Interesting read. I have known all along the ANZUS breakdown had more to do with internal New Zealand politics than any failed US foreign policy by either US political party. The blame entirely lies with New Zealand....
It was a very interesting article. I recall when it parts of it first appeared in the media in 2003, the media asked former PM Lange for comment. Lange dismissed it and played everything down, however in IMO at the time Lange's response was hollow and lacked credibility, and was worthy of dismissal as being from someone being caught and then fibbing their way out of (previous) trouble etc. On the other side of the coin the article author, Mr Bassett, fell out with Lange back in the late 80's (as more or less expressed in the article) hence in terms of fairness and balance, one needs to consider whether the article had a personal hidden agenda etc, after all Bassett didn't interview Lange for the article (although he did interview a wide range of NZ and US officials). Having put that thought out there I answer myself with the following; Bassett was also a political historian who has written many well researched and respected books on NZ's leading politcal figures; he was in Cabinet at the time (84-90) and had personal insights into events of the time and he kept notes; his article was written when he was Fulbright professor of New Zealand studies at Georgetown University in 2002; numerous leading US/NZ figures at the time were interviewed for his article .... hence I think it was be fair to conclude that the article was a fairly accurate assesment of (his version of) events in the Lange administration at the time. I say all this because of two reasons, some NZer's here may recall Lange and Clark's dismisal of the article at the time (2003) and the subsequent beat up in 2005 thanks to a prominent peace activist's book on the working of the National Party, which resulted in the Dominion Post newspaper's cowardly decision to cease publishing his articles because of perceived politcal bias (although they don't have a problem with other contentious left and right authors etc).
So it is a good article and explains the inner politcal workings that wrecked an important relationship. What might not be understood by many (esp overseas) is the "why" question i.e. why did the "insurgents" (as Bassett called them) do this? The answer is long and political hence it is not appropriate to comment further upon here this except to say that the "insurgents" were from that 1960's University educated generation (entirely "white" and mostly "middle class" - BTW Clark is from conservative farming stock), questioning the Western values and foreign policy, esp US etc. Most of you will get the picture...
So Sea Toby, I agree with you in that the "ANZUS breakdown had more to do with internal New Zealand politics than any failed US foreign policy by either US political party".
However I take odds with your next assertion "The blame entirely lies with New Zealand....".
The reason I say that is because life is not black and white, but many shades of grey (or gray to you fellas)! IMO the both sides (US and NZ) were not blame free, both sides share the blame for their miscalcuations, in fact what is not being questioned (thus far) is the obvious (or perceived) miscalculation (or perceived intelligence failures or more likely political interference) of the US Govt.
Sure, Lange failed Shultz bigtime by not sticking to his word and trying to resolve the issue behind the scenes... Lange's credibility and judgement was found to be severly lacking - quite rightly the US Govt was upset.
The article explains why that happened (and any credible intelligence agency would have been aware of the rise of the "insurgent" group forming in the Labour ranks in the 70's/80's. it was pretty obvious in day-to-day life here)....
So despite the best efforts of then CDF Jamieson to find a satisfactory way foward for both sides (eg the USS Buchanan visit), once the Buchanan was rejected, it seems to me things started to turn feral. The rest is history as they say...
But let's analyse things, from that point onwards, in a different way, for it didn't need to end like that....
1. It has been written about elsewhere that Lange wanted a bit more time to resolve the issue with his Party (which was infighting). It has been written by others that if this issue had been postponed for a few more months (i.e. after it was found that Lange was lacking in early 85) then once his Cabinet allies were fully in the picture, then a counter attack against the "insurgents" could have commenced (instead as the article explained his Cabinet allies then realised they had already lost the battle and went into damage control mode). Although whether Lange would go thru - who knows - and clearly the US Govt lost patience.
2. Although I respected the efforts of CDF Jamieson and the US/NZ officials to bring the Buchanan in, and had been dismissive of the then next attempt to bring in a non-nuclear capable FFG7 instead of the Buchanan , in my later life I have been rethinking this....
It seems the "insugents" (and peace groups) found the FFG7 acceptable, and it was a known fact that Lange did not want the ANZUS alliance to collapse. Granted US/NZ Foreign Policy shouldn't be dictated by these groupings, but the fact appears to be, if the US then agreed to the FFG7 visit proposal instead, ANZUS relations would probably have continued whilst Lange and his allies had time to sort things out (as I suspect the "insurgents" probably would have moved on from the ANZUS issue if a FFG7 had visited i.e. they were not primarily anti-ANZUS, they were pro- establishing their causes such as social justice and womens empowerment, not simply anti-US). A bit of face could have been saved by all sides - "insurgents" included.
(As an aside in the early 80's the RNZN publically stated on many occassions that they wanted to replace their two Rothesay Frigates with initially the Dutch Kortenaer and when that didn't eventuate, the Oliver Hazard Perry FFG7 class that the RAN were about to acquire. If the US were smart they could have accepted the FFG7 visit as a potential sales and marketing pitch) ...
3. The end result was simply cutting of miltary and intelligence ties with NZ. The US's reasons why were clear, but the result, if you think about it, is rather perverse, in essence ties were cut with the NZ military, the very institution that
wanted to preserve ties....
The only logical explanation was that it was to show other nations, such as Japan seeing they have had (and still have) issues with the US military forces based there i.e. "if you Japan go anti-nuclear like NZ, then we will cease to protect you". I can understand that thought, except that the signal sent, in that NZ was punished as a tactic to keep Japan in line, really seems to demonstrate that NZ (military) is a token irrelevence in the Western security apparatus and gives NZ peaceniks the opportunty to further say "see, why spend billions on useless Frigates, fighter planes and guns etc, when in fact they aren't needed". So which is it, shoulld NZ play its (small) part in collective defence, or simply cut its armed forces and spend it on civil defence and a coast guard because it is irrelevant in the wider scheme?
4. The end result was a victory to the "insurgents"! (I don't like using that word, but it neatly sums up the situation in one quick and simple word). As a result the "insurgents" put their people in power throughout the 80's/90's finally resulting in becoming the 1999 Govt (as the public tired of the then incumbent coalition Govt). Without there being an ANZUS Council meeting anymore, the US lost its direct ability to influence NZ defence posture and orientation. Eg for if NZ were still in ANZUS in 1999-2001, even with the change of Govt, you can be sure that the RNZAF would not have had its ACF cut, nor would have had the F16 deal cancelled. I say that because Clark, despite her social democrat leanings, is rather conservative in nature, and can be pragmatic. The last thing she would have wanted was a public war of words with the then Clinton adminstration (it would have been ok with she had a proxy eg Lange back in the day, but Clark is not always wishing to be publically confrontational - she is a backroom plotter and has other proxies carry out the axe whringing so her carefully crafted public image does not suffer), of who Labour and the Democrats have a reasonably good (albiet small) working relationship (it was exposed two years ago that Labour and the Dems had some electioneering campain relationship). Clark after all, once it could be demostrated that they were needed, after all sent in the SAS, Frigates and Orions into the Gulf as part of OpEF - perhaps if we still had an ACF, an occassional flight could have been sent over with the RAAF, in order to relieve deployment stress on the NZ Army...
So things could have been handled differently, in the meatime so much time has been lost whilst new generations of NZ people wonder why warships from the 5 main nuclear powers visit except the US. These people then start wondering why the US "has a problem" and those peaceniks are free to exploit this apparent mistrust.
If the US really wanted to win the ANZUS battle of the 1980's it should have threatened trade sanctions (they weren't affected - only defence). The Lange administration (and "insurgents") would have back peddled rather quickly.
Interesting that some of the US hawks that quickly lost patience with NZ in the 80's went on to support the PNAC concept and invade Iraq. Their mishandling of Iraq (by dis-establishing orderly life in Iraq) makes me question their competence handling the NZ issue of the 1980's......
