LOSS OF U.S. AIRCRAFT

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26093, 21 April 1950, Page 8

LOSS OF U.S. AIRCRAFT

SOVIET CHARGES DENIED COMMENT FROM STATE DEPARTMENT (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 19. A State Department spokesman, Mr Michael McDermott, to-day described a s “whopping lies beyond contempt,” the charges by the Soviet weekly newspaper, “New Times,” that the Baltic Sea aeroplane incident was deliberately prepared by the United States as an international provocation. - R^gort . s from Moscow to-day quoted tne ■Soviet weekly as charging that the United States had rescue aeroplanes waiting in Denmark even before the United States aeroplane involved in the incident had taken off from Wiesbaden, and citing this as proof of United States preparation for “plain .international provocation.” Asked if he knegv whether the Soviet Union had published the .United States Note of yesterday, ■which accused the Soviet Union of shooting down an unarmed Navy aeroplane qver the Baltic Sea on April 8. Mr McDermott said: “I did see news reports that it did not appear 'in the Moscow newspapers at all.” The Senate to-day unanimously approved a resolution to award decorations to the 10 men lost in the aeroplane.

Senator Scott Lucas, the Senate majority leader, moving the motion, said that the incident was a “ruthless action by barbarous forces.” Senator Lucas said: “We cannot bring back the lives of the men shot down in the aeroplane, but let our vote advise the Kremlin that we of the Senate are behind the brave men who gave their lives for their country.”

The resolution was passed after a denunciation of Russia by both Republican and Democratic Senators