Vice-president of U.S. to visit

Press, 13 March 1982, Page 1

Vice-president of U.S. to visit

NZPA staff correspondent . Washington The vice-president of the United States, Mr George Bush, would, hold “substantive discussion” in New Zealand during his visit in late April or early May, said his press secretary, Mr Peter Teeley, yesterday. The visit would be “very much more than a courtesy call,” said Mr Teeley, Mr Bush would also visit Australia and probably a number of other countries as well, but he was likely to visit New Zealand in late April, and the visit would probably be confined ,to Wellington. • ' . Mr Teeley said it was too early to define the areas that would be covered in the talks between Mr Bush, the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) and other senior Government figures.

The visit which will coin- • cide with the thirtieth anniversary of the A.N.Z.U.S. treaty, will be Mr Bush’s ■ first to New Zealand. Mr Bush, who is 57, will travel aboard an Air Force Boeing 707 which has instant radio communication with the White House and the Pentagon. He will carry cypher cards that will allow him to Unleash America’s nuclear forces from New Zealand if President Reagan were to die or became incapacitated and war broke out. Travelling with him will be a party of at least 35, made up of bis Chief of Staff, Admiral Daniel Murphy (retired) his assistant for National Security Affairs, Mrs Nancy Dyke, Mr Teeley, back-up staff, and Secret Service agents.

Mr Bush is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and was Ambassador to both the United Nations and China. President Reagan is said to value his advice on foreign affairs, which is given privately at weekly lunches, and is never leaked to the press. Mr Bush has made five trips to foreign countries since becoming Vice-Presi-dent, three of them to Latin America, where American attention is now focussed amid fears that El Salvador and central America generally will become another American “Vietnam.” He ran strongly against Mr Reagan for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1980, and is widely considered a likely Presidential candidate in 1984 or 1988.