American To Report On “Nuclear Havens”

Press, Volume CI, Issue 30007, 17 December 1962, Page 12

American To Report On “Nuclear Havens”

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, December 16.

Fear of nuclear bomb fall-out was a compelling reason why many of his fellow Americans asked Dr. L. H. Coate to study New Zealand and Australia as a potentially safer place to live.

A retired educationist, Dr. Goate arrived in Auckland by air today to begin his fact-finding mission and to spend a month in each country as a tourist.

At least 200 families of German descent farming in the middle west, an organised group of retired school teachers in California, and adherents of the Bertrand Russell school of philosophy, “some of them interested in plain survival,” were awaiting his report, said Dr. Coate. Scientific pronouncements that heavier concentrations of fall-out dust would occur in the Northern Hemisphere and Stanley Kramer’s film adaptation of “On the Beach.” had started Americans thinking of the better health and survival prospects in the Southern Hemisphere. “I have been asked repeatedly to get as much information as I can,” he said.

“It was the same when I toured South American countries—but I could not conscientiously recommend any of those to intending American emigrants." Overcrowding, traffic hazards and a serious smog problem in Southern California were additional reasons for dissatisfaction among his compatriots.

“I hardly expect the American Chamber of Commerce to put me on its payroll for this sort of comment,’’ said Dr Coate, “but it reflects the current outlook of many intellectuals, retired and older folk, and farmers fed up with the agricultural set-up.”

Dr. Coate. who lives in Pasadena, California, spent 25 years as supervisor of the Los Angeles public schools system. He was a State Department delegate to the inaugural conference of UN.E.S.C.O. and of several important appointments in the education sphere, and holds honorary degrees of law and literature.