POSSIBLE SABOTAGE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29526, 30 May 1961, Page 11

POSSIBLE SABOTAGE

Explosions In U.S.

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) SALT LAKE CITY, day 28 Three unattended microwave and trans-Continental cable relay stations were blown up in Western Utah and Eastern Nevada today.

National Guard troops have been summoned in the two States to patrol other stations, the Associated Press said. Teletype communications in the western United States apparently were affected. A spokesman for the Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company said: “It looks like a case of sabotage." The Associated Press news transmission between’ New York and Toyko was hampered for more than four hours. Other circuits, including those serving radio seriously, have been hampered by the break in transcontinental lines. Wall Shattered

One blast shattered? lOin thick concrete walls and the top of a micro-wave station three miles west of Wendover, a town on the UtahNevada border, about 125 miles west of Salt Lake City. Telephone company officials said other blasts shattered facilities at another * microwave station at Cedar Mountain, about 62 miles east of Wendover, and a cable repeater station at Knolls, about 41 miles east of Wendover, across the Nevada border.

The Elko County sheriff said T.N.T. was used at Wendover. All the stations are automatic. and no one was hurt. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and other authorities began Investigating the blasts, with help from company officials. Ground repair crews were sent to repair the lines. In Los Angeles Sheriff P Pitches today called all 7000 reserve and regular members of his force to immediate duty, and placed civil defence sites in Los Anee'ee County under heavy guard.

In Utah the armed forces entered the in vert! Cat! nr because military circuits essential to national defence were involved. Air Force aeroplanes were ordered to patrol the microwave routes.