Brian Rudman: OK, we're friends again - now say 'sorry'

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jets to New Zealand tomorrow to sign the "Wellington Declaration".

Prime Minister John Key says the visit will mark the end of a row over nuclear weapons dating back almost 25 years. If it does, the important question is, will it contain an apology from the Americans, for its petulant behaviour towards a good friend for daring to express an independent thought.

Mr Key says it will outline closer ties and mark a new chapter in the relationship and "show that the last vestiges of any concern about the anti-nuclear legislation have gone".

At least he did affirm that New Zealand would continue to run an independent foreign policy, which is a relief, because we shouldn't forget that this is what this visit is about.

The Americans have finally come to their senses and accepted that friends can differ on defence issues without being sent to Coventry.

In Honolulu a few days ago, on the eve of her trip through Asia and the Pacific, Mrs Clinton noted in passing that "in Malaysia and New Zealand, our diplomats and development experts are bringing their talents to bear and building stronger ties on every level, including increased trade, people-to-people exchanges, and efforts to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime".

Given that the big freeze was sparked by New Zealand's adoption of a South Pacific nuclear non-proliferation zone of its own, the suggestion now that the US is pushing this goal out of the Wellington embassy is a bit like teaching granny to suck eggs.

Reports question whether the Wellington Declaration might lift the presidential ban - dating back to the Reagan administration - on joint military exercises and operations between New Zealand and United States forces.

That this ban exists will be news to the families of the New Zealand soldier killed in America's war in Afghanistan this year, and other Kiwi fighters who were injured.

In a State Department briefing last week, assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell noted that while in New Zealand, Mrs Clinton "will reaffirm, really, a recommitment to a relationship that has not received much attention over the course of the last 25 years".

The declaration "would underscore our desire to see US-New Zealand relations return to a significance in terms of co-ordination on a range of issues - non-proliferation, politics, climate change, how we work together in the Pacific Islands". Oh yes, "and we, of course, are very grateful for the work and support that New Zealand has provided us and other nations in Afghanistan".

This underlined his comments the month before that relations between the two countries were "profoundly underperforming" and that in many respects, the US and New Zealand were "much closer than some countries that would be described as formal allies in the current environment".

All of this is good news. It's great to have friends, especially the world super-power. But after 25 years of eye-balling this super-power over non-proliferation, and forcing it to be the one to finally blink, let's not totally buy into the US version of history.

This year, President Barack Obama invited Mr Key to attend his nuclear security summit, which was held to discuss ways of preventing terrorists and criminals and "rogue" states getting their hands on any "loose" bomb-grade plutonium and uranium.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who was deputy prime minister when the US black-listing began, said the invitation was a "vindication" of New Zealand's pioneering stance.

He said it was now "desirable" that US Navy ship visits recommenced, but only if they didn't breach our historic legislation banning nuclear-armed or powered warships.

Most New Zealanders would agree with him. They might also expect something along these lines to appear in the declaration, just to underline the history behind the long freeze.

When Mrs Clinton and her diplomats talk non-proliferation in Wellington salons, hopefully their New Zealand counterparts could emphasise that the US and its old foe, Russia, still have 23,000 nuclear weapons armed and pointing at each other - and goodness knows who else. That is 95 per cent of the world's known nuclear arsenal.

President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dimitry Medvedev, have signed an agreement to reduce this ballistic rocket killing force to 1550 apiece by 2017, but this doesn't include 10,000 smaller battlefield nukes, and weapons awaiting destruction.

Just turning the thousands of "on alert and ready to fire" missiles off would make the world a much safer place. At present, all that is needed to unleash a nuclear holocaust is 20 minutes of madness in a presidential office on either side of the Atlantic.

New Zealand's lonely and quixotic stance in the mid-1980s against this remnant of Cold War madness is just as relevant now as then. Let's be proud of this legacy when Mrs Clinton comes visiting.