No Atom Bomb Tests In N.Z. Islands Territory

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28263, 29 April 1957, Page 12

No Atom Bomb Tests In N.Z. Islands Territory

(New Zealand Press Association >

WELLINGTON, April 28. No atomic tests will be held on New Zealand territory, said the Minister of External Affairs (Mr T. L. Macdonald) yesterday, when he denied a statement in an English periodical that British atom bomb tests will be held al Penrhyn Island. Penrhyn, the northernmost atoll of the Cook group, is New Zealand territory. It is inhabited by 600 Polynesians. ‘‘Anybody who says tests will be held on New Zealand territory is talking nonsense,” said Mr Macdonald. ‘‘Penrhyn is New Zealand territory and no tests will be held there.”

The quotation referred to the Minister, which appeared in the ‘‘New Statesman and Nation,” dated April 20, reads: “One of the three bombs to be set off in the Christmas Islands test (which are to take place not at Christmas Island itself, but at the island ot Penrhyn 100 miles away) is the British fusion bomb.” The statement is contained in a regular feature, “London Diary,” in which “Polycritic” attempts to answer key questions about nuclear explosions “after reading the recent Ministerial statements about nuclear weapons and talking to scientific friends.”

The statement was quite incorrect, said Mr Macdonald, who recalled an announcement he had made last month about preparations on Penrhyn in readiess for the British hydrogen bomb tests. The airstrip at Penrhyn, used in the Second World War, had been repaired and wireless equipment installed, said this statement. These facilities would be used for the collection of weather and other information before and after the tests. A small British flight control party would be living on the island during the tests. The New Zealand Government’s part in the tests was confined th ancillary aid and support. Two Royal New Zealand Navy frigates would be in the central Pacific as weather ships and Royal New Zealand Air Force Sunderlands would collect and deliver radiation samples. A European island territories officer has now gone to Penrhyn to assist the resident agent in his relations with the United Kingdom party and to ensure that the welfare and property rights of the islanders are not prejudiced by the tests. Penrhyn Island, discovered by Captain Sever in the Lady Penrhyn in 1788, is more than 2000 miles north-east of Auckland. It is 737 miles north of Rarotonga, the main island in the Cook Group, and about 600 miles south

of Christmas Island. Rarotonga is 1633 miles from Auckland. Penrhyn has a history of its own. The islanders suffered heavily at the hands of Peruvian “black birders” looking for forced labour in the nineteenth century. The island's lagoon was also noted for pearl fishing. The island’s native name, Tongareva, one of the few native names in the group not in general use, means “Tonga in the Heavens.”