Standing Upright Here: another perspective: Russell Marshall on Malcolm Templeton's history of nuclear policy.

• Author: Marshall, Russell
• Position: Standing Upright Here: New Zealand in the Nuclear Age, 1945-1990 - Book review

In October 1989, I accompanied Geoffrey Palmer to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The night before the meeting started we had dinner with the new American Ambassador to Malaysia, Paul Cleveland, late of Wellington, New Zealand. He gave us each a copy of Thomas Friedman's then recent book From Beirut to Jerusalem, dealing with intractable problems of the Middle East. Half way through the book, Friedman makes this observation about the diplomacy of his own country, the United States:

For the first 200 years of its history, America lived in glorious isolation from the rest of the world. It was protected by two vast oceans, and its only serious foreign engagements after independence were the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War, which is to say no serious foreign engagements at all. There was no real need for Americans to learn the seamier lessons of diplomacy, espionage, and covert operations in order to survive in the world. When the 20th century arrived, America could no longer avoid being fully involved in the world in the first and second world wars; but, by then, America was able to step into the world with such overwhelming power and weight that whatever she lacked in cunning and guile was easily compensated for in sheer military might. By contrast, three months before that dinner with Paul Cleveland, I had sat in the Post Ministerial Dialogue meeting which followed the annual ASEAN ministers' meeting in Brunei. That meeting was dominated by the Australian bid for support for Bob Hawke's proposal for Asia--Pacific economic co-operation. After Gareth Evans had made his case, the ASEAN ministers--there were then only six of them--replied, one by one. We listened as Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand gave their views. By the end of the fifth contribution, it was still not clear whether the Australian proposal had ASEAN support. The final speaker was the doyen of the group, Ali Alatas, the Indonesian Foreign Minister. It was not until at least half way through his remarks that it became clear that South-east Asian governments would support Australia hosting the first meeting of what was to become APEC.

Several years later, sitting in the New Zealand seat at the ridiculously large 58-member UNESCO Executive Board, the Jordanian Deputy Director-General spoke with me after I had made an intervention in the debate. He said that he had finally realised why Australians and New Zealanders spoke as directly as we do. You are both surrounded by seas and oceans, he said. You have never had to learn to be careful with neighbours. So you come straight to the point. It was, I think, a compliment. But it was also perhaps an insight into one of our inherent risks or tendencies.

In the New Zealand/United States nuclear standoff, both sides...