Weinberger’s Reported Support of Conservatives Angers Britons
Reported remarks by U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger that election of a socialist government here would be disastrous for the defense of Western Europe were widely publicized in Britain today.
Angry leaders of the socialist Labor Party accused the Reagan Administration of interfering in British politics.
Denzil Davies, Labor defense spokesman, called the remarks a crude attempt to swing public opinion toward the governing Conservatives.
Weinberger taped his remarks in Washington for a British Broadcasting Corp. “Panorama” program to be broadcast next Monday. British press reports said the Pentagon refused to release the transcript before the broadcast but that his views were leaked to the Wall Street Journal.
London’s conservative Daily Express said the Journal “revealed that Weinberger takes strong exception to Labor’s three-pronged plan to scrap Britain’s nuclear deterrent, close down American nuclear bases in Britain and deny British ports to nuclear-armed warships.”
“It is unprecedented for a senior figure to make such an undisguised intervention in another Western country’s political scene,” the paper said.
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