Strauss Wants France And U.K. To Pool A-weapons

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32119, 15 October 1969, Page 12

Strauss Wants France And U.K. To Pool A-weapons

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) COLUMBIA (South Carolina), Oct. 13. The West German Finance Minister (Mr Franz Josef Strauss) has renewed his call on Britain and France to pool their nuclear arms as the core of an European atomic force. Mr Strauss, a former Defence Minister, also proposed that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation l be transformed into an' AmericanEuropean defence treaty, “a pact of two continents.” On his nuclear merger proposal, Mr Strauss declared in a speech at South Carolina University: “There is no room in Europe today for a purely national defence policy. That is why in the long run we need a European defence organisation. “The first step could be for Great Britain and France to pool their nuclear arms, creating the core of a European nuclear force to which other European countries could make appropriate contributions.” Mr Strauss denied that this would give West Germany control over nuclear weapons.

He said that the order to use European nuclear weapons “could only be given by the existing authorities in whose territories parts of the nuclear arsenal were located.” Mr Strauss continued: “In this way, it would be possible very soon to get two effective Western strategic systems which I would be complementary, but autonomous, with one headquarters in Washington and the other on the European continent.” He said that this nuclear authority might be embodied later in "the sovereign figure of the president of a European federation.” He said that his suggested two-continent pact might be

prepared by European N.A.T.O. member countries forming a group within the alliance aiming at joint political action. “The first task of a such a grouping—to give it a deliberately undramatic nameshould be to take stock of the confused European situation.” Mr Strauss, who will be replaced as Finance Minister on October 20, under the planned coalition government of the Social Democrat, Mr Willy Brandt, assailed the “seducing facade” of Moscow’s calls for a European security conference. “It is ... a hopeful sign that the scheme of a so-called European security conference.

and European peace system has been coldly received in the United States and France.

“To my mind there is every justification for fear that it would only put the seal on the status quo and the division of Germany. “If the Soviet Union were honestly interested in European security and reinforcing world peace, it would have to be explicit about the steps which it would be prepared to take itself with a view to solving this problem. "Any innocent acceptance of such Eastern proposals would mean playing with fire and might jeopardise the freedom of all of us,” Mr Strauss said.