My apologies Tiger593, I did post here a while back (in 05/06) in the US Civil War thread........but I got confused with the actual process of posting and replying so I simply put it in the 'too hard basket'. Now I think I've made a similar mistake in reporting back my findings........the html formatting seems to have made the whole thing a mish mash and extremely difficult to read.

......I would like to discuss with you an episode occurred just after Ww2 end, where it was claimed that some new zealandese soldiers were killed by tito partisans. It is reported from different sources here, but it seems that NZ Government at the time (the early stage of the Cold War) officially denied it.

I managed to find two instances where NZ soldiers were killed by both  Tito partisans and Chetniks. I also located a reference to the 'British intelligence officer' Geoffrey Cox and some of his observations on the savagery that went on during 'the forty days of Trieste' the period when the partisans held most of Trieste. This in turn led me to the Basovizza foibe and whole new can of worms, (foibe = cave, pit, limestone sinkhole, mine). Now basically I'm waiting on a reply from my young correspondent - 'It is reported from different sources here...' about what he knows from his sources.......so maybe I'll be able to see if we're on the right track. It's hard to believe that the NZ Govt would suppress the deaths of servicemen, but given the cloak and dagger stuff of the Cold War........who knows??

Well in the meantime.......just reorganising my thoughts on which direction to go...

Walter Nash became a Labour PM of New Zealand who earned the undying emnity of my grandmother by hiking the tax on tobacco ( a packet of cigarettes was 2/6, I used to go and get them for her).....and when approached by angry Labour Party supporters said that 'they should suck lemon drops instead of smoking'. I always remember him as a nice old man with a broad english accent. 

http://www.nzembassy.com/info.cfm?c=31&l=86&CFID=2250531&CFTOKEN=6282&s=bu&p=60358

Later in the year, the Deputy Prime Minister (and subsequent Prime Minister), Walter Nash, was appointed to Washington as 'Special Minister " to the United States. (He would retain both his Ministerial portfolios and his parliamentary seat in New Zealand).

Nash arrived in January and presented his credentials to President Roosevelt on 16 February 1942, the day after the fall of Singapore. The collapse of the British imperial presence in Southeast Asia in effect brought into sharp focus the new facts of strategic life for New Zealand, as for the United States; the Asian-Pacific dimension of things had loomed threateningly and very large into sight for both countries. It is a reflection of this reciprocity of concern that the first United States Legation in New Zealand was established 1 April 1942; Patrick J. Hurley, the first Minister, presented his credentials in Wellington on 24 April 1942.

NEW ZEALAND IN WASHINGTON

1942-45: The Wartime Legation

The task ahead of Walter Nash and his small staff was formidable. In wartime Washington, as the United States was marshalling its amazing resources and being propelled into world leadership, the Legation had to ensure a New Zealand voice in the formulation of allied strategy, to foster bilateral ties, to arrange supplies and equipment and to speak for New Zealand on a whole range of issues. The history shows that New Zealand often felt frustrated by the difficulty of securing recognition as a full and equal partner.

The many demands on Nash within the United States, back home and representing New Zealand in wartime councils, meant that he spent much time away from Washington. Geoffrey Cox acted as Charge d'Affaires for much of the time between his arrival in July 1942 and Nash's final departure from Washington in July 1944. Cox, who was seconded from the New Zealand Division in the Middle East, recalls that on his arrival in Washington Walter Nash took him down to the White House to meet President Roosevelt. The President asked if the Alamein position - which Rommel had reached a few days earlier - would hold. Cox, who had just left the New Zealanders there, said it was a good defensive position and should be held. "Well, I hope so," said the President, "since we've sent them all our best tanks and my generals didn't like that at all".

Cox later wrote of the Special Minister:

". . . Nash rapidly won for himself a remarkable degree of influence in Washington. He had reasonably easy access to the President (access he skilfully did not over use), to Cordell Hull at the State Department, and very importantly to Admiral King, who was the dominant figure in controlling the war in the Pacific . . . he did a first class job for New Zealand during the intermittent periods he spent in Washington between 1942 and 1944".

Nash's biographer, Sir Keith Sinclair, writes that Nash spoke often (to U.S. audiences) about New Zealand's welfare state, but also about the great issues of war and peace, about what the allies were fighting for, about the better world to come. People had to believe this, and wanted to hear it. He came to be referred to very often in the press as a Pacific New Dealer..... His sentiments and opinions on such topics as international aid, peace, social welfare, happily coincided with the very strong streak of idealism in American opinion at that time. He gave speeches called, for instance, "The End of Imperialism", which were very much in line with liberal American thinking .... Nash very often hit the front pages. For all the pressures Nash later described his time in Washington as one of the happiest periods of his life.

During the McCarthy era of the early 50's Nash was refused entry to the US on the grounds he was a 'communist'!