“SQUEEZE PLAN”

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 February 1947, Page 7

“SQUEEZE PLAN”

FRANCO AND NORWEGIAN SHIPS UNITED NATIONS INVOLVED ? NEW YORK, Feb. 18. The New York Herald-Tribune’s correspondent in Washington says diplomatic circles are stirred by evidence that Spain and Norway are engaged in a serious dispute involving the United Nations. The dispute began shortly after Mr. Trygve Lie, of Norway, speaking as Secretary-General of the United Nations, reported to the United Nations General Assembly on October 23, denouncing Franco Spain. Soon after his speech and even before the General Assembly on December 12 asked the members of the United Nations to recall their ambassadors and ministers from Madrid, Spain, through the Norwegian Embassy at Madrid, began threatening Norway with retaliation. Since then, General Franco has subjected Norwegian ships and trade do a slow “squeeze plan,” so that today there is not a single Norwegian ship in Spain. The Norwegian Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the dispute, but the Spanish Charge d’Affaires was inclined to laugh off any suggestion that Mr. Lie’s pronouncements to the United Nations had prompted retaliation from Madrid. However the correspondent cites a Norwegian language newspaper published in New York which in a dispatch on February 13 said the Norwegian Foreign Office had confirmed the receipt of Spanish threats. The correspondent says the controversy has already reached such a serious phase that'Norway may soon demand that other members of the United Nations should come to her aid by imposing economic sanctions against Spain. American sources interpret the Spanish moves as a trial balloon to see how the Western Powers will react.