Minister Attacks Defence “Myth”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30478, 27 June 1964, Page 14

Minister Attacks Defence “Myth”

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 26. One of the most dangerous myths of defence thinking in New Zealand was that the country was wasting its time on conventional arms in a nuclear weapon age, said the Minister of Defence (Mr Eyre) this evening, addressing the annual meeting of the Auckland branch of the Navy League.

This myth held that a nation without nuclear defences had no defences and need not waste men and money on ineffectual means of maintaining those defences. The belief was dangerous, said Mr Eyre, because it argued that the only form of war was nuclear. The answer was apparent in the world today. Areas in which guns were firing at the moment were Cyprus, around the Red Sea, in Vietnam, Laos and Malaysia. Each new development in atomic weapons made it less likely that the weapon itself would be used. Deterrents were now so accurate and so securely emplaced against damage that any attack would meet with immediate and terrible retaliation.

Mr Eyre said it was a myth that New Zealand could not provide forces large enough to be of any use. Too Small New Zealand was too small to defend herself, but she had concluded defence agree-

ments to guarantee that she would not be threatened alone.

In this, she found herself in the company of other and

greater nations, all of which —apart from traditional neutrals—had completed some form of co-operative defence agreements. He said the country’s services were efficient, though small. All branches were needed to serve some purpose. Equipment It was also a myth, said Mr Eyre, that New Zealand could get by with the economy of letting the standards of modern equipment slide. New Zealand simply must keep up her own military equipment, he said. She could not repeat her slothfulness before the Second World War. Nations no longer stock-piled old equipment as it was out-dated so rapidly.

The money spent on ships, tanks, arms and aircraft could buy medical research, schools and other things that were desirable. But unless the country was prepared to defend them, they would be •lost.