West Germans Rally, Condemn ‘Star Wars’ Plan

Traditional Easter peace marches drew hundreds of thousands onto West German streets Monday as leaders of the country’s anti-nuclear movement focused on a new target--President Reagan’s research program for a “Star Wars” space-based missile defense system.

Peace demonstrations were also held in Britain, where protesters concentrated their campaign on a site earmarked for new U.S. nuclear missiles.

At rallies in several large West German cities, protest leaders praised the temporary freeze of Soviet medium-range nuclear missiles announced Sunday by Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and urged the U.S. to follow suit.

“If Ronald Reagan would only do the same, then there would be real reason for jubilation,” trade union official Christian Goetz told a rally of about 30,000 peace marchers in the Ruhr industrial city of Dortmund, 75 miles northeast of here.

Support From Thatcher

But British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher backed the Reagan Administration, rejecting as “unacceptable” the notion that North Atlantic Treaty Organization halt further missile deployment in response to the seven-month moratorium announced by Gorbachev.

“The consequences of such a freeze cannot be balanced as we see the enormous Soviet superiority,” Thatcher said in Singapore, second stop on a 10-day tour she is making in Asia. “That is why it is unacceptable.”

The same view was expressed by a British Foreign Office official in London. He noted that the freeze would still leave the Soviets with a sizable edge in the number of medium-range missile warheads, even after the Western allies complete deployment of the planned 572 Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in five West European countries.

So far, about 110 of the single warhead U.S. missiles have been deployed. Western intelligence sources believe that the Soviets now have about 414 triple warhead SS-20 medium-range nuclear missiles in place, with about two-thirds of them aimed at Western Europe.

The West German government declined direct comment on the Gorbachev proposal, while in Brussels, a Belgian Foreign Ministry official said that it broke no new ground.

Noting the present imbalance favoring Moscow, he said, “In this situation, the Belgian government cannot see that the big Soviet supremacy could be the basis for a balanced agreement. . . .”

European disarmament experts had predicted that Moscow would attempt to split Washington from its European allies by offering deep cuts in medium-range missiles in return for an American agreement to give up Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative--the formal name of his “Star Wars” program.

America’s allies have voiced concern about “Star Wars,” fearing it might escalate the arms race and reduce U.S. interest in defending Europe.

West German protesters gathered outside U.S. military bases in southwestern Germany and in major industrial cities elsewhere in the country to hear speakers attack the “Star Wars” plan.

Prominent anti-nuclear activist Jo Leinen, recently chosen as a state government minister in the Saarland, demanded a “revolution of conscience” against the militarization of space.

“What the actor Reagan wants to do with space arms is a piece right out of a madhouse,” he told the rally in Dortmund.

He urged the anti-nuclear movement to resist the Strategic Defense Initiative as it did Pershing 2 and cruise missile deployment.

Protests against the presence of U.S. medium-range nuclear missiles drew millions of supporters in the early 1980s and brought severe pressure on the government, but eventually failed to halt deployment.

Political observers here believe it unlikely that the anti-nuclear movement could mount protests of similar strength against “Star Wars” in the near future, partly because at present there is little concrete to demonstrate against.

There are also indications that the movement has yet to recover from its failure to halt the Pershing 2 and cruise missile deployments.

Organizers of the four days of Easter protests claimed that 450,000 persons took part nationally, 300,000 of them attending marches and rallies Monday. The four-day turnout was roughly 150,000 less than last year.

Many of the rallies drew disappointing turnouts and appeared to lack the urgency and purpose of protests during the height of the medium-range missile debate.

The protests were largely peaceful, with eight demonstrators held temporarily by police after climbing a perimeter fence of a U.S. Army base near Heilbronn, 150 miles south of here.

There were no other incidents.

In Britain an estimated 20,000 demonstrators gathered Monday near the town of Molesworth, 60 miles north of London, where a World War II airfield has been designated as the site for cruise missiles.

Protesters, braving cold, wintry weather, hung brightly colored pennants on barbed wire fencing outside the military base.

Joan Ruddock, head of the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, which organized the protest, welcomed the Soviet freeze decision, saying, “The Americans really have no excuse for bringing more cruise missiles into Britain now.”