Extension Of Test Ban To Pacific Area Urged

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29872, 12 July 1962, Page 12

Extension Of Test Ban To Pacific Area Urged

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, July 11.

“The glow in the north-eastern sky on Monday night should have.dispelled the last vestiges of complacency among New Zealanders about our remoteness from the horrors of the nuclear age,” said Mr K. R. Findlay, national secretary of the New Zealand Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, today.

“Efforts are being made to comfort us with information that the megaton bomb exploded that night was comparatively ‘clean,’ that the height of the explosion will postpone for years the resultant fall-out on earth, and that, anyway, Johnston Island is north" of the Equator,” said Mr Findlay.

“All this may be true, but the fact that speaks louder to New Zealanders than any of this is that they have seen with their naked eyes the ghastly glare of a nuclear bomb exploding. “There are many profoundly disturbing circumstances of this explosion One is the enormous force of the blast, estimated at 10 megatons, which puts it in the same terroristic category as the big Russian blast last year. “Another is the frightening irresponsibility displayed towards the scientific uncertainties involved in an explosion at such an altitude. "But perhaps more disturbing to New Zealanders than any of these things is the

apparent equanimity with which this explosion, and the whole current American series, has been received by the New Zealand Government.

“New Zealand’s involvement in military alliances with the United States obviously builds in the ‘nuclear deterrent’ as the cornerstone of our defence policy, whatever Cabinet Ministers may assert to the contrary. “But does this fact necessarily bind us to support every step which the United States may take towards the brink of catastrophe?

“The Leader of the Australian Opposition in the Australian Parliament (Mr Caldwell) recently proposed the extension of the Antarctic agreement which prohibits nuclear weapons south of the 60th parallel, to at least as far north as the Equator. “What is preventing New Zealand from speaking up for extending the nuclear-free zone to cover the whole Pacific? Such an initiative would be welcomed by the majority of Governments in the area, and also by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders.”