent economy, even
though throughout history they have sufficed to ac-
commodate sizable garrisons and served -as recently
as 1956 �as staging areas for major overseas ex-
peditionary forces. The Maltese Islands have been im-
portant hitherto only because their strategic location
and coastal configuration have attracted practically
every power which has ever contended for control of
the Mediterranean Sea. In consequence, t4- local in-
habitants %were rarely if ever given a chance to establish
their own state. Conversely, the external resources of
Malta's foreign rulers served to maintain �and almost
invariably increase �the local population.
Independence for the islariders became possible only
when Malta's strategic value declined in the eyes of its
rulers. After World 4Var 11, and particularly after the
Suez fiasco in 19756, the British had come to feel that
both the development of modern weapons and the li-
quidation of their own empire had sharply reduced the
value of Malta to them. 'Today, in the ewes of the
NATO p,nwers, Nhilta's strategic value is largely
negative: to deny its territory and waters to any major
power hostile to the interests of the Vilestern allies. In
centuries mast, Russian Tsars had shown an intc rest in
the isl,,nds. and it is always possible that their
successors might be similarly inclined.
In seeking alternate sources of support to free itself
from dependence on the Nest, Nlalta, under its pre-
sent dynamic Prime Minister, has looked to the Com-
munist powers and to the third world, especially Arab
neighbors to the south. Prime Minister Dominic Nlin-
toff has already pro\ ed himself us a moider of history.
lie professes to .wish to make Malta an independent
neutral; his efforts could result in moving Malta out of
the European orbit ;`or the first time in nearly 900
years.
In any case, if \Malta moves ahead toward exchang-
ing its role of subsidized fortress for independent
neutral, the question remains: what will replace the
subsidies and perquisites accompanying the British
presence which have supported dw economy so long,'
The combined efforts of the British and the Maltese
have been brought to bear on this question, and, while
remarkable economic progress has occurred since 1965,
the standard of living of the Maltese would certainly
deteriorate without continued \tlestern support for the
economy.
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r is mo ld i
'4s
Ccographc makes Malta. Its mid- Moditcrmnean
location, in co;nbination with sheltered ;iters, superb
harbors, and readily fortified terrain, has broukht men
to its rocky shores from before the dim it of histor\. The
Maltese Islaicds. rc't::tcants of :.a hrchistoric land brids,c
linkin4 Ftirope and :\irica imd no\c part of the ridl!c
w hi c h divides the Mediterranean into its hwo nrclor
basins. east ancf \cest, have often served as step
Iaint4stones bcloc% Sic�iI\ anti the Italian boot for
2
Ct
ar,(i\i mcnts h, and fn,nc \orth \frica \I( rco\er.
MitIta lies at tltc i it( rsec�tion of thi older. north ,utIt
rout,' s\ith the cast w-'t sf.:d if,c rnuoinL the Icniith of
the Mediterra iittoi!. Fx r siucc tli,� first -�aa;otIi>!
cis ilization appeared in the \Icditcrraun'an. Malta'
location at nodpassaut. Ironi the .\tl:n,tic to thy'
\ca;can. Black. and Itcd Scas. .md cloncinatim! the
narrow, betm-cn tiicil\ and \orth .\fric:a. Ica hired !hc
mariner. hethcr Isis inission be connncrcial. colonial.
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tl
or martial. Homer and later poets have seen Malta as
the "navel of the sea" set in the Nlediterranean's
narrow waist.
1'he trader and merchant, however, like artist and
adventurer, have been strictly subordinated to the
builder and defender of rnuire throughout most of the
two millema of Malta's recorded history. The island's
crossroads position has given it paramount value as a
military outpost and naval base for an imperial
power. The British were the last of many rulers to ;find
Malta a vital link in the chain of empire just halfway
from Gibraltar to Cyprus or Suez en route ro the Far
East.
With Malta but a pawn or prize of battle in the etsrr-
nal struggle for empire, the wishes or well -being of its
indigenous inhabitants was seldom considered. The
islanders were never long free to determine their own
fate until today, except perhaps at the very dawn of
their history. The earliest historical presence in the
archipelago was that of the seafaring Phoenicians, the
great traders of antiquity, but they had been preceded
many centuries earlier by prehistoric people known
only through archaeology. Splendid remains of
megalithic tomb temples are so elaborate and exten-
sive that historians imagine Malta to have been at
least the religious center of a seaborne culture that
stretched around the Mediterranean and out along the
Atlantic coasts of Europe and North Africa.
Stonehenge suggests that these mysterious people
pioneered the seaway to Britain which the Phoenicians
followed later.
Whatever role Malta may have played in the diffu-
sion of ncolithic culture to southern and western
Europe, evidence indicates that it was hardly more
than a colony or way station of tfle Phoenicians when
they introduced civilization to the western Mediterra-
nean. What precisely the Phoenicians' stay in Malta
amounted to is still in dispute; they are oft' n credited
with establishing the Semitic character of the Maltese
language, although this was at least in part -t result of a
later ,-Arab domination of more than two centuries
duration.
The Semitic influence on Malta was intensified in
some degree under Carthage, a sister Phoenician
colony which went oi. to build its own commercial em-
pire in the western Mediterranean, including Malta as
one of its outposts. Nearly three centuries later, Rome
challenged C- irthage for control of the Mediterranean
and conquered Malta in the Second Punic War.
Roman rule was apparently beneficent and brought
with it a different kind of conquest, the only perma-
nent one in Malta long history; the conversion to
Christianity, traditionally attributed to St. Paul when
shipwrecked on Malta. Conversion was complete, and
the ,Malt) .-se have clung to their strong Roman Catholic
belief ever since, with fe:v if any lapses ender subse-
quent Byzantine, Muslim, and Anglican rulers.
The Muslims, in fact, were the first of a succession of
foreign rulers under whom the Roman Catholic
Church won an unusually great role in the politicl.l as
well as the social life of the islands. When the Arabs
seized Malta from the declining Greek heirs of the old
Rornan Empire in 870, they tolerated Christianity in
return for tribute from the population. The Maltese
turned to their clergy for leadership, and the clerics
gradually became a kind of secondary ruling class
parallel with the foreign civil administration and
representing the Maltese population. After the islands
were recovered for Europe, the situation 'continued;
canoe: law was the law of the land and the Bishop's
Court the only judiciary.
Europe's southernmost outpost was permanently
recovered for the Vilest by the freebooting Norman; less
than a griarter century after their kinsmen won
another �much greater island, England.
For just short of five and a half centuries after this
other Norman conquest, Malta was passed around
Ltnong the leading feudal lords of Europe, farmed out
as a fief, and at least once even pawned to an
aristocratic tax farmer. Its international ties, however,
eventually encouraged economic development. Under
Aragon, Malta participated in an early `common
market" in the Mediterranean. For the most part its
rulers were based on the Italian or Iberian peninsulas,
and one element of continuity throughout much of
this long era lay in the fact that Malta was commonly
administered in conjunction with Sicily, and ultimate-
ly in the name of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Emperor Charle V, who had inherited it western
Mediterranean empire as Charles I of Spain, finally ter-
initiated this era of Sicilian dynasties by bestowing
Malta and the North African citadel of Tripoli upon
the knightly Order of the Hospital of St. John of
Jerusalem, subsequently known as the Knights of
Malta. In return for the� fiefdom of Malta, the Knights
were annually to proffer a falcon. 7'hc crusading order
had forged an amphibious fighting machine, adding
naval power to its cavalry after it was forced out of the
Holy land, but the Ottoman Turks under Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent finally overwhelmed its
stronghold on tile island of I Nodes, and the Knights
were without a naval base on the Mediterranean. As
part of the growing European defense against the
Muslim onslaught, the Ernper r commissioned them
to carry on their crusade against the Turks as well as to
suppress piracy from their new base in Malta. The
order concentrated on its European mission against the
advancing Turks and on repelling the local raids of
3
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their cohorts, the Muslim corsairs. In 1551 the latter
were repelled by the Knights' cavalry on the rain
island of Malta, but these Arab pirates ravaged the
smaller island of Gozo unchecked, and later took
Tripoli for the Sultan. "Then all the forces o the. Ot-
toman Empire launched a full scale attack against
Malta with an armada of 138 galleys and 40,000 men
in 1565. The Knights successfully withstood the
with ^ring 4 -month Great Siege of Malta �the high
point of Malta's defense of Europe, repeated only at
'an even more critical turning point of world history
during the Axis Powers' siege in 1942.
The challenge and trauma of the 16th century siege
launched the Knights on a massive building program,
%vhich continued for most of the 200 years they
remained in control. Drawing upon the income of their
European estates �anu on the largesse of a grateful
Christendom �they built and elaborately fortified a
new capital, Valletta, along with a series of forts,
castles, and watchtowers against another Saracen
siege. It was something of a Maginot line concept, but
the Turks did not mount another major attack. The
main bastions in their defense system can still he seen,
most magnificent examples of renaissance fortifica-
tion.
As the Turkish threat receded, the Knights engaged
evermore in trade, often supplemented by what in
practice amounted to piracy. With increased wealth
came the decay of discipline and morale, along %with
the respect of their subjects. Except on rare occasions
of great danger as in 156, no common bonds linked
ruler and ruled. Control by a foreign military monastic
order, which never identified with the Maltese but was
preoccupied with its own international interests, es-
tablished a cleavage between the garrison and its
hangers -on on one side and the mass of the population
on the other. Revolts by the Maltese began early in the
18th century, often with foreign aid, which brought
success by 1800.
4
The decline of the order had been apparent to the
European powers, whose interest in Malta's strategic
worth began to revive. In the French Revolution the order
lost its most profitable European estates, the basic source,
besides trade and hoot, of the Knights' wealth. Thus
weakened, Valletta fell without a struggle to Nap olean's
strategy in 1798, when he sought Grand Harbour for his
armada on the Egyptian expedition. When the German
Grand Master of the Order was ignominiously expelled by
Napoleon, the Russian Knights rebelled and proclaimed
the Russian Tsar Paul I Grand Master. Though abortive,
this was an interesting example of abiding Russian interest
in Malta as a Mediterranean base, which began with
Peter the Great in the 17th century.
French control of Malta, threatening domination of the
whole \Mediterranean, gave the British a more urgent in-
centive for intervention. They readily acquiesced in a re-
quest by Maltese insurgents for aid against the French.
After a 2 -year siege of Valletta, the French surrendered,
leaving the British in control and prompting Napoleon's
remark that he preferred to have them on the heights of
Montmartre than ensconced in Malta. Tile Maltese sub
sequently petitioned to be taken under British protection
and were seconded by Lord Nelson, who pointed out the
islands' value as a naval base. British sovereignty was con
fimied internationally in 1814 and continued for just a
century and a half.
we hold it as an important post, as it treat military and naval
arsenal. and as nothing; more. (Duke of Wellington, in the
I louse of Lords, 1838.
From neolithic times to the present, and clearly
since Malta was first integrated into Europe under an-
cient Rome, through the centuries of struggle between
Christian and Muslim powers, through the
Renaissance. the French Revolution and both world
wars, little Malta has felt the impact of every tidal
wave in western history. Today it stands again, a
magnet and nerve center, and oidding to become once
more a halfway house between Occident and Orient.
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Molding a Nation
ThV of \1itItcr. no%% citizen' of the late�(
h: iropean ciclfendency to attain n it tionh"ocI exhibit
all the sensitivilics of a netl cn,crt!int nation of the
third world. "Phis is tri o clesI t their lorik history of in
tinratc im( vet i