Nuclear dilemma

Press, 31 October 1984, Page 18

Nuclear dilemma

Sir,—lt has taken Stuart McMillan nearly a page of your paper to say very little that was not obvious about New Zealand’s ban on nuclear weapon-bearing United States ships and the effects this might have on United States attitudes to A.N.Z.U.S. The rather pathetic suggestions which McMillan advances about ways to allow ship visits to continue, need not be taken seriously. New Zealand is not some kind of guilty schoolboy which the United States can punish. It is the United States of America and the Soviet Union and other nuclear-armed nations which are in the morally-indefensible position of endangering the rest of the world. We can afford to be bold in strongly upholding the nuclear weapons ban because it is likely that this will encourage other nonnuclear nations to act with us to press the super-Powers to reach solutions to the nuclear predicament. — Yours, etc., COLIN BURROWS. October 27, 1984.

Sir,—Stuart McMillan’s articles discussed Labour’s anti-nuclear policies, but did not consider some possibilities. In a letter to Mr Lange before he went overseas, a letter which remains unanswered, I suggested that as a start to disarmament, he should try to persuade America and Russia to agree to publicly destroy one hydrogen bomb and rocket each. Such an action by the super-Powers would not significantly affect the balance of power but would be verifiable and a proof of the sincerity of their mutual desire to end the present impasse. If either Russia or America rejected such a practical first step towards the reduction of nuclear stockpiles, the New Zealand Government would then know which of the two super Powers is the real stumbling block and could modify or sustain its present policies accordingly, if those policies have any foundation other than the brainless anti-Americanism of Left-wing Labour Party twits. — Yours, etc., MARK D. SADLER, j October 28, 1984.