LAST N.A.T.O. PARIS TALKS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31365, 10 May 1967, Page 19

LAST N.A.T.O. PARIS TALKS

(N.Z.P.A.-l

■Reuter—Copyright)

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation defence ministers will meet in Paris today to remodel their strategic planning without France, and for a military policy revision which could be the most significant for 10 years.

PARIS, May 9.

This will be their first Paris get-together since

France’s withdrawal from N.A.T.O.’s integrated military command structure, and their last in France. The organisation will move to Brussels in October.

The ministers, Including the United States Defence Secretary, Mr Robert McNamara, and his British counterpart, Mr Denis Healey, will discuss N.A.T.O.’s new fiveyear “rolling” force plan for 1968-72, which will be updated annually. One aspect of today's review will be a proposed new guidance paper for N.A.T.O. military leaders, to provide a basis on which N.A.T.O. force plans can be developed, sources said. The N.A.T.O. sources said that if adopted, this guidance would represent the most significant military policy revision for a decade. The defence chiefs have to face a recent British-German-American agreement for the withdrawal of 35,000 United States and 6000 British troops plus 100 supersonic aircraft from West Germany next year. These forces will be redeployed at home but remain under N.A.T.O. command. The cuts in the Allied strength in Europe are being made to offset the cost of American and British forces in Germany. General Lyman L. Lernnitzer. Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, who has already ruled out the 70,000 French servicemen in Germany from his planning, now has to reckon with this further loss.