Nuclear submarine visit

Press, 17 January 1979, Page 14

Nuclear submarine visit

Sir, — The “Haddo,” like its United States public relations predecessors, can be seen as a forerunner of more ominous weaponry and events. A.N.Z.U.S. and our relative isolation from northern potential nuclear battlegrounds may calm us now. Will the deployment of the Trident-Navstar system in 1980-81 in the South Pacific change our attitudes? The Trident submarine is more mobile than Poseidon and Polaris vessels and can aim at a target 6000 miles away. New Zealand offers deep-water fiords and coves for hiding places away from Soviet submarine detection, and harbours for servicing vessels. With Trident will come Soviet tactical “hunt-er-killer” class submarines and other anti-submarine warfare technology. SuperPower rivalry in the Atlantic, Indian and north Pacific oceans will soon be here. Public relations today, servicing United States submarines tomorrow. A.N.Z.U.S. is cheap now, but the costs go up after 1980-81. Surely nuclear-free zones are the way to budget. — Yours, JOHN BOANAS. January 14, 1979.

Sir, — Your “Haddo” leading article (January 15), which takes a cynical view of protesters, ignores one of the most important problems of nuclear fission power: what to do with the poisonous plutonium waste. It

will be around for thousands of years after we are, with no guaranteed safe storage. People protest against nuclear weapons because they believe that the cost of nuclear war is more than that of losing. Every time a nuclear warship visits our waters we are a strategic target. — Vnurc; ptc GRAEME McPHERSON. January 15, 1979.

Sir, — Your editorial, “Waiting for Haddo,” asks for a more practicable suggestion for keeping peace, other than nuclear deterrence. Given the destructive ability of nuclear energy, its related waste disposal problems, the scale of this particular technology, and the centralisation of human power that revolves round its use, nuclear deterrence must be the least practicable means of achieving a peaceful world. May I humbly suggest that real, long term, humane peace can only be reached through a process of removing violence from our lives, starting with the most destructive: nuclear weapons, —Yours, etc., ROD DONALD. January 15, 1979.

Sir, — Perhaps, instead of making a pother about U.F.O.’s invading our skies, we should be turning our attention to those in our waters — Undesirable Foreign Obliterators, such as the U.S.S. Haddo. — Yours, DENISE ANKER. January 15, 1979.