‘Russia Has New Global Rocket’

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29775, 19 March 1962, Page 11

‘Russia Has New Global Rocket’

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, March 17.

Mr Khrushchev yesterday announced the launching of a new sputnik and almost in the same breath claimed Russian scientists and engineers had made a new global rocket which was “invulnerable” to anti-missile missiles.

The rocket outdated America’s rocket warning system because it could strike from any direction, said Mr Khrushchev, according to the British United Press.

Speaking at an election rally, Mr Khrushchev interrupted a speaker to say a space craft had been launched and had been in orbit three hours Tass also announced Russia would conduct a series of space shots from different sites in Russia during 1962 to study aspects of the upper atmosphere. In his speech, Mr Khrushchev said United States “monopolists” had not abandoned the hope to enrich themselves with the help of another war. "This makes them unable to correctly understand the fatal role they are playing. The time has long passed when the United States could regard herself as invulnerable in war . . . “ . . . our scientists and engineers have created a new inter-continental rocket which they call global. This rocket is invulnerable to anti, missile weapons.” he said. Mr Khrushchev appealed to American leaders to understand that their country and

people would no longer be immune in case of war.

No radar warning systems were effective against the Soviet global rocket, he said. It could strike from any direction.

“So, as people say, you expect it through the door and it comes through the window,” Mr Khrushchev said “The new global rockets can fly round the world in any direction and strike a blow at any set target,’’ The system of United States radio location and other warning devices had as a result now lost its importance. Of the Geneva conference, he said: "The Soviet Government will exert all its efforts for the successful work of the disarmament committee.”

But the proposals had been clouded, he said, by President Kennedy’s announcement, on the eve of the conference, that the United States would hold a series of nuclear tests in the atmosphere. The United States reacted calmly ,to Mr Khrushchev’s claim to an invulnerable “global missile,”

The White House and the Defence Department declined all comment.