Atolls In H-Bomb Project

France To Use Five Tuamotu Atolls In H-Bomb Project

After months of speculation, it was officially announce m April that France would use five atolls in the Tuamotu Arch pelago of French Polynesia as bases for a nuclear testing projec It had previously been believed that Mangareva in the Gambi« Archipelago would be used for this purpose.

HTHE five atolls in the testing proj ect are Muruoa, Fangataufa, Tureia, Hao and Anaa. Mururoa, an uninhabited atoll, about 775 miles south-east of Tahiti, will be the main base.

On Fangataufa, about 20 miles south-south-east of Mururoa, there will be an observation post. Tureia, about 62 miles north-north-east of Mururoa, will be a radar base. And international airports, which will be open for civilian traffic, will be built at Anaa and Hao. (Hao is about 500 miles east of Tahiti, and Anaa is about half way between Ta hiti and Hao.) About £5 million has been set aside for the project, and the first tests are expected to be held early next year.

Noumea newspapers said in mid- April that work on a base camp at Mururoa had started. The papers said that the French naval sloop Francis Gamier had taken 17 sol diers of an engineers’ regiment and 26 soldiers of the regular forces based at Tahiti to build the base camp on the atoll.

The Francis Gamier, the papers added, had since returned to Papeete, but the 26 regular soldiers and eight members of the sloop’s crew—in cluding radio and meteorological technicians—had remained at Muru roa.

It was also reported in April that a group of technicians from the

Civil Aviation and Public Works partments in Tahiti had left Anaa to plan the projected aerodi there.

Earlier, the Governor of T; Mr. Aimee Grimald, convened a cial meeting of French Polyne Territorial Assembly and the Paj Municipal Council to explain d« of the nuclear testing project.

He said Tahiti would play an portant role in the project a would serve as a disembarks point for men and supplies, present maritime traffic of 80,000 a year would increase by at ; 50 per cent.; and to cope with the port of Papeete would be r ernised at a cost of nearly £3 lion.

Mr. Grimald said that at ] 1,000 houses would be built in hiti for the project’s technici Workshops and laboratories wi also be built.

Papeete’s Grand Hotel had II requisitioned to house about technicians expected in April. L in the year, two companies of A. engineers would be sent to Mum to build the main base, which wo be called the Centre d’Experime: tion du Pacifique (CEP).

Mr. Grimald emphasised that C would be of great economic tage to Tahiti. Radioactive fall in Tahiti would be negligible bees explosions at Mururoa would c be held when the wind was bll

towards the south where there do land. i the event of war, there will io danger that an enemy will 3EP for a target,” he said, saking of Tahiti’s tourist indus jovernor Grimald said that this d not be affected by the base [ururoa as the base would be i further from Tahiti than the da desert (where the United s had held tests) was from Los les. ports of France’s nuclear test dans for the Pacific touched off sts from Parliamentary leaders >th Australia and New Zealand, stralia’s External Affairs Minis- Sir Garfield Barwick, said in ly on April 19 after a visit to that he had registered Aus ’s deep regret at France’s in »n to carry out nuclear tests in said that in an interview with Tench Foreign Minister, M. C. lurville, he had made it clear Australia feared fall-out from ar tests. a radio-television broadcast on 19, President de Gaulle told Tench people that the survival ranee in the nuclear age re el a purely French national ic force, and that the French e should be willing to pay the of it. He made no mention e Tuamotu Archipelago project, rlier, the French Information iter, M. Alain Peyrefitte, said France’s atomic force would be lity at the end of the summer, ranee has no atomic worries,” id. “The scheduled programme ing according to plan without lew difficulty,” ee "Little-known H-Bomb Atolls Have Place in the Hall of Fame", page 9.