Lange was unfazed after being told America no longer felt bound to come to our aid, saying it was meaningless because we faced no threat from anyone. The Anzus alliance didn't require the US to defend us anyway, but Lange mused that if there was a full scale invasion of this country by the then Soviet Union he couldn't see America standing back and allowing it to happen.
So what began as a decades long road block, then a rock in the road, reducing to a pebble has now become tar seal with the Americans sending the USS Sampson to Auckland next month, their first warship to come here in 33 years.
But it's not a case of Uncle Sam waving the white flag, it's not altruistic its realistic.
The United States Vice President Joe Biden on his visit here recently was at pains to point out what a power his country was in the Pacific, they always have been and they're not going anywhere, he emphasised.
With the likes of China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada all sending warships here to commemorate our Navy's 75th anniversary in November, the United States had no choice but to stoke up the engines and join the rest of them while parking off to one side their neither confirm nor deny policy when it came to nuclear propulsion.
So one small step for New Zealand has become a major back down for the mighty world power!