US and New Zealand

March 8, 1985

[Western nations that balk at having nuclear weapons on their soil] would expect the United States to defend them in the last resort, and to carry a disproportionate risk and pay a higher financial cost for doing so. They cannot therefore be surprised if the United States tries to exercise pressure on them to share the burden more equally. The measures that the United States has taken in reprisal against Mr. Lange are mild ones. It has decided to withhold some inteligence information and to pull out of four naval exercises. Such steps . . . are certainly not an attempt to compel an ally to accept nuclear weapons . . . [and are] a sensible way of showing the New Zealanders, who so selflessly fought for the allies in Europe in the second World War, that no country can behave as a political island today.