Senators denounce criticisms of N.Z.

Press, 11 February 1986, Page 9

Senators denounce criticisms of N.Z.

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

The United States senatorial delegation to Wellington yesterday divorced itself from the attack the American Ambassador to Australia, Mr William Lane, made on New Zealand’s ports policy at the week-end. “We disassociate ourselves from the comments. We didn’t like ’em," said Senator Carl Levin, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and reputedly a liberal.

He was speaking on behalf of the party, led by Senator David Boren and including Senator David Pryor — both of whom serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Later, Senator Boren described Mr Lane’s remarks as inappropriate. He ‘was speaking at a

press conference the visitors gave for the New Zealand news media after meeting the Prime Minister, Mr Lange. Mr Lange had said that he planned to take up with the three Democrat senators why Mr Lane had chosen to lambast New Zealand. At issue were statements from Mr Lane that New Zealand was being punished “for being a bad boy,” and that it had broken its "compact” with the United States under A.N.Z.U.S.

Likening the alliance to a marriage, Mr Lane said: "Let us say that the United States and New Zealand are having a separation. Let us hope it does not become a divorce.”

This was followed the next day by an attack from the United Navy Secretary, MrJohn

Lehman, on New Zealand’s nuclear ban. He described it as outrageous and the height of irresponsibility, and warned that it would cost in the long-term. Mr Lange said he intended to “talk to (the senators) generally about a country which has a considerable affection for the United States, but which is not prepared to be constantly abused in hard cop, soft cop routines.”

It was apparently the senators, however, who raised the matter. Their stance was almost exaggeratedly conciliatory. All three were signatories to the letter sent last year by a bipartisan group of senators to Mr Lange and to President Reagan urging them to seek a compromise to break the A.N.Z.U.S. impasse.

They arrived on Saturday and will leave today after a hectic round of meetings with Mr Lange, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, the Minister of Defence, Mr O’Flynn, the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, and other members of the Cabinet, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr McLay, and a number of senior Government officials. “We are here because we care,” Senator Levin said.

He said they had not come as negotiators for Washington or with any fixed plan in mind. Senator Boren urged a reduction of rhetoric on both sides, saying that it served no useful purpose. "Each should put down the paintbrush and not seek to paint the other into, .any comer, as too ofteiA happens when peopfe begin talking

loudly to each other rather than listening,” he said.

“We should seek very quietly and together, as me would within a 'amily, for a constructive solution to the current zery serious problems :hat we face.

“We hope to find a way that can respect your very strong feelings, and we understand all the factors that have gone into that — intensified it — in terms of the testing and other things that have gone on in this region. “We have a great strong feeling for that and we just need to sit down and quietly, very quietly, work out a formula which allows you to keep faith as a nation with your own legitimate point of view and allows us to meet our strategic burden > t . within the alliance. $ “I think we can do that

I’m optimistic about that,” he said. Senator Levin said that on their return to the United States, they would urge Washington to exhaust all reasonable options to restore the relationship to what it must be.

An accommodation, he said, would not necessar-

ily commit the United

States to reviewing its neither confirm nor deny policy, as New Zealand’s anti-nuclear legislation did not ask any vessel’s master to disclose anything about the contents. The Prime Minister’s assessment required in the draft bill might lead him to make a declaration on the presence or not of nuclear arms. This could still be a problem, Senator Boren said. “That is what a lot of study will have to be

given to, because I don’t think that is the intention of your Government.

“Your Government is intending to have its own law complied with, not necessarily to have any reverberations outside this country or to have any international statement made about what is aboard a ship inside one of your ports,” he said.

He indicated that there might be scope, within the semantics of the issue, for agreement, saying that it would take "a lot of wellintended good minds looking at language” to see how New Zealand’s domestic needs could be met without creating difficulties for the United States. Senator Boren said the “bottom-line answer” was more flexibility on ©th