U.K. ponders nerve gas

Press, 30 December 1980, Page 6

U.K. ponders nerve gas

NZPA ; / London The British Defence Secretary (Mr Francis Pym) has said that Britain might develop chemical weapons to counter what he says is a growing threat posed by a Soviet build-up of nerve gas and other such weapons. Mr, Pym said he favoured a complete ban of chemical weapons, which he described as “ghastly,” but admitted he was worried that the West had no deterrent or retaliatory capability.■ Mr Pym, interviewed on Britain’s independent radionetwork, ' emphasised that

the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation had “not yet begun to think" of amassing “a capability of a chemical nature. ■ . .

“Even the United States has not?started .to take any action in that direction” he -said, adding: “I have personally begun to think about, it, but not in the alliance.”

Mr Pym said he had sent a Defence Department team to the United States to discuss the problem of the reported Soviet threat. The United States, he said, had a very small supply of old, dated chemical weapons. . . Britain, , he said, had no in-

tention of developing, its own chemical weapons at the moment. But that might be the only answer. “We all hate them,”' he said. “We’re strongly in favour of negotiating with the Soviet Union an agreement to ban them . completely.” But he emphasised that no progress had been made. \ ‘ '

“The question I’m asking at' the moment is, ‘What steps can we take to deter the Russians from using 'it? Are there . any ways, short of holding it ourselves in the alliance, we can prevent their use of it’?”