New envoy wants port access

Press, 9 January 1986, Page 4

New envoy wants port access

PA Wellington The new United States Ambassador to New Zealand, Mr Paul Cleveland, arrived in Wellington yesterday with the subject of restoring port access for American warships high on his list of priorities. However, Mr Cleveland said his immediate task was to listen and learn. “The first thing I want to do is talk to my folks in the embassy and then ... I think this is a time for me to look and listen and find out how things are here and how

people feel about the (A.N.Z.U.S.) issue,” Mr Cleveland told reporters at Wellington Airport. “But mostly it will be a time to look and listen.” Mr Cleveland said his job would not be an easy one “but well do the best we can”. Asked if he thought he would be able to solve the A.N.Z.U.S. deadlock, Mr Cleveland said: “I don’t think any one man is going to solve any impasse, but well give it a lot of effort and see what we can do.”

Mr Cleveland said he thought the relationship between the two countries was “basically good,” apart from the “substantial problem” of A.N.Z.U.S. No meeting with the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, had been scheduled yet, he said. Mr Cleveland will present his credentials to the Gover-nor-General, Sir Paul Reeves, in Auckland tomorrow. Mr Cleveland, aged 54, is the third career diplomat to

have served as the American envoy in Wellington. The others were Messrs Robert Scotten and Francis Russell. Mr Cleveland told the United States Senate foreign relations committee in November that if the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance were to continue, the United States would have to have normal port access under procedures that did not erode its “neither confirm nor deny,” policy of whether the ships were nuclear-armed or powered.