I took a measure of them when they wouldn’t allow our nuclear ships in.
> I took a measure of them when they wouldn’t allow our nuclear ships in.
Probably the world’s most tragic case of Friendly Fire.
New Zealand has, for a very long time, been the home of the world’s largest Polynesian city, Auckland. It is a longstanding tradition amongst the Polynesians that it isn’t nice to drop nuclear bombs on their island Paradises — which is something that France persisted in doing on Mururoa Atoll long after the US were finished with Kwajalein and Bikini Atoll...
In my view, New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance is a direct reaction to France’s persistence in nuclear testing at Mururoa.
The unfortunate side-effect is that American nuclear-powered vessels get caught up in all of that. With the added complication of America having a “neither confirm nor deny” policy on whether any given ship is carrying nuclear arms, American naval vessels — whether nuclear or not — have been unable to visit us.
All of this was an unfortunate reason to alter ANZUS and keep American vessels out of our waters. I think that, given time, the anti-nuclear stance will be modified for commonsense, once cooler heads prevail.