"Honest Rob's Almanac

of Pacific Wisdom

Behind his heavy eyelids, New Zealand’s prime minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, views the Pacific and the world with the scepticism of a veteran politician. The former accountant knows the importance of the balance sheet, both fiscal and political.

That is why 62-year old Muldoon spent over a month in February and March circling the globe. The ostensible reason was to preach his sermon of international monetary reform ... his passion ... in France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and in the United States.

Audiences with Francois Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan, gave Muldoon, and New Zealand, more coverage by the international press than either has received in many years. For example, Hobart Rowen, the Washington Post’s highly-respected economics analyst, devoted an entire column to Sir Robert’s views, saying that the stocky PM and finance minister ’’clearly enjoys his self assumed role of international gadfly” on the question of monetary reform.

Muldoon’s exhausting trip gave New Zealand higher visibility on the world scene. For a country of three million, it was a job well done.

In Honolulu Sir Robert took time to speak to Pacific Islands Monthly’s FLOYD K. TAKEUCHI. It was a wide-ranging discussion which touched upon finance, America’s role in Oceania, the nuclear issue, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Soviet Union’s strategic and political interests in the islands.