Kennedy's idea of leafership of the West. Stuttgarter Zeitung (West Germany} Lock the backdoor wr U.S. representatives go throught the mctions of discussing nuclear test bans and disarmament at the prolonged UN Geneva Disarmament Conference, Washington drives ahead with un- relenting effort to transform its North Atlantic Treaty Organiza- tion (NATO) into a multilateral nuclear “deterrent” force. During recent weeks U.S. and — West German diplomatic pressures to whip de Gaulle into, line on a multilateral nuclear armed NATO dhave been intensified, with de Gaulle reported as being “cordial” to these nuclear pressures. Having switched from Skybolt to Polaris “defense” at Pres. Kennedy’s in- _ sistence, a ready agreement on _ US. plans for a nuclearized NATO can be expected from Britain’s _ Macmillan, i.e. unless the Britsh people retire him meantime? Determined to get its hands on nuclear weapons to pursue its anti- Soviet revanchist war policies, the West German government of Kon- .rad Adenauer is not only an ardent yesman in the Kennedy push for a NATO nuclear “striking” force, but one of its prime movers in _ Europe. _ Unable to secure these horror - weapons because of postwar Allied _ agreement, Adenauer hopes to get a West German finger on the trig- ger against the Soviet Union, through the media of a nuclear- armed NATO. -.A sharp Soviet note to the U.S. Britain and West Germany this week has warned the NATO pow- ers of the dangers to peace inher- ent in a nuclear-armed NATO. The note urges acceptance of Sov- iet proposals for general disarm- Rerotty elimination of all foreign "Pacific T Tribune — /— TOM McEWEN _ Associate aie Ralion MAURICE RUSE “Business Mgr.—OXANA ‘BIGELOW Published weekly at: = 426 aoe Street ancouver 4, B.C. *Phone MUtual 5-5288 Subscription Rates: Canadian and Commonwealth coun- see (except Australia): $4.00 one year. Australia, United States and _ all other countries: $5.00 one year: Authorized ag il the Post Office ee BS bases, prohibition of nuclear wea- pons, the conclusion of a German peace treaty, and a pact of non- aggression between the NATO and Warsaw member nations. It is highly probable that the NATO ministerial conference sched- uled to be held in Ottawa, May 22- 24 will have this U.S. plan to transform NATO into a multilat- eral nuclear “striking” force (in- cluding West Germany) on its agenda. In the wake of a general election in which the issue of “no nuclear arms in Canada” and U.S. inter- ference in Canada’s internal. af- fairs, had top priority, Canadians must be alert to a new danger; the smuggling of nuclear weapons in- to Canada by the U.S. via the NATO backdoor. While the Soviet note is not ad- dressed to Canada, the potential nuclear NATO danger it points up. is. Comment: The issues remain he people have spoken. What ever else, they made it pat- ently clear in last Monday’s gener- al election voting, that a Liberal “majority” in the service of U.S. imperialism cannot be bought in Canada with U.S. dollars. And no one will likely attempt to deny the vast (if unstated) amount placed at the disnosal of the vero.Ameri- can Liberal “slush” fund? Elsewhere in this edition the na- tional leader of the Communist Party, Leslie Morris, sums up the outcome of Monday’s voting, and the tasks ahead regardless of whether Canada’s 26th~- Parlia- ment is headed-up by a Liberal or Tory minority government. Central among these tasks is the mandate expressed by the Canadian people, if indeed not giv- en to any single party; the issue of “no nuclear arms in Canada” and Canadian independence. The ‘Me and M oO" the eve of the federal elec- tion Premier Bennett hi- tailed it to Montreal to help “save Quebec from the seperatists” and for Confederation, a la Social Cre- dit? _ Couple of days later he unload- ed. some gratutious “advice” to Prime Minister John Diefenbaker to turn in his “resignation” so that the country could have “stable” government? Next day our versatile prem- ier had a new “thought”; that he and Liberal leader Pearson, who must “be named prime minister right of Canadians to run their own affairs, economic, political, or on matters of defense, without interference by Washington. These issues remain, and the struggle for their solution on which all else depends, still remain top pri- ority for the Canadian people. The stewardship of every party in the new Parliament will be judged primarily on thse two vital issues. The prime lesson of the election results, and particularly as it af- fects labor and the people in the building of an NDP alternative to the old-line parties of monopoly, is unity and more unity. To round out the partial victory for Canad- ian independence won last Mon- day by a unity which will com- . plete the victory during the life of this Parliament. Failing that, a unity which will assure the elec- tion of a Parliament which can and will. ike’ deal as soon as possible’, must get to- gether pronto to get the Columbia River sellout “under way.” “I am confident,” says WAC, that “Mr. Pearson and I can enter satisfac- tory agreement to get this big development going.” No doubt about that, as far as" the U.S. trusts are concerned. But there’s just one _ hitch to such “agreement”; the opposition of the people of B.C. and Canada to the Columbia River giveaway, a paint seemingiy overlooked by “fixer” Bennett? reedom of the Press? Not long F ago a spokesman for South Africa’s Verwoerd government de- fined this “freedom” by pointing out that the press had tull freedom to write anything it chooses, pro- viding what is written is not crit- ical of government racist policies To emphasis the point, the Ver- word government has chalked up a high record over the past decade, and especially more recently in its clamping a ban on all progressive newspapers which disagree with the Verwoerd idea of “freedom of the press”. In 1952 The Guardian, one of South Africa’s oldest progressive papers was banned. In 1954 its successor The Advance got the hatchet. In November of 1962 the New Age suffered a like fate, and in March of this year its successor The Spark got the Verwoerd “free- dom”’ treatment. The technique is simple; the minister advises all persons con- nected with these papers that “they — are prohibited from continuing their jobs. Failure to comply with this order is liable to prison .terms | papaing from 1 to 10. years.” Then the government Gazette inserts a neat little ukase ‘prohibiting others from replacing the banned newspaper staff’. The Verwoerd wrecking crew move in to put the hammer on the print shop —and the imperishable Black peo- ple of South Africa begin all over again their never-ending struggle for racial equality, self-determina- _tion—end genuine freedom. “From the Spark will come a flame,” a great leader of human struggle against tyranny once wrote, and we are confident that from South Africa’s banned Spark a worthy successor will soon emerge. Our salute to the ‘banned’ — and those to follow. In recent weeks South Africa’s “Apartheid” (race segregation) government has also engaged in a massive book-burning orgy. Librar- ies in all large S.A. centers have been ordered ‘cleaned up’, and government “special squad”’ police are busy feeding the bonfires. From a slightly different angle, with all the seeming virtues of “freedom of the press’ preserved intact, the election campaign just concluded has seen a goodly num- ber of Canada’s big daily news- papers grossly abuse this much- vaunted “freedom”. ~ This was most glaringly obvious where not a few hitherto reaction- - ary Conservative organs not only deserted their Tory ship like the proverbial rats, but opened up all the vials of their ridicule, slant and distortion ‘news’ techniques against their former Tory idols “Freedom of the press” hit a new low in the art of twisting the “news” to conform to Washington’s “choice” Citizens reading the “news” next day found it difficult to realize that the politica! “rally” they had attended the night before and the one “‘reported”’ in the press was one and the same? As the old radio cliche used to. go, ‘‘any similarity between etc and ete., is purely coincidental’. The “Wassermania”’ in the Sun’s April 2 edition provides a splendid ex- ample of what these “objective” news butchers mean when they talk about ‘freedom of the press’’. The margin of difference be- tween South Africa’s* Verwoerd book-burning and banning of old- ‘established newspapers in which the prime basic policy has been to adhere to obvious truths and pre- sent the facts as they are, and the “freedoms” exercised by many of our own journals, is largely one of degree. The one is banned for exercis- ing a fundamental principle of freedom of the press—to print the truth, regardless. The other, to pocket fat profits from its ability to outrage this freedom; to substitute cold war smear, inuendo and news distor- tion—for the sole benefit of those who pay the shot in the largest amounts, and to do it garbed in a halo of well-feigned ‘virtuosity’.