The security of New Zealand

Press, 26 July 1986, Page 20

The security of New Zealand

The following is a part of an address by Air Vice Marshall I. G. MORRISON, now retired, at Massey University yesterday.

While the forces of East and West confront each other in Europe in a garrison context, a war is still being waged in the West by the Kremlin and its K.G.8., seeking to capture the minds of Western people and, at the same time, disrupting their lives and economies in the interests of the extension of Communism.

Wherever there appears to be a break in the ranks of the Western alliances, Soviet agents with their fellow travellers will come out into the open, as Indeed they have done in New Zealand in recent months. Russian bids for footholds in the Pacific multiply. Any means of discrediting the West particularly the United States, is followed and every opportunity taken to exploit minorities to create disorder, to ferment trouble and inspire strikes. No chance is missed to influence people, particularly young people and what the German Munzenberg, who ran “Comintern” for many years, called “innocents clubs,” are a favoured focus for exploitation. Of the many Communist front organisations at work in the West the largest and most effective is the World Peace Council, formed in 1949 and now based in Helsinki, having been expelled from Paris in 1951 and from Vienna in 1957 for activities against the interests of their host States.

In 1981 the W.P.C. application to the United Nations session for higher consultative status was withdrawn when British and American delegates uncovered the false statements of its accounts, challenged its funding, and showed that its claim to support the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of nations was contradicted by its programme. The W.P.C.’s Indian Communist president is on record as stating, "the Soviet Union invariably supports the peace movement — the W.P.C. in its turn positively reacts to all Soviet initiatives in international affairs.” The Soviet subsidy to the W.P.C. in 1979 was estimated at SUS 49 million (SNZ9O million), some six times more than their subsidy to the World Federation of Trade Unions for that year. Here in New Zealand the antinuclear and peace campaigners who have been vocal in helping to bring about the A.N.Z.U.S. split should know that the foundation of their present movements has been communist-inspired and that their activities, far from serving the best interests of New Zealand and the West, are playing right into the hands of the enemy. Some of them, of course, do know — they have deliberately fuelled thp fire. Russia has recruited its allies among our own people. A few of these are true believers in the Communist philosophy and some are well meaning, sincere members of so-called peace movements. Wittingly or unwittingly

they are all allies of Communism.

The peace movements in the West are seen by the innocents In their ranks as something noble, sensible, and for the good, of mankind; while from Russia they are encouraged and exploited as a means of maintaining pressure to sustain her military superiority. Anyone who really believes there exists inside Russia a genuine unexploited peace movement is suffering from delusions. The late attempt in 1983 by Batovrin and a few young intellectuals to form a group “to establish trust between the Soviet Union and U.S.A.” failed after a few months of harassment by the K.G.B. Batovrin had to choose between imprisonment and exile and chose the latter, while his associate, Radzinsky, was sentenced to one year in prison and five years’ exile in Siberia.

Now let us examine the threat to the free world and to ; New Zealand from the mouths of the Communists themselves.

The Communist objective was first defined by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto in 1848 — in the promotion of world revolution.

Lenin, in his "Left-wing Communism” 1920, wrote “the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist States is unthinkable. One or other must triumph in the end and, before that comes, a series of frightful collisions are bound to occur between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois States.” Lenin, in 1921, set down the guidelines for exploiting “the gullibility and idealism of the ‘deaf mutes’ of the West” who, he believed, "would work hard in order to prepare their own suicide.” Stalin, in “The Party Before and After the Seizure, of Power,” in 1947 wrote, “the tasks of the party in foreign policy are: © to utilise every contradiction and conflict among surrounding capitalist groups and Governments for the purpose of disintegrating imperialism; © to spare no pains or means to assist the proletarian revolutions in the West; ® to take all necessary measures to strengthen the national liberation movements; • to strengthen the Red Army.” Remember the words of Krushchev in an angry moment, “do not believe we have forgotten Marx, Engels and Lenin — they will not be forgotten until shrimp learn to sing.” And Brezhnev, in June, 1972, after the signing of the Salt I Agreement, reassured Communists everywhere that detente with the West “in no way signified the end of the ideological struggle — on the contrary, we should be prepared for its intensification.” And do not be taken in by the more personable Gorbachev for there is yet no room for the exercise of real individuality, the Politbureau is telling him what to do and they are as tough and as

committed as ever to Communist doctrine. .. j The world is divided into East and West with the avowed strategy of Communism to convert the remaining' free world to its system by any means. So, while there is currently no imminent overt military threat to New Zealand, the background or strategic threat of Communism pervades the whole foreign policy and defence field for New Zealand as well as the rest of the free world. ; Since the Second World War the Soviet military build-up has been continuous and, < under that cover, it has fermented revolutions, aided aggression in Korea and Vietnam, financed and trained guerrillas, and exploited any and every means of undermining and defeating the West. This is war of a different sort and history may well label it the Third World War. Since the last election we are seeing a mounting Russian interest and activity inJNew Zealand to a degree not paralleled in my experience since the 1930 s when unemployment camps in New Zealand became the target of much Russian propaganda. The strategic threat is mounting — the threat of intrusion, subversion, and destabilisation in order to further the extension of Communism and the production of Marxist States. Three times in my correspondence with the Prime Minister last year I sought his answer to the question “do you not, Sir, recognise the aggression, oppression, intrusion and subversion that accompanies' Russian foreign policy worldwide?” and I did not receive a frank unequivocal answer. But, now, at last, the Prime Minister, speaking on July 2 in Adelaide, is reported as recognising the Soviet Union’s subversive aim of wanting “to neutralise or win an area of the world (the South Pacific) to their interest — a Soviet strategy pretty well everywhere.” The Prime Minister has not expanded on this to us in New Zealand and it is time he did so; and to try to explain at the same time how he jutifies taking New Zealand out of A.N.Z.U.S. so losing vital intelligence and strength in countering that threat.

His glib dismissal of it in Adelaide will not satisfy New Zealand and he seems to avoid the fact that both New Zealand and the Russians are in the South Pacific. This fact is also noticeable in the Government’s “Discussion Paper on the Defence Question” where there is no mention at all of Russia, and no mention of a subversion threat to New Zealand territory. As I said in my submission to the Defence Review Committee, history will wonder why. The first duty of any Government is to provide for the security of the homeland.

New Zealand is a small country of three million people, on its own, vulnerable and indefensible against major attack. It is strategically important to the defence of Australia that its eastern flank should not be exposed to any threat from New Zealand

soil which, of course, could only come from the take-over of New Zealand by an enemy. Equally, Australia with its large land mass and relatively small population is, on its own, indefensible against major atIt is for these reasons, and because the partners share common values, that both Australia and New Zealand have sought partnership with the United States in A.N.Z.U.S. .

Foreign and defence policy is of such fundamental Importance to a country that it must not be subject to alteration or exploitation for party political advantage, or to silence a minority. Nor should it be bent to any paltry purpose. It should express a country’s standing in the world and be a declaration of its Integrity. Foreign and defence policy and its translation into the structures and tasks of the armed forces are not amenable to change with every change of Government.

Only if there is an external change in our strategic situation should it be necessary to change direction and then, if the interests of New Zealand are put first where they properly lie, there should be developed a bipartisan policy, agreed by the main parties in contention for office.

If that can be achieved and the electorate fully informed, including the consequences of the change, then acceptance of it is in the hands of the electorate and politicians will have done their best.

Turbulence in foreign policy and defence generates mistrust and can cause grave damage to alliances and the armed forces. There has been no external change in the strategic factors to justify the Government’s antinuclear policies. The present impasse with our allies generated by this Government, I believe, does not have the support of New Zealand.

The Government, largely because it did not make the consequences of its anti-nuclear stand clear to the electorate, has some support for keeping nuclear ships and weapons out of New Zealand. But this confounds reality as the Western world, including New Zealand, is all defended by forces necessarily relying for the strength of their deterrence on nuclear as well as conventional weapons.

We must pay our dues and stay in A.N.Z.U.S. — the price is minuscule — an occasional visit by a possibly nuclear-armed or nuclear-propelled ship belonging to our allies.

To carry the Government’s anti-nuclear stand to the point where we are offending our allies, weakening the deterrent stance of the West, and weakening our own security and our armed forces is wilful and should be unacceptable to all responsible New Zealanders. The Americans and British are hot merely being difficult about their “neither confirm, nor deny” policies. Disclosure would be a contribution to the Russians and diminish the strength of the West. Furthermore, if a hitherto small, but staunch ally, like New

Zealand, breaks ranks and so weakens the Western alliance, it does become a germ to trigger the disease of irresolution in those alliances and that is just what the Communists are seeking.

Among the many words on this matter spoken by Mr Lange, mostly leaving in doubt what he is about, "The Dominion” newspaper of June 24 reported him commenting on what he called “the absence of specific guarantees in A.N.Z.U.5.,” that “I do not for a moment envisage New Zealand being left abandoned at the end of some Soviet threat unaided, it is ludicrous to suggest that it could be.” This statement further underlines the self-indulgent and dishonourable course of this Government, so far at least, blindly staying on its present track in the belief that, in the ultimate case, the United States, in A.N.Z.U.S. or not, would defend ■New Zealand.

Indeed I, too, believe that to be the case, but it is a shameful course, not acceptable to the great majority of New Zealanders.

And it is plain chicanery for anyone to suggest that it is the Americans who are responsible for restricting the workings of A.N.Z.U.S. It is the Government which has created this' consequence, against all the responsible advice which must have been given. There is no disagreement on banning nuclear weapons and ships from being based in New Zealand — as distinct from visiting New Zealand. The issue now is whether we value our A.N.Z.U.S. association sufficiently to welcome the ships of our allies for brief visits to our ports, knowing that they may or may not be nuclear propelled or carrying nuclear weapons, or whether we are to legislate now to preclude visits by such ships. We cannot have it both ways.

New Zealand should demand a stay of this Government’s antinuclear legislation until the next General Election when all New Zealanders may have their say. If it is, not possible by then for both main parties to produce r bi-partisan foreign and defence policy; then' the electorate itself must decide whether or not we are to leave A.N.Z.U.S., as well as deciding which Government it prefers.