Story of the town that opposes missile bases The mayor Said no By PHYLLIS ROSNER N ._ BERLIN 0 E day last month, Mayor i i of the small town te €nberg, was invited to Bane discussion” at quarters, government head- Miltenty Since that time much ;. © Bas been very in the news, F een Blatz was told that rocket : was afoot to build a Rodd ae In the neighbor- the “4 Miltenberg, just by est ae of Mainbullau. army eens and American arrivin teers would soon be To * to Survey the site. the Sas Increasing alarm of ficials (say government of- sue ey found it was not Blatz Se matter—Mayor Miltent ade 1t quite clear that Missile me did not want a tie ase in its vicinity. arr oan to soothe the by explaining that Project was “only” for rockets and - range missiles, ‘ The answel Ways the same — erg did not want a Nek in its vicinity. er Blatz explained it rocket Eerie what type of lation aS intended, its instal- for Be eeented a danger € population. He did th °onfine his remarks to pyonan government rep- atives, but repeated his aes the West Ger. i €vision system and to Moret = vie gaa = tate lc Republic Radio. Vie & his television inter- “~. he stated: retain want Miltenberg to t ee beauty and for it 38 ain an island of peace if «because we are worried oY i Were to come the tei €ntire firing power, Pective from where it on €, Would be concentrated this spot.” s ‘ a ten Missile Tesen: lew an epor Mitte man the inhabitants of Nberg supported their mayor, so did Mainbullau’s 167 inhabitants. This tiny vil- lage, without a direct bus or train service, wants to re- main peaceful. For a while, however, Main- bullau with its 600-year-old church, together with Milten- berg, was the centre of at- tention. Hundreds of cars ar- rived each weekend full of visitors anxious to see just what sort of place the Am- ericans had hoped to use to station their deadly nuclear weapon. They wanted to see, too, what sort of people these Miltenbergers were who had said “No!” so loudly. The affair had wide pub- licity in the West German Press. The Munich Illustrated, one of the Federal Republic’s glossy weeklies, published a pictorial feature. A caption under a huge photo of Miltenberg read: “This is Miltenberg, an island of peace, idyllic within Ger- many’s distubed past and it is to remain idyllic according to its inhabitants’ unanimous wish.” By a. majority decision, Miltenberg town council en- dorsed its mayor’s rejection of the suggestion of a missile - base. Very soon local village councils were passing simi- lar resolutions. Recently a reporter visited Miltenberg to test out whether feeling was still running so in the capital indicate. pH AIR defense agreement between the United States and Canada now being drawn up is expected to include provision for U.S. missile bases in this country, reports Although the U.S. has not yet made any formal request for permission to build any new radar or missile installations on Cana- dian territory and no recommendations have yet been placed before the federal govern- Missile bases for Canada? ioe Guided missiles like these at Wa shington now ring many U.S. cities OTTAWA ment, U.S. and Canadian military leaders are reported to be discussiong the question. In the meantime, the U.S. is preparing to enlarge its present radar lines by construc- tion of three ballistic missile detection sta- tions. These will have a 3,000-mile range as compared to the much shorter range of existing stations. It is expected that one of these will be in Alaska, another in Green- land and the third in Canada. high. He spoke with all sorts of people, and his verdict was that the people are as de- termined as ever that no roc- ket base be built in the vicin- ity of their town, One old man, an old age pensioner called Alois Metz, told him: “What is planned is, in short, just disgusting. Every one of us whether he be a carpenter, businessman or the mayor himelf wants nothing to do with war or its prepara- tions te os “Where rocket bases are constructed atomic rockets Scots protest bases ‘WO SCOTTISH town coun- cills, Aberdeen and Dun- dee, have voted to protest the proposed establishment of U.S. rocket bases in the east coast of Scotland. . : By a vote of 20 to 15, Aber- deen Town Council adopted a resolution viewing the pro- posal ‘:with the utmost appre- hension for the future of man- kind” and calling for top level disarmament talks. Dundee Town Council voted 22 to 7 to protest both the proposed rocket bases and carying of nuclear weapons by U.S. planes based in Bri- tain. It too, called for top level. disarmament talks, will be launched, and where these are, death is round the corner.” Two members of the Bav- arian parliament presented motions asking the govern- ment to support the protest movement against rocket bases. But the Bavarian Premier, Hans Seidel (of the Christian Social Union, counterpart in Bavaria of Adenauer’s Christ- ian Democratic Union party), bluntly refused. Instead he announced his government’s consent to the erection of rocket bases, and declared that the Bonn gov- ernment would prosecute farmers and peasants in the . Miltenberg area who have re- fused to allow survey work on their land. * But this will not end the matter, and it may be that the Bavarian government and Bonn have taken on more than they can control. Opposition to missile bases within Western Germany is Februar 14, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—P4 not confined to this idyllic part of Bavaria on the River Main. It runs through the labor and political movement generally, and among scient- ists and intellectuals, too, Latest move is the protest petition circulating among West German ‘university pro- fessors. The petition points out that the more weapons and equipment for an atomic war are stockpiled on Ger- man soil, the fewer are the chances for reunification. Launching this appeal, Pro- fessor Bechert, nuclear physi- cist and Social Dempocratic members, urged serious ne- gotiations on the plan to es- tablish an atom-free zone in Central Europe, to which both parts of Germany would be- long. More and more people are asking why cannot at least the two parts of Germany — as suggested by the German Democratic Republic — agree to a ban on the production and stationing of atomic wea- pons on German soil.