World Notes NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The disclosure of two allegedly secret nuclear-arms agreements threatened to complicate U.S. defense arrangements on the Pacific Rim last week. In Japan, the Communist Party charged that it had found proof in the Library of Congress of a secret Washington-Tokyo accord. The Communists produced a photocopy of a 1966 State Department telegram to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo referring to a "confidential 1960 agreement ((that)) affords U.S. right to seek ((Japanese)) consent to introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan."

State Department officials acknowledged the authenticity of the telegram, but said it merely referred to the 1960 U.S.-Japan mutual security treaty. Why, then, the reference to a "confidential" document? "Imprecise" wording, a State spokesman said.

In New Zealand, meanwhile, Labor Party Prime Minister David Lange said he had agreed to let U.S. military aircraft land at the Christchurch air base on South Island. The arrangement, which Lange revealed last week under pressure in parliament, seems to make a mockery of his opposition to nuclear-armed ships docking in New Zealand ports. Lange's stand on that issue in 1985 effectively destroyed the ANZUS mutual defense treaty between the U.S., New Zealand and Australia.