THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502010466
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 224 lines
To look at it, the guided-missile destroyer Buchanan was no great shakes. By 1985 it was already an old ship, afloat for a quarter-century. Its biggest guns were 5-inchers. It didn't break any speed records.
It carried missile batteries and a cluster of eight rocket tubes, from which it could lob torpedoes at hostile submarines. That hardly made the Buchanan special.
Nothing about DDG 14 set it apart from a slew of mid-sized, lightly armed, rather nondescript ships displaying the American ensign in the Pacific. Except that in early 1985, the Reagan administration selected the Buchanan from among all the fleet's ships to visit New Zealand, a staunch ally that had hosted American naval visits since 1908.
And 10 years ago this weekend, New Zealand replied the Buchanan wasn't welcome.
The announcement splintered the countries' 34-year-old military alliance, brought a halt to high-level meetings between their leaders and strained a friendship that had seen Kiwi troops fight alongside GIs in the two world wars, Korea and Vietnam.
A decade later, tension between the friends remains evident. ``Thieves, murderers, despots and drug runners'' have been invited to the White House, former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange notes. But not a single Kiwi representative.
What sparked this acrimony was the Buchanan's array of anti-sub rocket tubes - or, rather, what might be inside them.
The tubes, together called an ASROC system, could launch conventional homing torpedoes or nuclear-tipped ones. The Navy wouldn't say which type was stored aboard the Buchanan.
The Navy's silence was part of a longstanding policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear arms aboard its ships. The practice kept the Soviets guessing, and throughout the first three postwar decades it had caused few headaches among America's allies, New Zealand included.
More was involved, however, than simple hospitality.
Most Kiwis viewed the country's membership in ANZUS, an alliance between Australia, New Zealand and the United States, as fundamental to its security. Forged in 1951, ANZUS obligated each member to view attacks on another as ``dangerous to its own peace and safety,'' and to ``meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes.''
There was never any doubt as to who'd come to the rescue if trouble occurred. New Zealand's own armed forces numbered fewer than 5,000, and its hardware amounted to a handful of frigates and a few aging combat aircraft.
Hosting American warships was among New Zealand's contributions to the alliance. And so they came, often more than a dozen a year, some of them almost surely carrying nuclear weapons. The Buchanan was among them, pulling into Wellington in August 1979.
Nobody in the government gave a hoot about ASROC tubes or any other weapons that jutted from the visitors' decks, because the Parliament was usually controlled by the conservative National Party, a collection of strong ANZUS boosters.
Until 1984, when the economy slid and the National prime minister grew so wildly unpopular that the rival, left-leaning Labour Party gained control of Parliament.
With it came a vow to make New Zealand nuclear-free.
Suddenly, ASROC tubes were a very big deal.
The Labour Party that took power that summer was an uneasy partnership of leftist idealogues, pragmatic moderates and peace movement activists. The left-most faction opposed not only nuclear weapons, but nuclear power as well - including nuke powerplants that drove an increasing number of American warships.
David Lange, the new prime minister, argued against such a blanket position. ``It seemed to me that it was wrong to assume that there would always be something inevitably evil about anything called `nuclear,' '' Lange said in a November interview. ``There has to be a distinction drawn between that which was designed to destroy and that which was designed to be benign.''
The left refused to yield.
Lange backed down.
Word soon reached American leaders that New Zealand was eyeing a nuclear ban. They consulted with Lange, who asked that they wait before requesting permission for another ship visit. The Reagan administration agreed. The months passed.
Meanwhile, news of the new government's intentions crossed the Tasman Sea to Australia, led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke, a Reagan fan and ANZUS true believer. ``I disagreed profoundly with the policy,'' Hawke said. ``But . . . the thing that upset me particularly was that at my first meeting with David as prime minister, it appeared that he wasn't convinced about the policy at all, and that sort of stuck in my craw a bit.''
At a meeting with Lange in Papua New Guineau, Hawke said he asked Lange to defend the nuclear ban and ``found myself thinking, `I don't think this bloke believes this.' When he asked whether the ban was a political trade-off so that Lange would have a free hand in economic policy, Hawke said the Kiwi leader answered, `Yes.' ''
Lange differs with Hawke's account of the meeting. ``He has said that because he's a liar,'' he said. ``It's just a piece of invention. I'm prepared to put up with most things, but not that crap.''
Labour Party's proposed ban, attacked more than nuclear technology. Party activists worried that New Zealand's buddy-buddy relationship with the United States, even without nukes, could turn their otherwise innocuous, far-flung nation into a target.
History didn't entirely contradict them. In World War I, when many Kiwis still considered Great Britain their mother country, New Zealand took on the kaiser. The result was the British-organized landing at Gallipoli, a peninsula on the Dardanelles defended by dug-in Turks.
Brit commanders botched the campaign, sending Kiwi and Australian troops onto a sliver of sand at the base of a heavily fortified mountain. For eight months, despite staggering casualties and little hope of victory, they refused to let the force withdraw.
Nearly two out of three New Zealand troops at Gallipoli were killed or wounded. The sea was blood-red 50 yards from shore.
For decades afterward, the New Zealand public viewed this sacrifice as great and glorious service to God and the Crown. It wasn't until the 1970s that New Zealanders began seeing it for what it was - senseless carnage, orchestrated by another government.
Foreign entanglements also got a slew of Kiwis killed in the Boer War, in Crete, Italy and North Africa in World War II, in Korea and in Vietnam. The latter was a conflict New Zealand entered solely to kiss up to America.
Lange and other party moderates seemed to back ANZUS, however. They gave U.S. officials the impression that if the United States proposed a visit by a ship that appeared to meet the no-nukes policy, New Zealand would refrain from asking the Navy about the ship's weaponry.
The U.S. Navy planned to participate in March 1985 in ``Sea Eagle'' exercises in the South Pacific. The Reagan administration suggested that one of the ships involved pay New Zealand a visit, and selected the Buchanan.
On Feb. 4, 1985, Lange rejected the suggestion. The Buchanan might be conventionally powered and unlikely to carry nuclear weapons, but the ship was nuclear-capable, thanks to its ASROC tubes. The Kiwi government suggested that the Navy instead send one of its 41 Perry-class frigates, which were widely believed to be nukeless.
Alas, almost immediately this proposal was leaked, and any hope that Lange had of averting a firestorm vanished. The Reagan administration flatly refused to send another ship. The Defense Department fumed at what it saw as harsh payback for 34 years of American protection and know-how.
In Congress, even liberal representatives like New York's Steven Solarz denounced New Zealand. Lawmakers hinted darkly at economic repercussions. America's European allies joined in the chorus.
So did Australia. ``It was just an absurdity to say that you were a member of an alliance but to be saying to your major ally, `I'm sorry, but your ships can't come to my port,' '' Hawke said last fall. ``It was naive. It was unreal.
``The Soviet Union was not some benign, benevolent institution, but a danger to the world. Breshnev was no sugar daddy. It was important that the alliance be strong, and New Zealand was a member of that alliance.''
The Reagan response didn't take long.
On Feb. 26, the State Department told Lange that it had cut off all intelligence to the Kiwis and canceled all future military maneuvers. American leaders also announced that they'd not sit at the ANZUS table with Kiwi reps.
A strong response was necessary, the White House believed, to knock some sense into the Kiwis and to squash any copy-catting by other American allies.
As it happened, this strong-arming did little to bring New Zealand around: even pro-ANZUS Kiwis saw it as heavy-handed. The public rallied around Lange, and by July the State Department admitted that New Zealand's position was ``stiffer, rather than looser.''
That September, Lange left no doubt as to New Zealand's position. ``We will not admit nuclear weapons to New Zealand as the price of a good relationship with the United States,'' he said in a speech.
The Reagan administration took a final step in 1986: It yanked America's security umbrella from New Zealand. ``We part company as friends,'' Secretary of State George Shultz told Lange, ``but we part company.''
For 10 years, the Kiwi armed forces have had little contact with their American counterparts. No joint maneuvers have been staged. No intelligence shared. No special training offered.
No American warship has visited New Zealand. The only Navy presence today can be found at Operation Deep Freeze, a support base for the U.S. Antarctic program near the Christchurch airport. There, unarmed Starlifters and Hercules aircraft take off with staff and equipment bound for ``the Ice.''
In 1991, President George Bush announced that American surface warships would no longer routinely carry nuclear weapons. That didn't win an invitation to visit from the Kiwis, because the Navy continues to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nukes on specific ships or subs.
``If you're subject to the caveat, `Well, they could be (there), but we're not going to tell you when,' '' Lange said, ``you haven't actually, in the public or political mind, answered the problem.''
Last April, the Navy marked its 100 millionth mile of steaming under nuclear power, a record achieved without a reactor accident. New Zealand's own studies of nuclear power concluded that Navy ships operate safely.
Still, the Kiwis showed no signs of bending. ``If you were not going to have nuclear weapons in New Zealand . . . then it didn't matter whether they came here manned by people rowing boats or by diesel or steam or coal or nuclear,'' Lange explained.
So the stalemate continues. Some improvement in relations followed a Clinton administration review a year ago - contact between high-level diplomats was restored, and last week Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott visited Wellington. But the State Department has stressed that the steps do not ``signify a restoration of our previous alliance.''
And though rumors circulate periodically about White House plans to invite the current prime minister, Jim Bolger, to sit down with the president, it hasn't happened yet.
Do we have to kiss and make up?'' Lange rumbled from behind his desk high in a parliamentary office building in downtown Wellington. ``That's the question I ask. And the answer is: Of course we don't.
``If you want to have a relationship between two countries where you know there's only one thing that divides them, why on earth concentrate on that one thing?'' he asked. ``It would seem to me that the intelligent thing to do is to take the focus off of security entirely.''
That's happened, to a degree. Trade between the two countries is more active than ever, and Lange, like many New Zealanders, has come to view ANZUS as one of the least important facets of the American-Kiwi relationship.
``New Zealand culture is now almost absurdly lower Californian,'' Lange said. ``We eat American. We watch American. We see the world through American television.
``There's a very great similarity between us, actually. And it's absurd that that isn't recognized and that we keep on viewing any possibility of a relationship as being that of a military alliance,'' Lange said.
As the Cold War fades in memory, Washington may come to share that view. But it has been slow to happen. Hard feelings remain over what some in the government see as New Zealand's failure to play by a simple rule: When you've been dependent on a friend and ally for decades, you can't presume to unilaterally dictate changes in the relationship.
Not without angering that friend.
Not without paying a price. MEMO: Staff writer Earl Swift recently completed a three-month Fulbright
fellowship in Christchurch, New Zealand, during which he interviewed the
principals in the nuclear ships dispute.
ILLUSTRATION: KELCEY NEWMAN/Staff illustration
Photo
REUTERS
by CNB