How the grand old dame of the US Navy navigated NZ’s nuke-free policy

Analysis: The USS Buchanan was turned back. The USS Great Bridge was turned back. So what changed to allow warships like USS Blue Ridge into NZ?

Here’s one for the ship spotters. One of the biggest American warships ever to visit New Zealand sailed into Wellington on Friday morning.

There are brass bands. There are flags and bunting. The 19,600 ton (17,800 tonne) USS Blue Ridge is the flagship of America’s Seventh Fleet and, at the age of 56 years, is also the grand old lady of the US Navy.

(As best I can discover, the Blue Ridge is the biggest US Navy vessel to visit since the 1968 Vietnam War-era visit of the aircraft carrier USS America, which fully laden was 83,573 long displacement tons, which is 84,914 US tons, or 77,031 metric tonnes, or … oh, never mind, it was big).

The ship’s leadership is scheduled to meet with Kiwi counterparts and local leaders to discuss ways of improving operational readiness, advancing future military capabilities, and enhancing the US-New Zealand bilateral relationship.

“This historic port visit by the USS Blue Ridge and our 7th Fleet team speaks to deep ties the US and New Zealand share,” says Vice Admiral Fred Kacher, commander of the US 7th Fleet. “Our partnership is rooted in our common values and respect, and our visit here represents an important opportunity for us to further strengthen the bond between our nations and our navies.”

So, umm, the question not addressed by the US State Department press release: how are we getting around the nuke ship ban to allow US warships to visit again?

Like I say, this is one for the ship spotters.

The USS Blue Ridge, the 193m flagship of the Seventh Fleet, is guided to its berth at Wellington's CentrePort on Friday morning.

New Zealanders had protested US nuclear-powered ships since the visits of the cruisers USS Truxtun and Long Beach in 1976. But things really came to a head when the destroyer USS Texas visited Auckland and Wellington in 1983. My recollection (but I’m damned if I can find a source to confirm this) is a protester in a kayak banging his paddle on the side of the ship and declaring gleefully, “I can hear the nukes rattling inside!”

Kevin Hackwell went on to lead Forest & Bird, but he was a young member of the peace movement at the time. He and a friend got wind from the police, a month out, that the Texas would be visiting. So they spent that month training in the sea – and when it steamed into Wellington Harbour, they swum out from Point Jerningham.

The plan, Hackwell tells me, was to spraypaint ‘Ban the Bomb’ on the hull – but that proved impossible in the choppy waters. So instead, he tied a neoprene ribbon to the anchor chain.

They got spotted and had to swim away; when they got back to shore, police were waiting to arrest them.

The following year, the Fourth Labour Government was elected and soon after, David Lange banned visits from nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships. To America, this act of defiance undermined its strategic position in friendly ports around the world.

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Although New Zealand was still willing to accept visits from non-nuclear US ships (as it always has from French and Royal Navy ships), the Reagan Administration stuck resolutely to its ‘neither confirm nor deny’ policy.

That’s not to say there weren’t attempts to send US ships to New Zealand. The US quietly negotiated to send an ageing tub named USS Buchanan. While theoretically nuclear-capable, everyone knew it didn’t carry nukes. But when the New Zealand Government (in something of a communications breakdown) turned down even the Buchanan, that was the final straw.

The US barred any visits by any naval ships to New Zealand, and the visits of any New Zealand navy ships to its ports, and the Anzus alliance crumbled.

There was one more comms breakdown in 2003, that I discovered and reported as political editor of the Sunday Star-Times. The US Army landing craft USS Great Bridge, based in Guam, sought permission for a routine US$1.4m refit in a commercial dockyard in New Zealand. It was halfway down the Pacific, when an American official somewhere found out and ordered action stations.

The ship’s captain was cabled and reminded of the US ban on military ship visits, and the vessel was redirected to Australia.

Subsequent diplomatic cables, published on Wikileaks, revealed American embassy discussions of the incident, and my reports.

“Milne’s article posited that the US Government lost a chance to break the 20-year diplomatic stalemate, noting that PM [Helen] Clark claimed it was ‘highly likely’ that a request for such a refit would have been approved once it was determined that the ship fit New Zealand’s anti-nuclear legislation.”

Perhaps my articles back then were overly sympathetic to the US Government – because the subsequent leaked cables to Washington DC described me as “the respected Sunday Star-Times reporter”, and my articles as “well-balanced”. I guess you take the wins where you can get them!

Then, after years of negotiations between successive New Zealand and US governments, the long stalemate finally ended in 2012, when US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta announced he was lifting the prohibition on ship visits. And in 2016, PM John Key agreed to the arrival of the destroyer USS Sampson, for the New Zealand Navy’s 75th birthday celebrations in Auckland.

The Sampson never made it to the birthday party. The Kaikōura earthquake hit, and the American ship instead detoured to the small South Island town, where captain and crew assisted with the emergency response. The first US warship visit in 30 years was not to Wellington or Auckland, but to Kaikōura.

In 2021, PM Jacinda Ardern welcomed another destroyer, the USS Howard. And this week, the biggest post-rapprochement visit of all, the USS Blue Ridge.

The difficulty is, New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy hasn’t changed. And neither has the American policy to ‘neither confirm nor deny’.

So how have the two nations negotiated their way through this? With a lot of determination and goodwill, is the short answer – and perhaps a degree of grace and humility.

There won’t be any visits from nuclear-powered aircraft carriers or submarines – New Zealand law prohibits visits from nuclear-powered vessels.

As for nuclear weapons, the law reads: “The Prime Minister may only grant approval for the entry into the internal waters of New Zealand by foreign warships if the Prime Minister is satisfied that the warships will not be carrying any nuclear explosive device upon their entry into the internal waters of New Zealand.”

So ahead of this week’s visit, we may be certain that the US sought diplomatic clearance. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would have conducted an assessment, before advising Christopher Luxon that the Blue Ridge is neither nuclear-powered, nor nuclear-armed.

That would allow him to satisfy himself, as the law requires, that the USS Blue Ridge is compliant with New Zealand’s nuclear ships ban. And the US is not required to compromise its ‘neither confirm nor deny’ policy.

Kevin Hackwell doesn’t question the PM’s assessment that the Blue Ridge isn’t nuclear armed. US Navy surface ships, by doctrine, do not carry nuclear weapons.

But he got close to the US Navy once before; he doesn’t think New Zealand needs to get close again. “The US is proving to be a very unreliable ally,” he says.

“Given the stance of the US, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region against China, we should be distancing ourselves. We shouldn’t be militarily aligned with them. We shouldn’t be aligned with China either. New Zealand should be taking an independent foreign policy and military stance.”

To be fair, New Zealand’s foreign policy remains officially independent. And what is apparent is that Luxon is taking a wait-and-see approach as tensions between the US and China, on either side of the Pacific, heighten. His initial instincts to align more closely with the US have clearly been shaken by Donald Trump’s volatility on foreign policy, and his fervour for a trade war.

Luxon is right to pause and take time.

As for Hackwell, he is now 69. He lives in Wellington, but his days of swimming out to warships are done. “I just about died last time. I got hypothermia. No, I’m not swimming out to the Blue Ridge today!”a