M2 - I see your point about location. This is the age of the Intertubez after all.
On the other hand, it is consequential that the labs depend on the U.S. military for power, communications and access and are 50 percent U.S.-staffed.
Thought experiment: what if the U.K. had been flying U.S. aircraft under such terms in 1982, and Jimmy Carter had been re-elected in 1980? Would the information access issue have been of no consequence then?