Tass Calls U.S. Report on Soviet Arms ‘Fantastic Piece of Fiction’

Tass press agency today labeled a new U.S. report on Soviet military programs a “fantastic piece of fiction” and said the United States can’t back up statements that the Soviets are researching space weapons.

The annual publication of the Pentagon’s report on Soviet military power always draws a Soviet retort, but the emphasis on space weapons in the new study drew a quicker and sharper response than in the past.

“The bigger the lie and the more often it is repeated, the more people believe it,” Tass said. “It must be proceeding from this principle that the Pentagon has published . . . the . . . report.”

The dispatch said that by creating a “mythical Soviet threat” the Pentagon wants to justify U.S. military appropriations and America’s stance at the Geneva arms talks.

Tass military analyst Vladimir Chernyshev repeated that contention in a separate article.

“The draft military budget under discussion now in Congress provides for the appropriation of enormous sums . . . on work in the field of space-based weapons,” he said.

“It became necessary to ‘convince’ the congressmen, hence the Pentagon’s new pamphlet,” he said. “It is clearly a fantastic piece of fiction . . . and, to put it mildly, an unscrupulous one.”