Rejoinder to Pentagon

Press, 22 January 1982, Page 6

Rejoinder to Pentagon

NZPA Moscow A glossy booklet on the "U.S. war’machine" appears to be Moscow's latest bid to turn West Europeans against America over the issue of nuclear armaments.

The 78-page publication, titled "Whence the Threat to Peace." is the Kremlin's answer to the Pentagon's 99page pamphlet. "Soviet Military Power." which in September depicted the Soviets as having achieved military superiority. The Soviet booklet, released this month, accuses the Reagan Administration of launching a huge arms build-up to attain American military superiority over the

Soviet Union in the next tew years. Maps portray the. Soviet Union virtually under siege from American ground bases, vessels, and aircraft. Charts purport to show heavy flows of weapons from American arsenals to overseas allies.

Nuclear weapons of the United States. Britain, and France "confront" the Soviets in Europe, the booklet says.., while China's nuclear' forces "threaten" from the East.

The publication seeks to prove that "rough parity", exists between the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Warsaw Pact in

manpower, aircraft, nuclear missiles, and other armaments.

The booklet, which is being distributed in several languages. argues that new American medium-range missiles are not needed in Western Europe because it is already well protected by the American nuclear umbrella.

A State Department spokesman in Washington. Dean Fischer, dismissed the pamphlet as a "slick repackaging job" of standard Soviet propaganda themes.

His comments drew an angry rebuttal from the official Tass news agency.