TROOPS FOR VIETNAM Departure May Be Deferred

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30782, 21 June 1965, Page 1

TROOPS FOR VIETNAM Departure May Be Deferred

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 20.

Deferring the departure of New Zealand troops for Vietnam will be considered by the Cabinet tomorrow after the Prime Minister’s suggestion in London that the move might encourage interested countries to meet the Commonwealth peace mission.

“I would be prepared to recommend to the Government that the departure of our artillery’ battery should be deferred if there were a favourable response from interested countries to the request that they’ should meet and discuss the Vietnam problem with the peace mission,” said Mr Holyoake.

“ ‘Favourable response’ means that these countries are prepared to talk. “I repeat, I have done several times, that the whole of the New Zealand initiative has been designed to bring about negotiations and talks for peaceful settlement to the Vietnam problem.” Asked whether he thought Afro-Asian opposition to the

Commonwealth mission was spreading, Mr Holyoake replied: "I know of no AfroAsian opposition to the mission.

“There are of course differences of opinion and reservations. as is natural and healthy in such a diverse organisation as 21 Commonwealth nations spread across the continents of the world. It is this diversity of opinions that gives strength to the Commonwealth and greater strength and purpose to the Commonwealth initiative of sending a mission.”

ceived s’ome ihdicaiVdf? r 6i Britain’s initiative, he said: “I have been in public life for a considerable period. I have had considerable experience of Prime Ministers’ conferences and so I am not surprised at anything that happens. It was surely obvious that when the Prime Ministers met at this critical time in the affairs of South Vietnam that an initiative of one kind or another would certainly be taken. “Studying and assessing straws in the wind, and from conversations I had soon after 1 arrived in London, 1 had come to the conclusion that the Prime Ministers would come to a decision fairly close to what actually happened.”

Asked to comment on a report that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Nordmeyer) had criticised him for acting on his own initiative in offering to defer the troops’ departure. Mr Holyoake said: “If he has. 1 am bound to say I am surprised at his criticism of me on the ground that I am acting on my own behalf. “My surprise is engendered by the fact that owing to considerable and diverse pressures upon him. Mr Nordmeyer led the opposition to the Government’s decision to send an artillery battery to Vietnam.

“This being so one would expect that he would have approved of any proposal which might defer the sending of those troops.” Any decision to defer the sending of the artillery unit would have his full support, Mr Nordmeyer said yesterday. “The decision to send a battery to Vietnam was, of course, one the National Government took before consulting Parlia-

ment,” he said. “If, in the light of subsequent events, the Government decides to postpone the sending of this battery, that position will naturally have the full support of the Opposition.” TV Discussion Tonight A discussion on sending troops to Vietnam will be telecast on Channel 3 at 9.28 tonight. The discussion will replace the United Nations programme previously advertised.

Favouring the sending of troops will be the Dominion president of the R.S.A. (Mr H. Mitchell) and Dr. A. D. Robinson, lecturer in political science at Victoria University.

Opposing the decision will be the Rev. R. Thornley, a Methodist minister, and Dr. J. C. Beaglehole, a lecturer versify; TT "’-