LONDON — The Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG) shows signs of a long, hot autumn of protest

| pant the arrival of U.S. cruise and Pershing II mis-
' Siles.

} demonstrators blocked the U.S. military base at Mut-
| § langen, east of Stuttgart, where a battery of Pershing II
} Nuclear missiles is to be installed by December. A per-
| Manent peace camp was established at the entrance to
} the base and hundreds of demonstrators were arrested
by the police. :
Peace camps have sprung up at every U.S. base where
the New missiles are to be sited and at places where
arlier models of nuclear weapons have long been
_ Slationed. The peace camps are but a preliminary to the
luge anti-missile demonstrations being planned by the
. G Peace movement for October. These are expected
lo bring at least one million people into the streets of five
Cities to challenge Chancellor Kohl’s Christian Demo-
‘Tat government’s decision to abide by the 1979 NATO
decision, adopted at U.S. insistence, to accept 108
|| ‘Tst-strike Pershing II missiles on FRG soil.
| _InDecember the first battery of nine Pershing II laun-
| chers and missiles will be put in place. The rest of the 108
| 4€ to be installed over the following three years, in the
| three U.S. bases at Neckarsulm, Schwibisch Gmund
y and Neu Ulm. At the same time, 464 cruise Tomahawk
| Missiles are to be installed in Britain, Italy, Belgium and
Olland. Together.these missiles represent the biggest
| “Scalation of nuclear weaponry in Western Europe.
U.S. Troops
_These missiles are to be manned by U.S. troops, spe-
Cally brought in and therefore comprising an even great-
. *t tipping of the troop balance in Europe in favor of the
ATO forces. The missile program is a U.S. operation:
of Western European countries are put in the position
Sccupied countries — first they have to pay the cost of
Missile bunker construction and then the cost of being
€stroyed in any ensuing nuclear war.
© FRG people are particularly angry because their
Country is the only one in NATO to receive the Pershing
S, the more dangerous of the two missiles. People in the
are aware that they have been doubly deceived in
“ab to thé missiles. They were told that the Pershing
S Were merely a ‘‘modernized”’ form of the 108 Persh-

a

ide of protes

During the first week of September hundreds of peace

From | 3

William
Pomeroy

ra

ing Is that had been placed in the FRG years ago. The
slow Pershing I, however, cannot reach Soviet territory
while Pershing II can reach the vicinity of Moscow in 10
minutes and can be modified for far greater distances. Its
speed makes it a first-strike threat inviting massive re-

‘taliation. '

The second deception has to do with the so-called
“‘twin-track’’ policy, of allegedly negotiating with the
Soviet Union for missile reduction and removal while
going ahead with the Pershing and cruise installation. An
impression was created, fostered by both the previous
Schmidt Social Democrat government and the present
Kohl regime, that there was nothing to fear, that the
missiles would be negotiated away. People, however,
have woken up to the truth that the Reagan Admin-
istration is only pretending to negotiate to mask the
decision to emplace the missiles.

In the FRG the mobilized peace forces are surging
against the by-now-near-frantic Kohl governments in a
rising tide. Daily the FRG press, television and radio,
and political debate in and out of the government, are
dominated by the missile issue. As the FRG police are
ordered out to display increasing brutality against
demonstrators, there are press reports by foreign obser-
vers that ‘‘Trade unionists and churchmen, writers and
artists, students and pensioners are turning out on the
streets to try to stop the deployment of new U.S. mis-
siles’’ (Financial Times, September 15).

Red Baiting Peace Movement
In the face of surveys that have shown over 75 percent
of the population in favor of postponing the missile
deployment even if the Geneva U.S.-Soviet arms control
talks break down, officials of the Kohl government are
turning desperately to the old raw red-baiting tactic

t pounds Kohl gov't

against the peace movement. On September 12 the Par-

liamentary State Secretary of Interior Ministry, Carl-

Dieter Spranger, told a right-wing rally in Munich that

400 leaders of the West German Communist Party were

in the peace movement giving direction to it. In lurid

terms he shouted that “hundreds of well-trained Com-

munist Party officials have infiltrated the anti-nuclear

movement and are working round the clock to control its ©
activity.”

The Communist Party is certainly participating in the
campaign to halt the missile program that threatens a
nuclear war that would obliterate the FRG. It is, how-
ever, but one of hundreds of organizations that actively
support the peace movement.

Social Democrats
Much more significant, as far as overall forces in the
FRG are concerned, is the trend in the main opposition
party, recently the party of government and capable of
returning to power in the next election, the Social Demo-

. cratic Party (SPD). The SPD, from its grassroots on

upwards, is in a ferment over the missile issue. To date
four of the regional conferences of the SPD organiza-
tions in the 11 FRG federal states have been held and all
of them have overwhelmingly rejected any deployment
of the Pershing IIs or the Cruise. Furthermore, they
called for the SPD to have solidarity with the civil dis-
obedience campaigners of the peace movement.
Latest of these conferences, which took place on Sep-
tember 11, was in Baden-Wurtemberg, which is the re-

_ gion where most of the 108 Pershing IIs are to be sited. It

reflected the feelings of the people in the area.

The anti-missile sentiment in the SPD has compelled .
the holding of a special national conference of the party,
in November,. called to decide party policy on missile
deployment. Other regional conferences are to take
place before that and, if the prevailing trend is continued,
the November conference could be filled with anti-
Pershing delegates.

On September 14 the most recent public opinion poll
was released. It showed 66 per cent of the people in the
FRG completely opposed to any deployment of néw
missiles. This is a more decisive expression than the
survey indicating over 75 per cent in favor of merely
postponing deployment, and is the largest number yet
shown in opposition to the NATO decision.

GDR PROPOSAL TO FRG

nat

| | ‘Coalition of common sense’

sc

DeERLIN — The German
Mocratic Republic has aroused

itiative. In a letter to West Ger-
GDR nancellor Helmut Kohl, the
SUP State council chairman and
general secretary, Erich

ker, called for ‘‘a coalition
ea sense’’ between the
calm; €rman states “to exert a
Situatie effect on the international
iyi 10n and to leave nothing un-
ie could prevent a new
Othe of atomic armaments.
Twise the situation will grow

me acute and the danger of war
lincrease. 5

i All:the more do I feel myself
Pelled to appeal to you once
ae to reconsider your position
kets € stationing of new U.S. roc-
and os the territory of the FRG
© use all your influence for

the re . .
achin:

| Geneva” g of an agreement in
Such

Honec

“cf an agreement, Honecker
» Should be based ‘‘on the

"ciple of equality and mutual

Seat interest with a new peace

security that leads to a reduction
of atomic rockets in both east and
west.’’ Honecker made the point
that Kohl’s election slogan in
March, ‘‘peace with less wea-
pons’, is ‘‘hardly consistent with
a policy of automatic stationing
(of new nuclear missiles), which
would make the Federal Republic
a central starting place for U.S.
first strike atomic weapons
against the USSR and against
usSGs
Pointing out that the Soviet
Union and the other socialist
countries have made a number of
concrete proposals on disarma-
ment which take into account the
interests of both sides, Honecker
warned that ‘“‘a continuing
sharpening of the situation’” can
hardly serve the interests of either
side. Further piling up of arma-
ments would follow, and the pro-
cess brings with it “the aena ed
of opening up a new ice age In
earons Deiveen the GDR and
the FRG”, that could put in
jeopardy “‘what we have already
achieved and what we have been
iving for’.
ne GDR, Honecker em-
phasized, ‘“‘was ready to support
every step, and to go along every
road, and to consider every idea
which would bring us closer to a
secure peace in Europe and serve
peace in the whole world”.
There is powerful support in

the FRG for such a ‘coalition of

commonsense’. The overwhelm-

ing majority of members of the
Social Democratic Party (SPD) in
the FRG have now expressed
their emphatic opposition to the
U.S.-NATO plan to station new

missiles in western Europe at

provincial and district confer-
ences of the SPD.

Another important develop-
ment is the emergence of the West
German trade union movement,
the DGB, which now calls for par-
ticipation of its members in the
fight against the missiles program
and for peace.

Czechoslovakia’s reply to deployment

‘Sports stadium to missile range’

PRAGUE — Another indica-
tion of the seriousness with which
the socialist community views the
planned deployment of new U.S.
missiles in Western Europe is re-
vealed in this response by
Czechoslovak Communist Party
leader Vasil Bilak to a question
posed last week by BBC corre-
spondent Mark Brayne: :

Brayne: What will be the con-
sequences for East-West rela-
tions in general and disarmament

talks in particular if NATO de-_
‘ployment of medium-range mis-
siles goes ahead this winter. What

measures will Czechoslovakia as
one of the Warsaw Treaty states

- consider taking in response?

Bilak: Very unfavorable ones.
Everything that it was possible to
attain during the years of peaceful
coexistence at the cost of great
efforts is beginning to crumble.

Figuratively speaking, for
years we have together been
building a sports stadium in which
we wanted to compete. Today,
due to the policy of imperialism, it
is to be transformed into a lethal
missile range.

It is not only a matter of this
winter. A*completely new situa-
tion will arise — a dangerous, crit-
ical and long-term one. A new
round of the arms race will be set
into motion. Czechoslovakia,

_ which has learned through his-

torical experience, cannot
passively watch the deployment
of new weapons of destruction on
its western border.

It intends to fulfill its obliga-—
tions relating to the defence of the
socialist community. We would
prefer if this were not necessary,
if we weren’t faced with a dis-

‘turbing of the present balance of

forces. We fully support the ef-
forts of the Soviet Union aimed at
maintaining equal security for all.

We are not fatalists; we do not —
think war is inevitable and we
have not lost our confidence that _
there are great forces which can
prevent war and avert a
catastrophe.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 19, 19683—Page 7