Neutron bomb tests at Mururoa

Press, 28 June 1983, Page 3

Neutron bomb tests at Mururoa

NZPA Bonn France has held neutron bomb test at Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific, the French Defence Minister, Mr Charles Hernu, has told the weekly news magazine, “Der Spiegel.” Mr Henru said that these tests did not mean that the French President, Mr Francois Mitterrand, had decided to make the neutron bomb. But if he did take such a decision, the bomb would be made within the 1984-88 budget period and considered as part of France’s “tactical nuclear weaponry.” Mr Hernu did not say how many tests were made, or when. He emphasised that France’s nuclear strike force, delivered from planes, submarines, and ground silos, was only for national defence and for the protection of France’s vital

interests. The Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon told a post-Cabinet press conference yesterday that the Government would not take any specific steps to try to get more information about the neutron tests from the French. The next step would be for Dr Hugh Atkinson, of the National Radiation Laboratory, to lead a team of scientists to inspect the atoll, Mr Muldoon said. The Acting Minster of Foreign Affairs, Mr Thomson, said that news of the neutron bomb tests would do nothing to allay the fears of people opposed to testing. People who wanted nuclear disarmament feared that the introduction of the neutron bomb would lower the threshhold of nuclear war, he said. Mr Thomson said New Zealand concerns would not be satisfied until France had ended its entire testing

programme in the South Pacific. Mr Muldoon said he had not been aware of these particular tests until recently. He again declined to say when the French have told him Mururoa nuclear tests would end. Labour’s spokesman on foreign affairs, Sir Wallace Rowling, asked why, if Mr Muldoon was given a time which he shared with the Australian Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, he would not tell New Zealanders. Mr Muldoon has said Mr Mitterrand has not given him an exact date. “The French President told me that the tests would be over in about X years, not a date,” he said. Mr Muldoon said it would be wrong of him to reveal the timing when “no-one from the French side has said it and in some reports they are saying this could not be right.”