Mid-Level U.S. Aide to Greet Lange in L.A.

Showing its continuing displeasure with New Zealand’s refusal to allow a U.S. destroyer to dock at its ports, the Reagan Administration will send a mid-level official to meet with Prime Minister David Lange when he visits Los Angeles next week.

State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb disclosed Wednesday that a deputy assistant secretary of state will be sent to meet Lange, even though Secretary of State George P. Shultz will be in California for a long weekend.

Kalb said that William T. Brown, a deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will meet Tuesday with Lange. The prime minister is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on Monday on his way to Britain.

New Zealand’s refusal to grant port access to the destroyer led to the cancellation of a joint naval exercise next month involving ships from the three members of the ANZUS alliance--the United States, Australia and New Zealand. A Pentagon spokesman has said that no other exercise has been planned.

Lange announced Tuesday that the United States had withdrawn from a second exercise--this one involving only the United States and New Zealand--and had refused an invitation to participate in another.

Kalb confirmed that decision Wednesday, saying that “with deep regret,” the United States has “canceled or restructured a number of events which involve participation by New Zealand armed forces.”

U.S. Won’t Say

The break in the 34-year-old ANZUS alliance follows New Zealand’s refusal to allow nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered ships into its ports. The United States refuses to disclose whether its vessels carry nuclear weapons, so New Zealand’s action is expected to have the effect of keeping all U.S. Navy ships from visiting the South Pacific nation’s ports.

Lange (whose name is pronounced LONG-ee) has said that while he is in California, he will defend the ban on nuclear vessels while making clear his commitment to the ANZUS alliance.

While the State Department was offering further evidence of the decline of U.S. relations with New Zealand, Shultz declared in a written statement, “We are not engaged in any campaign to punish New Zealand.”

He also said the Reagan Administration has no plan to use trade sanctions against New Zealand in retaliation. Such moves, presumably aimed at New Zealand’s important dairy and wool industries, have gained some support in Congress.