Fred Frederikse: Always ask a taxi driver

Fred Frederikse

ALMOST everyone I spoke to was predicting that Hillary Clinton would be the next president of the United States -- all except my friend Keith, in Auckland, who was adamant all along that Donald Trump would win.

"I drive a lot of Americans to the airport," he told me, explaining his sources.

Keith and I go back to the '70s, when we shared a flat in Ponsonby and an interest in the Gonzo journalism of Hunter S Thompson. He had done a bit of journalism himself, like Thompson specialising in freelance pieces on sports and politics, before going back to driving taxis because the money was more reliable. If you wanted to know what was happening in Auckland, though, Keith was your man.

In last week's column I set the scene for the arrival of the USS Sampson in Auckland and said that I would attempt to find out at what level the decision was made to change from the "neither confirm nor deny" to the pragmatic "don't ask" position in regard to New Zealand's "nuclear-free" legislation.

I telephoned and emailed the US embassy and gave it my questions and the details of my deadline. Everyone was very polite and assured me that they would get back to me, which they didn't.

Admittedly, my request for information coincided with their election and the visit of US Secretary of State, John Kerry, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

I had a fall-back position; I had booked in an interview with MP Chester Borrows, so I put the same questions to him. I had given him a list of questions three weeks before, and he had even volunteered to find out for me. "Yes, please," I'd replied.

Come the day of interview, Chester shouted me a beer and that was about all I got. "Ask Murray McCully," he suggested and changed the subject to Utah and Mormonism. I got the impression that Chester was no longer in the loop and genuinely didn't know.

It was starting to look like no one knew about what had happened, or, if they did, they didn't want to talk about it.

With the deadline looming, I put a call through to cabbie Keith, who was sitting outside the international terminal in Auckland, waiting for a fare.

"I hear it was worked out on the golf course between Joe Biden and John Key," Keith told me. "They unilaterally decided to get around the nuclear-free legislation with a sleight of hand, which is to claim that a third party has assured the New Zealand Government that the USS Sampson is neither nuclear-powered nor nuclear-armed."

"Who's the third party?" I asked him.

"Probably the Israeli embassy. If Mossad doesn't know, no one does."

"You're joking," I suggested.

"That's for you to find out; got to go now. NZ1 has just arrived from Honolulu. Good luck," he said and hung up.