“BUZZING” OF SHIPS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29260, 19 July 1960, Page 15

“BUZZING” OF SHIPS

Russia Warns America (Rec. 8 p.m.) ' LONDON, July 18. Russia has warned America that if American planes continue “buzzing” Soviet ships in international waters, Russia will “be forced to take measures necessary for ensuring the safe navigation of Soviet ships.” The warning was given in a memorandum handed to the United States Ambassador in Moscow on July 13.’ Details of its contents were given by Moscow Radio for the first time last night.

The Soviet memorandum said that United States Air Force planes were continuing systematically to make flights over Soviet merchant and fishing vessels in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean and other seas.

It claimed there were more than 250 such flights during the first five months of thia year. “These flights,” the statement said, “are made as a rule at deck level, dangerously close to the ships and are not infrequently accompanied with diving on them in imitation of bombing and torpedo launching and dropping of various objects and incendiary agents, as well as other impermissible actions.” The Soviet Government, it said, could not look on these flights as other than “deliberate acts of provocation aimed at disrupting normal relations between countries.”

It said that the “abnormal situation” created by United States military aircraft was “fraught with great and grave complications.”