Lange Says U.S. Cuts Back New Zealand Military Ties

New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, whose government recently banned all nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed ships from its harbors, said Tuesday that the Reagan Administration informed him here that it has ordered a “drastic scaling down” of U.S. military cooperation with his country.

However, Lange said in a public address and subsequent interview that he will not compromise on his eight-month-old government’s policy of maintaining New Zealand as a nuclear-free zone.

“Our peace is not for sale,” he said in the interview. Asked if there is room for compromise, he answered, “No, no.”

“You can’t have half a nuclear-free New Zealand,” he said. “You can’t have a nuclear-free New Zealand only on Sundays.”

Lange, who was in Los Angeles for one day on his way to make several speeches in Europe, took advantage of his brief stay in the United States to make public appeals for understanding of his government’s policy.

He repeatedly described his policy as “anti-nuclear, not anti-American” and made it clear that his country remains a firm U.S. ally despite what he termed “this difference of opinion.”

The Reagan Administration, however, has reacted strongly to Lange’s position, contending that it amounts to a virtual abandonment of the ANZUS military alliance, a longstanding grouping of Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Lange said he was informed of the cutback in U.S. military cooperation in a meeting with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Brown here Tuesday morning. Brown declined to discuss with reporters the substance of the 45-minute meeting, except to say that it was “friendly, as well as frank and candid.”

But Lange said in the interview that Brown informed him that U.S. military cooperation will be cut in some areas and continued in others.

He said the cutbacks included an end to joint military exercises; a curtailment of the sharing of raw military intelligence data, and a phasing out of U.S. schooling of New Zealand military officers.

Lange said such measures are “serious and, to some degree, damaging.” But, he added, the United States promised to continue giving New Zealand all intelligence information deemed important for its own security.

Lange’s government has announced that it will refuse admittance to its ports to all nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered ships. Because of Washington’s policy not to confirm or deny whether any particular ship is carrying nuclear weapons, New Zealand’s stand has the effect of barring all U.S. Navy ships capable of carrying such arms.

“We do not wish to have nuclear weapons on New Zealand soil or in our harbors,” Lange said here. “We do not ask, we do not expect, the United States to come to New Zealand’s assistance with nuclear weapons or to present American nuclear capability as a deterrent to an attacker.”

‘Ill-Judged Responses’

Lange said the American responses to his anti-nuclear policy, “ill-judged though I believe them to be, will not in any way undermine New Zealand’s total commitment to the Western alliance, to the defense of freedom and democracy and its deep affection and friendship for America.”

Lange, 42, was elected last July on a Labor Platform that included an anti-nuclear policy. Since New Zealand refused earlier this month to allow a nuclear-capable U.S. destroyer to make a port call there, two joint military exercises involving the ANZUS alliance have been canceled. However, Lange’s statements Tuesday were the first public confirmation that the United States has decided to respond with long-range cutbacks in military cooperation with its longtime ally.

Lange addressed a group of New Zealand business executives called the New Zealand Connection at a luncheon at the Ambassador Hotel.

Country ‘at Risk’

Lange acknowledged that his country of 3.5 million people is “at risk” if the United States, his third-ranking trading partner, were to impose economic sanctions. However, he said U.S. officials have assured him that will not happen.

Despite his sharp words, New Zealand’s youngest-ever prime minister spoke amiably and often with humor about the rift between the two countries.

Asked if he were insulted to be greeted by a relatively low-ranking State Department official, he quipped, “The message was important, not the medium.”

‘Quite Unique’ Locale

Lange described the U.S. military curtailment as an attempt to deter other countries from following suit. However, he has described New Zealand’s geographical locale as “quite unique” and explicitly refuses to recommend that other countries adopt similar anti-nuclear policies.

The most likely outcome of U.S. sanctions against New Zealand, he predicted, would be a growth of a “very, very substantial nationalism” similar to that now common in leftist movements in Central and South America.

“We are going to be careful as a government not to fall into that because it is not in the interests of New Zealand,” he said. “I would have felt it was in the interests of the United States not to have New Zealand even tempted into that path.”