COMMONWEALTH GROUP’S VISIT TO N.A.T.O.

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31598, 8 February 1968, Page 3

COMMONWEALTH GROUP’S VISIT TO N.A.T.O.

(By ZALIA THOMAS) LONDON, February 7. Twenty-one members of the Commonwealth Countries’ League made history recently when they became die first multi-racial group to visit the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters in Brussels.

League members became particularly interested in the work of N.A.T.O. when Mrs Inga Haag, head of women’s organisations at N.A.T.O. gave them a talk late last year. Mrs Haag instigated the party’s visit. The party, which included members from Australia, Canada, Ceylon, Britain, Hong Kong, Guyana, and New Zea-

land, travelled to Brussels by rail and air. It spent the first day of the two-day visit at the newlybuilt headquarters at Evere, on the outskirts of the city, and attended lectures on the diplomatic and political activities of the organisation. The second day was spent about 60 miles away at Casteau, where there were lectures on the military aspects of N.A.T.O. To members of a league, pledged to ensure equality of liberties, status, and oppor-

tunities for men and women within the Commonwealth, the peace-keeping activities of the organisation were of the greatest interest. They found it reassuring to learn something of the allied military might immediately available in Europe, they said. N.A.T.O.’s Future • N.A.T.O. admits to being in “troubled waters” at the present time. France has withdrawn from N.A.T.O. military organisations, although N.A.T.O. believes that France

needs it as much as it needs France. There is considerable apprehension in Europe about Communist country troops being trained side by side with French forces on French soil. The Italians, too, are beginning to have second-thoughts about the advantages of remaining in N.A.T.0., at a time when they are planning to put some 8200 m into equipment in a car factory in the U.S.S.R. and to install a 750-mile methane gas pipe-

line and supply an order of accounting machines. They now see N.A.T.O. as a barrier against understanding with the Eastern bloc rather than as a shield. Achievements Whatever the future of N.A.T.0., there can be no doubt that it has achieved its primary task—to call a halt to Soviet expansion in Europe, to protect freedom and promote prosperity within the countries of the alliance.