Soviet Attack On Missile Freeze Plan

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30390, 14 March 1964, Page 13

Soviet Attack On Missile Freeze Plan

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) GENEVA, March 13. The American proposal to freeze production of long-range nuclear missiles was merely an excuse to concentrate on building up medium-range and tactical weapons, the Soviet delegate to the 17-nation disarmament conference, Mr Semyon Tsarapkin, said yesterday.

It would do nothing to start disarmament as it would not touch the “enormous” stockpiles of nuclear vehicles, he said. Nor would it influence the production of Polaris missiles which Britain was receiving under the Nassau agreement. Western observers said the speech was the most bitter against the West since the conference resumed in January. China Denounced

Earlier, India denounced China for trying to develop the atomic bomb and called on the world to prevent it. The newly-appointed Indian delegate to the conference (Mr Vishnu Trivedi) did not attack China by name, but his meaning was unmistakable. Other delegates seemed startled by the speech which swept aside a longstanding taboo against _ any discussion of the China issue on the conference floor. In his maiden speech, Mr Trivedi deplored the lack of progress in the two-year-old disarmament talks. “While we are discussing problems of disarmament, there are some people who are possessed by the mad urge to have their own bomb,” he said. “They would call it the Asian bomb. “It is our duty, and the duty of the international community, to endeavour to prevent this proliferation of nuclear weapons. Otherwise, the world will never forgive us.” Mr Trivedi rejected as unrealistic the Chinese view that general disarmament

could only be carried out in a single stroke, and accused the Chinese of blocking disarmament and arms control measures with their “solitary defiance” of the rest of the world. He said that agreement on measures to stop the spread of nuclear weapons was the major task before the conference.