REARMING OF GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26362, 5 March 1951, Page 7

REARMING OF GERMANY

Determined U.S. Policy (Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 3. The United States Government would continue to urge the West German Republic to rearm and join in the defence of Western Europe in spite of the meetings of the Big Four Foreign Ministers Deputies in Paris next week, James Reston, the diplomatic correspondent of the "New York Times.” said to-day. Reston quoted American officials as saying that they were prepared to urge the abolition of the American, British and French Occupation Statute in Germany and to make other alterations in their relations with the Bonn Government, provided that the Germans agreed to accept the formula tor the rearmament of West Germany which was adopted at the Brussels conference of the North Atlantic Foreign Ministers. Reston said American officials in Washington would not be surprised if the Russians offered to agree to the unification of all Germany, or even to withdraw some or all of their troops from Germany, but unless any such Soviet proposal provided foolproof guarantees for the security of West Germany and Western Europe it would be unacceptable to the United States. Responsible Washington officials said that the United States intended to build up its defensive forces in Europe even if the Soviet Union proposed the withdrawal of all armies, including the Soviet Army, from Germany. Reston said that the American Am-bassador-at-Large (Mr Phillip Jessup) had been authorised to agree to place the question of the unification of Germany on any agenda of Foreign Ministers. • . ... He added that a condition of this policy would be that internationally supervised elections would be held in Germany and that the Communist Parliamentary Organisation to .the Soviet Zone of Germany be abolished.