Vietnam Statement By Mr Eyre Challenged

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31094, 24 June 1966, Page 15

Vietnam Statement By Mr Eyre Challenged

Nothing could be more misleading or inaccurate, said the chairman of the Wellington Committee on Vietnam (Mr B. Mitcalfe), replying to a statement by the Minister of Defence (Mr Eyre) on June 14, in which, according to Mr Mitcalfe, the Minister used claims made by a Communist spokesman to label the Vietnam protest as Com-munist-led and inspired. “It is easier to smear the opposition than to answer their arguments,” said Mr Mitcalfe. “Mr Eyre goes from the sublime, when he claims that our front line is on the Mekong, to the ridiculous, when he sends 120 men to defend it.

“We say, with Labour, that Vietnam is not the place, nor napalm, phosphorus and massive air-bombing the method, to contain communism. In saying this we are neither Communist, nor Communistled.”

Mr Mitcalfe said that as for Communist claims, taken at face value by Mr Eyre, the “Auckland Star” on June 7 had reported that a meeting of 110 members of the Committee on Vietnam at Wellington had endorsed its executive’s action in suspending seven Communists, out of approximately 450 non-Com-munlst members.

The meeting also called on the “New Zealand Communist Review’’ for a retraction and an apology for the statements that later were quoted by Mr Eyre. Had Mr Eyre read the newspapers, he would have known that the statements he quoted were nothing more than Communist double-talk. “We are not Communistdominated. We are not fellowtravellers.” said Mr Mitcalfe. “We are New Zealanders who believe Mr Eyre’s form of defence in Vietnam Is defence of a minority dictatorship against a Buddhist and Communist majority by methods that do not discriminate between friend or foe, civilian or guerrilla, with weapons that even Hitler did not use in a war that cannot be won, except, possibly, at the cost of millions of lives, and of our own conscience.” Mr Mitcalfe said that the most disturbing aspect of the controversy was that many

who supported the Government admitted that the Americans were wrong, but that it was necessary and expedient to support them. He believed that New Zealand would be loyal to the best American tradition and to millions of Americans opposing President Johnson’s policies in Vietnam if the artillery unit was withdrawn, and replaced by humanitarian aid.