U.S. campaign to subvert N.Z. N-policies

Press, 22 May 1986, Page 4

U.S. campaign to subvert N.Z. N-policies

NZPA staff correspondent Washington

The United States Information Agency was instructed by the President’s National Security Council to lead an American public relations campaign against the New Zealand anti-nuclear ship policy.

This is revealed in the East Asia and Pacific programme for the agency presented to a House of Representatives appropriations sub-committee in March which was reviewing the U.S.I.A. budget request for the 1987 financial year. As part of its work, the agency pays for trips to the United States by New Zealand journalists, politicians and others under a visitor programme. It also produces the Worldnet television broadcasts, often international link-up interviews between foreign journalists and senior Administration

officials such as the Secretary of Defence, Mr Caspar Weinberger, to press the United States point of view on various issues. A Worldnet interview with Mr Weinberger was shown on TVNZ last year. In its submission to the appropriations sub-com-mittee, and reviewing the 1985 and 1986 programmes, the agency said should the New Zealand Government’s legislation banning nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships pass “it would cripple the A.N.Z.U.S. military alliance."

“The questions that are raised with New Zealand are central to our relations with all South Pacific countries. “Other nations will find it difficult to resist pressures to emulate the New Zealand example,” it said. “Following the direction of the N.S.C., U.S.I.A. is leading a Governmentwide public affairs

strategy addressing this issue.

“A series of Worldnet satellite interactive telecasts beamed to Australia and New Zealand have helped explain United States policies. “Complementing this strategy was the 1986 opening of a branch post in Christchurch, an important political and intellectual centre where the United States Government’s Antarctic research effort, Operation Deep Freeze, is based.

“Anti-American activities in New Zealand often focus on the presence of Deep Freeze,” it said. In 1985, 33 international visitor grants were made to New Zealand for the agency to bring people to the United States, at a total cost of $U5249,206 ($456,046). The agency estimated it would give 23 grants in New Zealand in 1986 and another 23 in 1987.