Preparations For French Tests Soon

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30100, 6 April 1963, Page 11

Preparations For French Tests Soon

(N.Z. Pr«M Aaociatlon—Copyright) MELBOURNE, April 5. About 150 technicians are expected to reach Papeete, Tahiti, this month to begin preparing the French nuclear test site in the Gambier Archipelago of French Polynesia, the Australian Broadcasting Commission said today, quoting its correspondent in Noumea, New Caledonia. The radio said Papeete would be residential headquarters * while the technicians built a series of airstrips in the archipelago.

According to earlier Paris reports, the test site is expected to be Mangareva Island, which is about 3000 miles north-east of New Zealand. The nearest well-known island is Pitcairn, about 325 miles away.

The radio’s correspondent said it was reported in Noumea that one airstrip would be of international class, available for civilian flights, and could serve as a stepping stone to South America.

The correspondent said the French planned to build a series of observatories and radar stations in the archipelago. Quoting the Noumea correspondent in a later broadcast, the A.B.C. said it believed France planned to build workshops, laboratories and at

least 100 homes on Tahiti for nuclear test technicians. The radio reported about £3.000,000 would be spent in modernising Papeete's port. The radio said no date had been announced for France’s first hydrogen bomb explosion, but unofficial estimates put the production of the bomb as two or three years off. The radio said there was no official statement from France on French testing plans in the Pacific The radio recalled that the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said recently that if reports that France’s plans for Pacific testing were confirmed his Government would protest In Canberra this week, a

New South Wales Labour member of the House of Representatives, Mr S. D. Emfleld, placed on the notice paper a question asking the Federal Toverntnent to declare its policy on French tests in the Pacific.