Coyly Reticent

Christmas Is.

H-Bomb

Officials Still

Coyly Reticent

QFFICIAL hush-hush still sujr-

rounds Britain’s H-bomb

proposals as they affect Christ

mas Island, although Sir

Anthony Eden announced on June 7 that Britain would make a nuclear test equivalent to an explosion of 1,000,000 tons of TNT “in a remote part of the Pacific” in the first half of 1957.

The device will be exploded high in the air, probably from a Valiant jet bomber.

An official announcement that Christmas Island is to be used as a base for the tests has yet to be made although hundreds of “reports” are circulating freely.

Troops have been reported embarking in Singapore on the Devonshire for Christmas Island {Devonshire is the troopship on which the Fijian battalion returned to Fiji); army technicians are re ported having been flown by Qantas from San Francisco “for an undisclosed Pacific Island destina tion”: other troops are reported coming from some place else to establish a missile tracking station.

In the meantime no authentic information is available in Sydney as to the fate of South Pacific Air Lines who planned a Honolulu- Papeete air service to begin this month, and for whom* Christmas Island was a vital staging point on the route.

It was reported last month that talks were being held in Washington between US and UK officials in respect of several million dollars compensation that SPAL was claiming for confiscation of its landing rights on Christmas.

SPAL is an American company and both Britain and America had approved its plans for the island.

Fuel depots, radio and weather stations and passenger facilities were nearing completion, then, without warning. Britain apparently decided on Christmas as a base for its nuclear experiments, and ordered the company to quit.

In Western Samoa in May a joint session of the Legislative Assembly and the Fono of Faipule protested in a special resolution against the explosion of ah H-bomb at Christmas. Later in the month the protest was brought before the visiting United Nations Trusteeship Council Mission; the Mission ad mitted that durjng its visit to the

Territory of the Marshall Islands it had received a similar protest from the inhabitants of that group in respect of US H-bomb tests in that area.

No one, of, course, will take the slightest notice of the protests of 100,000 Samoans and no doubt tfre nuclear tests will go on. But it' is about time that the ridiculous secrecy that surrounds the whole Christmas Island project was scrapped and a few plain facts officially announced.

With the United States and the United Kingdom* now experimenting in the area, vast sections of the Pacific have become forbidden territory.

We have to be realistic about these things but no one need pretend that it makes the inhabit ants of the Pacific Islands — traditionally remote, free and secluded —particularly happy. It makes them even less happy when the whole thing is surrounded by half-truths and mystery an atmosphere in which the fears of simple people can grow unchecked.

A clear and simple statement as to what Britain intends for Christmas Island is overdue. One may assume that the Russians are completely au fait with what is about to be done; therefore a little enlightenment for those most concerned —i.e., those who live there abouts —would be in order.