ATLANTIC PACT WITH TEETH IN IT IS NEARING CONCLUSION AS SOVIET MAY SEND FORCES INTO FINLAND

Grey River Argus, 21 February 1949, Page 5

ATLANTIC PACT WITH TEETH IN IT IS NEARING CONCLUSION AS SOVIET MAY SEND FORCES INTO FINLAND

MR REVIN EXPECTS PACT WILL SCOTCH WAR DANGER

(Rec. 9.5) WASHINGTON, February 19. Mr Dean Acheson, United States Secretary of State, to-day discussed the North Atlantic Pact with the Ambassadors of Britain, Canada. France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. The United Press quotes reliable informants as saying that Mr Acheson assured this meeting that the United States was willing to sign a pact “with teeth in it.” He said that the United States would not stand idly by if an aggressor attacked any of the signatory Powers. The United States favoured the adoption of the principle that an attack on one Treaty nation should be considered to be an attack on all of the others.

Mr Acheson stressed, however, that Congress alone had the final authority to declare war for the United States.

Congress Has Final Say But U.S. Sanctions Will Be Available

(Rec 10.5) WASHINGTON, Feb 19. The United Press says: Informants have reported that Mr Acheson outlined immediate steps which the United States would take if any of the signatories were attacked. These were prompt consultation with the other signatory Powers; the possible tranfer of arms, and the application of drastic diplomatic and economic sanctions against anv aggressor. The New York Times correspondent at Washington says: “The Atlantic Powers, the State Department and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee appear to have moved closer together on the drafting of an Atlantic Pact. To-day’s meeting gave Mr Acheson the opportunity to explain that the language of the pact need not exclude any reference Io the possibility of United States military aid. The correspondent says that, with the main issues of the pact settled, there will be less difficulty in denning ether measures which the United States might be prepared to take, short of the automatic use of mditary force. The New York Times m a leading article, says.—“ Neither a North Atlantic nor any other Treaty is likely to rob Congress (of- its power to declare war, or to refuse to declare war, but there should be no doubt here ,or in any other country, that if specified aggression takes place, we will consider it our business to resist, and that, this resistance, if necessary, will take the form of military action. It is this certainty, rather than anv form of words, that is at present the world’s greatest promise for peace.” ATLANTICPACT MUST GET FULL U.S. APPROVAL (N.Z.P.A. —Reuter). WASHINGTON, February IS. A North Atlantic defence pact would be “worse than useless” unless it had overwhelming Senate approval, Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told the United Press to-day. He added that the chief strength of the pact would come from the realisation in Western Europe that Congress stands “'four square* behind the agreement. Senator Connally said he was willing to go a bit further than Tie had indicated in his recent statement on the pact, and he now believes that the pact should contain the following provisions: An advance pledge that the United States would . “assist in meeting an attack.” but with the reservation that it would be up to the United States to determine exwhat immediate steps should be taken, and a provision that a majontv of the participating powers could order such short of war steps as the severance of diplomatic relations and the interruption of trade and communications. Norway’s Break From Scandinavian Concert (N.Z.P. A.—Reuter). (Rec 11.0) LONDON. February 20. A meeting of the three Scandinavian Premiers, in Oslo, on Friday, had put an end to the attempt to create a joint Scandinavian foreign and defence policy, according to the Danish newspaper “Berlingske Tidende,” which is quoted by Reuter’s correspondent at Copenhagen. The cha rman of the Danish Foreign Affairs Committee, M. Julius Bornholt. s?’d that he regretted that the possibilities of a Scandinavian defence pact must now be abandoned following on Norway’s decision to go her own way, and to join the Atlantic Pad. Reuter’s correspondent at Oslo says.—The Norwegian Labour Party Congress, after a speech by the Foreign Minister, Dr. Lange, provisionally agreed that Norway must try to solve her security problems in binding co-operation - with the Western democracies. The Congress communique said that the vote was a trial one and that the final voting will take place tomorrow.

BERLIN AIR-LIFT

(N.Z.P.A.—Reuter). BERLIN, February 18. The Berlin air lift has radically changed the diplomatic, scene within the past nine months, and has decisively shifted the balance in diplomatic initiative which Russia appeared to have seized when she imposed the blockade last June, states Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent. „ ~ The air lift has been so effective that the ration scale in Berlin has risen since the blockade began, to about 2000 calories daily, which. is about the same as in the Soviet sector of Berlin and higher than m the Soviet zone. German unemployment has also been much less than was expected, being 100,000 wholly or partly unemployed, compared with an estimate of 250,000. . In 150,072 flights, fourteen air lift aeroplanes have crashed and 26 Americans and ten Britons have been killed. Russians Set Up Zone in Berlin to Enforce Blockade (Rec. 10.5). LONDON, February 20. A “no-man’s-land” has been drawn through the centre of Berlin to enforce the Russian blockade, says the Associated Fress correspondent at Berlin. ’.The Communists have established “danger zones”, where they halt and inspect any traffic seeking to cross from the Russian sector into the blockaded Western sectors of the city. This action was taken after shots were fired by Soviet-controlled police on Friday at a lorry which was running the blockade. The shots hit two bystanders. Tension between Communists and anti-Communists heightened after two shooting incidents involving Soviet-controlled police. A motorist was killed at night when the police fired on him as he was trying to escape from the Russian sector of the city into the American area. Later a German man and a 14-year-old girl were wounded when the police fired on the man’s vegetable lorrv when it failed to stop at the halt sign marking the demarcatioi of the two sectorsSoviet soldiers made a quick sortie at night into the United States occupation zone by locomotive and hauled thirty-one freight cars into the Russian ‘zone in North Bavaria. “An undetermined number” of Soviet soldiers and German border police rode the locomotive 100 yards into the American zone, seized the wagons and then sped back into the Soviet zone. A police report stated that a group of railroad workers from a town just across the border in the Russian zone entered 4 he American zone earlier in the day. They repaired a short length of track on the line vyhere the freight wagons were standing. Soviet’s Cold War Intensifying WILL Ri£D ARMY GO TO SCANDINAVIAN FRONTIERS? (Rec 10.5) LONDON, February 20. “As the unification of the West progresses, there are" unmistakable signs that Russia is reacting by an intensification of her ‘cold war’ ana a mounting pressure on her satellite States,” says the Sunday Times diplomatic correspondent. The Soviet leaders, in spite of strong Czechoslovakian protests, have forced the Communist Politburo in Prague to allocate 30,000 skilled workers for a new Russian arms plant behind the Ural Mountains. The Committee for the StudEuropean Questions reports that 110,000 Socialists and “Communist deviationists” have recently been expelled from their parties in Poland and that Russia is rapidly increasing her hold on that country. The Scandinavian diplomatic correspondent says.—-Russia is preparing to send troops into Finland to man ■ the Norwegian and Swedish frontiers of Finland. This move is intended to put pressure on the Scandinavian States not to join the Atlantic Pact. The “Sunday Dispatch” Stockholm correspondent says: The Swedes fear thatthe Russians may demand new bases in Finland, or bases even on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic, as a counter move to Norway’s attitude towards the Atlantic Pact.