“Knew Sydney Report False A Week Ago”

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31118, 22 July 1966, Page 12

“Knew Sydney Report False A Week Ago”

The secretary of the Christchurch branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Mrs R. Plumridge) said last evening she knew a week ago that the report that a protest ship had sailed into the French nuclear test area in the Pacific was false. She received a toll call to this effect from Sydney at 11.20 p.m. towards the end of last week, Mrs Plumridge said.. It was from Mr E. Stanton, the secretary of the Committee Against Atomic Testing, which made the original announcement about the sailing. “We are sorry to inform you it was a hoax,” Mr Stanton told her. “We are preparing a press statement, and we’ll write to you.” The letter had not arrived yet, Mrs Plumridge said. When she told the C.N.D. branch committee about the toll call, members decided not to release the information until written confirmation was received from C.A.A.T., in case the call, too, was a hoax. The £55 which had been raised in Christchurch to-

wards the cost of sending a ship was still here in a trust account opened by the branch, she said. She had felt suspicious of the original announcement, and had delayed forwarding the money until there was proof that the ship, Humanity First, had in fact left. None of the seven persons who volunteered to the branch to join the crew of a protest ship had been accepted, a letter from Mr Stanton two days ago informed her. She gathered that the volunteers were not sufficiently qualified. It had not been decided whether to advertise for more volunteers, Mrs Plumridge said. She was awaiting details from Sydney of the 42ft sloop Trident which C.A.A.T. claimed to have bought, and, in particular, confirmation that the vessel would make a trial run to New Zealand. “We still want to help them to get a boat away as a form of protest,” Mrs Plumridge said.