N.Z. anti-nuclear people ‘read too many spy novels’

Press, 25 October 1985, Page 25

N.Z. anti-nuclear people ‘read too many spy novels’

New Zealand anti-nuclear campaigners have been reading too many spy novels, says an American academic named as a prominent agent in a plot to destabilise the Labour Government Dr Ray Cline, a senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, has dismissed as nonsense suggestions that he has been on a “surreptitious working excursion” to New Zealand. The assertion was made in a 10-page special “action alert” newsletter distributed by the Christchurch-based Nuclear-Free Zone CommitIt said that Dr Cline, a former Central Intelligence Agency official, had recently returned to the United States from a month-long visit to New Zealand. “It is very probable ... that Cline was on a mission to do as much as he could to help destabilise our Government, and possibly even prepare the ground for future dirty work.” The newsletter named Dr Cline as a former deputy director of Intelligence at the C.1.A., and a key figure in an international network of Right-wing extremists. The United States Embassy in Wellington has confirmed that Dr Cline had

C.LA. connections. The newsletter said that an A.N.Z.U.S. “think tank” set up by Dr Cline was likely to involve more activity than just thinking. Dr Cline told “The Press” from his home in Washington yesterday that “the peaceniks have been reading too many James Bond novels.” He and his wife had been in New Zealand for a few days in August — strictly on vacation, he said. He visited a few academic friends in Auckland, then the couple went sightseeing in Rotorua. He made no professional calls, and went nowhere near Wellington. Dr Cline said he was interested in South Pacific and East Asian affairs, and had set up an AN.Z.U.S. research project at Georgetown early last year. It had been put “on ice” because of the rift between New Zealand and the United States. He hoped to revive the project, perhaps with the help of New Zealand scholars. It was “day-dreaming” to suggest that a non-profit university organisation was a front for harassing the New Zealand Government, Dr Cline said. The newsletter warned that a campaign of destabilisation had already started. Much of the activity, however, was covert and difficult to prove. It believed the

American strategy would be to try to force New Zealand into a snap election, or into the sort of referendum sought by the Peace Through Security group led by Dr Jim Sprott “The peace movement... must be prepared for the rest of Labour’s term to instantly mount a campaign to decide the fate of New Zealand’s nuclear-free status. “The return of Dr Cline should serve as an action alert. Like the Minutemen of the American Revolution from whom the missiles of today take their name, we need always be ready for immediate response,” the newsletter said. The campaign was also likely to include the cultivation of hysteria among certain elements of the news media, and the use of Red scares, such as the discovery of K.G.B. spies or Soviet subversion in the South Pacific ... “Even perhaps what television secret agent, Maxwell Smart, would call the old - sudden - surprise - scandal -in - the dirty - linen - cupboard - trick.” Dr Cline concluded that “the nuclear-free people tend to be pretty sensational.” He called the release of the newsletter as “cheap, irresponsible journalism, which has nothing to do with reality.”