France: Not Guilty'

While the French continued their nuclear bomb tests in French Polynesia’s Tuomotu Islands during June, the French Government was busy denying allegations by some scientists that the bomb tests might have been the cause of the earthquake disaster in Peru that has killed an estimated 50,000 people. A disgruntled French Embassy in Canberra issued a communique that underground tests, a common occurrence in the deserts of Nevada in the US, would be a more likely cause of the earthquakes.

Over Radio Australia, reporting from Paris, Elizabeth Bower, commented on June 8: “French Government officials were taken by surprise here by the suggestion that there could possibly be any link. Although the French Press and radio have given day-by-day coverage of the Peruvian disaster, and there are many French correspondents on the spot, none as yet has made any reference to the rumours believed to be circulating about the possibility of a connection between the two events.

“The general impression here is that the idea is too far-fetched to be even worth any serious consideration, and a Defence Ministry spokesman limited himself to the curt comment: ‘There is no possible link. There is no question of cause and effect’.

“The French have always prided themselves that their tests in the Pacific have not been nearly as dirty as those carried out in earlier years by the Americans, and they have developed the technique of exploding their nuclear devices suspended from balloons nearly 2,000 ft above sea-level.

“In the present series three out of the eight experiments planned have already taken place. The first, a low-powered atomic device was set for May 15, the second on May 22, and the third more powerful on Saturday, May 30. The earthquake was on Monday, June 1.

“The object of the present series is twofold: to test improvements in the firing device for thermo-nuclear bombs, and to test the effect of the considerable work done by French scientists on the miniaturisa tion of nuclear weapons, particularly in the missile field.

“The series is due to end with a hydrogen bomb test on July 3 which will, of course, be far more massive than anything which precedes it.”

The next day, Canberra’s French Embassy, had this to say; “At a time when several scientific personalities, both Australian and South American, have already made known through Press and radio the improbability of a correlation between the French nuclear aerial tests in the Pacific and the recent catastrophe in Peru, 6,000 kilometres away, it may seem opportune to emphasise certain facts: Since 1963, France has not undertaken any underground nuclear tests whereas other great powers have for many years followed a programme of important underground explosions at a rate which surpasses one explosion a month.

“No one can affirm that these underground explosions of high intensity can cause seismic shocks, thousands of kilometres away. But one can affirm that the recent French aerial explosions which were of low intensity and whose energy is greatly reduced when reaching ground level could certainly not cause such movements.”

Meanwhile, French Polynesia’s two representatives in the French parliament, Senator Alfred Poroi and Mr. Francis Sanford, were among those who witnessed the May 30 nuclear explosion in the Pacific which was France’s 17th.

The explosion took place over Fangataufa Atoll. It was the first time that any of French Polynesia’s political representatives had been invited to see a nuclear explosion. Mr. Sanford is a member of the majority coalition in the local Territorial Assembly which has been strongly opposed to the French nuclear tests in the Pacific.