Ramming of U.S. Vehicle Accidental, Soviets Report

The Soviet Union has assured the United States that the ramming of a U.S. military vehicle by a Soviet army truck in East Germany was an accident and not an intentional provocation, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

“There are indications that the incident may not have been intentional,” Pentagon spokesman Fred Hoffman said. He made it clear that the indications came from discussions with the Soviets.

He added, however, that the United States is “still looking into the matter.”

U.S. Colonel Injured

It was the second incident in four months involving U.S. military observers in the German Communist state, the latest occurring on July 13. In that incident, Col. Roland Lajoie, 48, commander of the 14-member U.S. Military Liaison Mission in East Germany, suffered a fractured eye socket when the vehicle in which he was riding was struck by a Soviet truck. Lajoie, of Nashua, N.H., was briefly hospitalized.

In disclosing the incident a few days later, Hoffman said a 5 1/2-ton Soviet truck pulled up behind the clearly-marked U.S. vehicle, a Land Rover, as Lajoie and two other American were observing Soviet troops returning to their barracks. The Soviet truck flashed its high-beam headlights, and the U.S. vehicle speeded up, then pulled off the road and attempted to turn around when it was hit.

The collision followed the shooting last March of Army Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr., another member of the mission, who was killed by a Soviet sentry at a Soviet military installation in East Germany. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger at that time accused the Soviets of murder.

Although they did not use the word “apology” in discussions of the Lajoie affair, the Soviets stressed that the ramming was an accident and not a result of official policy, Reagan Administration officials said.

After the killing of Nicholson, Weinberger demanded an apology and compensation for the slain officer’s family. The Soviets refused to supply either and implied that the same thing might happen if other U.S. military observers try to photograph Soviet weaponry as Nicholson reportedly was doing at the time. But officials said that the Soviets adopted a much less harsh attitude when discussing the Lajoie incident.

The U.S. military mission in East Germany resulted from post-World War II agreements between the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France, the four powers that defeated Nazi Germany. The Soviets maintain a similar mission in West Germany.