Mr Lange makes top 10

Press, 11 January 1986, Page 2

Mr Lange makes top 10

PA Wellington The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, rubs shoulders with President Reagan and the Soviet leader, Mr Gobachev, in the “Newsweek” list of the “10 who made a difference in 1985.”

Of Mr Lange, “Newsweek” said the world still had plenty of room for a big man from a small place. “Just ask Ronald Reagan or French President Francois Mitterrand, both of whom had good reason in 1985 to rue the advent 18 1 months ago of David Russell Lange as New Zealand’s Prime Minister.

“Lange’s decision early in the year to ban port calls by nuclear-armed or nuclearpowered United States naval vessels set off tremors in the Western alliance and may have doomed the venerable A.N.Z.U.S. defence treaty.

“But it was his outraged response to July’s sinking by French secret agents of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour that certified the 43-year-old former poverty lawyer as an international anti-nuclear hero.” “Newsweek’s” 10 who made a difference are: Mr Gorbachev; President Reagan; the South African activist, Winnie Mandela; the terrorist, Abul Abbas; a K.G.B. spy, Vitaly Yurchenko; the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Gandhi; the late actor, Rock Hudson; Mr Lange; the Peruvian leader; Mr Garcia Perez; and the rock singer, Bruce Springsteen.