Invasion Seen As Threat To West

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31830, 7 November 1968, Page 11

Invasion Seen As Threat To West

(N.ZeP A -Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6.

The United States believes that Russia’s invasion of Czechoslovakia has increased the Communist threat to Western Europe, Government sources said last night.

They said a statement in Brussels yesterday by Mr Harlan Cleveland, the United States Ambassador to N.A.T.0., emphasising the Communist threat, represented the Government’s position.

A report attributed to Dr Alain Enthoven, a United States Defence Department official, apparently minimising the threat, was dismissed as a “personal” view at variance with Government policy. The sources were comment-

ing on a Brussels report quoting a study paper in which Dr Enthoven, the assistant secretary of defence for systems analysis, was quoted as saying that the lower dependability of Czech forces reduced the threat to the West in Central Europe. State Department sources said Mr Cleveland’s statement to the N.A.T.O. defence planning committee, in which he said the Warsaw Pact countries had “more forces in better shape, farther forward” as a result of the invasion, represented official Government thinking. Dr Enthoven said in Washington that there had been a misunderstanding about his views, and that one observation he made was taken out of context. Dr Enthoven said it would be wrong for the West to tear down its defences, and he was “in general agreement with Ambassador Cleveland that we face a very serious military threat.”