Vietnam Deputation Wants To See P.M.

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30760, 26 May 1965, Page 16

Vietnam Deputation Wants To See P.M.

A small deputation of representatives from Christchurch organisations which are concerned about the possible commitment of New Zealand troops to Vietnam will wait on the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) when he visits Christchurch today.

Mr Holyoake will be in the Yesterday the organisations

city to attend the annual conference of the CanterburyWestland division of the National Party.

The deputation will be from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, clergy and university representatives.

concerned sent a telegram to Mr Holyoake requesting a short interview so that their views on Vietnam could be

placed before him. A reply was received from the Prime Minister last evening to say that because of his commitments he would be unable to suggest a time when he might meet the deputation during his short visit to Christchurch. In view of this a deputation will wait outside the National Party headquarters in Lichfield street to present Mr Holyoake with the documentation of its case against sending troops to Vietnam. Mr H. G. Kilpatrick, an executive member of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, said it was the view of the organisations who sought an interview that the question of a possible commitment of New Zealand troops to Vietnam was one which transcended all party and sectarian ideological lines. “We feel,” he said, “that all thoughtful people realise that there can no longer be any effective guarantees or assurances that a war in the 1960 s started even by the throwing of a rock, will not end in nuclear obliteration. “It is because war of any kind now offends ail rational and all human considerations that we desire to have a heart-to-heart talk with the Prime Minister as New Zealanders • to another New Zealander whose decisions are now so important to us all."