VENEZUELAN TENSION

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28480, 9 January 1958, Page 9

VENEZUELAN TENSION

Catholic Priests Arrested

(N-Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, January 7.

At least five prominent Roman Catholic priests were believed today to have been arrested as a result of the New Year’s Day revolt at the Maracay Air Force Base, the United Press reported from Caracas, Venezuela. It was feared that the arrests might lead to open clashes between Roman Catholic students, parishioners and Government forces.

Those arrested included Father Jose Baonaola, Rector of the Catholic University in Caracas and the parish priests of the Metropolitan Cathedral and of the three most important churches in the Caracas Federal District.

Monsignor Rafael Arias, Archbishop of Caracas, was understood to be seeking interviews with President Marcos Perez Jimenez and other top Government officials in a bid to avoid an open clash. The current tension between the Government and the Church was touched off by the arrest of Monsignor Hernandez Capellin, director of the Roman Catholic newspaper “La Religion,” who refused to submit to Government orders to publish front page editorials condemning the Maracay uprising. As part of a series of Government actions against Roman Catholic priests, national security police units yesterday raided the Metropolitan Cathedral while the Feast of the Three Kings was being observed by a Mass. Several dozen worshippers were detained. Others escaped through the side doors.

INVESTIGATION AT WINDSCALE U.S. Co-operation

(Rec. 8.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, January 7.

United States scientists were cooperating with their British colleagues in investigating the recent accident at the Windscale plutonium reactor plant in Cumberland, England, it was announced today by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. The commission offered its assistance to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority immediately after the accident on October 10, 1957. .United States scientists and engineers were cooperating in three phases of the exhaustive investigations being carried on in Great Britain, the commission said.

NEUTRALITY OF SWEDEN Steps Planned At End Of War

(Rec. 8 p.m.) STOCKHOLM, January 7.

Sweden was prepared to modify her traditional neutrality and intervene militarily in Occupied Norway at the end of April, 1945, according to a White Book published by the Swedish Foreign Ministry today. On April 30, 1945, the Swedish Government agreed to an Allied request for discussions between the Swedish General Staff and General Eisenhower’s Headquarters on the question of Swedish military intervention in Norway, and Army units were mobilised with that end in view. On the afternoon of the same day the Swedish Government and representatives of the German Interior Ministry and the S.S. Chief, Heinrich Himmler, reached an agreement in principle whereby Swedish troops would replace the occupying German forces in Norway and the Germans would be interned in Sweden.

But Hitler upset these plans by committing suicide later that day. The previous day he had made a will appointing Admiral Doenitz as his successor, expelling Himmler from the Nazi Party and depriving him of all his official duties.

The Swedish Prime Minister of that time, Mr Hansson, warned Dr. Best, the German Civil Governor of Occupied Denmark that Sweden would not remain passive if Denmark and Norway were subjected to meaningless destruction which could not alter the outcome of the war.

Earlier, the Norwegian Govem-ment-in-Exile in London had asked the Swedish Government to be prepared to send occupying forces into Norway and drive out the Germans if this should prove necessary to prevent the Germans from carrying out a scorched earth policy in their retreat before the Russian advance.

But at that time the Swedish Government considered that such a step would be unwise in that it might have the opposite effect, basing its views on information reaching it from thfe Norwegian Resistance Movement. The White Book is based on Swedish Foreign Ministry archives and information supplied by Swedish politicians and diplomats who were involved.

REFUSAL TO GRANT VISAS Allies Protest To Russia

(Rec. 7 pjn.) LONDON, Jan. 8. Britain, France, and the United States protested to the Soviet Union today against its refusal to grant visas to Allied diplomats wishing to travel into or across Soviet-occupied East Germany, according to the American Associated Press.

The protest was contained in letters delivered to the Soviet Ambassador in East Berlin. Last week the Soviet Union said future visas would be issued by the Communist East German Government—which Is not recognised by the West