Russian Threat To Resume Tests

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29744, 10 February 1962, Page 11

Russian Threat To Resume Tests

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, February 8.

Moscow Radio said last night that the Soviet Union would resume nuclear testing if the United States and Britain began the Christmas Island tests, United Press International reported.

The broadcast, monitored in London, repeated earlier warnings that “if the Western Powers continued nuclear tests, the U.S.S.R. would be compelled to perfect its weapons, including nuclear weapons, i order to ensure its security.” Moscow Radio called Britain’s decision to lend Christmas Island to America for possible atmospheric tests a “serious blow to world peace” and said it “tends to heighten world tension.” The broadcast accused Britain and the United States of “wrecking” the Geneva nuclear test ban talks

while they were preparing for atmospheric tests. In a broadcast to Britain. Moscow Radio said: “One cannot shut one’s eyes to the fact that now that the United States and Britain have taken measures to step up the nuclear arms race, and the other side is hardly likely to sit doing nothing. . . . “Whitehall’s decision to allow the United States to use Christmas Island for a new series of tests in the atmosphere makes Britain an active partner in the West’s nuclear arms race. “Britain’s policy on this issue is fraught with a serious threat to peace and to the security of the British people.”

The announcement by Britain and the United States that they were preparing to resume nuclear tests was “yet another step along the road to intensifying the nuclear arms race,” the Soviet Communist Party newspaper “Pravda,” said today. “Pravda” alleged that Britain and America wrecked the Ger va three-Power conference on a nuclear test ban last month and had now taken a step which made the world “aware of the true value of the hypocritical statements by the leaders of the Western Powers.

“The entire responsibility for the development of events fraught with serious danger to the cause of peace, which the Western Powers are imposing on the world, rests on the shouldets of the leaders of these powers,” “Pravda” said.