U.S. Warns It May Pull Out of Europe if Labor Wins in Britain

U.S. Army Gen. Bernard W. Rogers, commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, warned Thursday that a Labor Party victory in Britain could lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe.

The Bonn newspaper Rheinischer Merkur quoted Rogers as saying in an interview that renunciation of nuclear weapons, as called for by Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, could provoke a negative reaction in the United States and that this could lead to the American people demanding the pullout of all or part of the 350,000 U.S. servicemen based in Europe. Most of the American troops are in West Germany guarding NATO’s central front.

Kinnock and the Labor Party have called for outlawing all nuclear weapons in Britain--American as well as British.

“Should plans such as those in the Labor Party ever be realized,” Rogers said, “America would decide: Good, that does it, we will no longer expose our soldiers to the risk of the kind of thinking which shifts responsibility for defense onto others.”

The Labor Party’s promise not to use “offensive” weapons would undermine the Western deterrent, Rogers said, adding that “the Soviet Union, with its massive strength on the ground, would laugh at us.”

He said it would be illogical to allow the home territory of an attacker to go undamaged while accepting the kind of destruction the Soviet Union could cause in West Europe.

“How should we ever be able to drive the attacker from our soil without so-called offensive weapons,” Rogers said. “The effectiveness of a defense depends mainly on the counterattack.”

He pointed out that, after coming to power and facing the responsibility, political parties in Western countries sometimes change their defense policies.

In Washington, Kinnock insisted Thursday that the Labor Party was committed to a strong Western defense despite its anti-nuclear policy. By abandoning British purchase of Trident submarines and missiles, he said, Britain could save money that could be devoted to conventional forces.

“With or without nuclear weapons, the case for enhancement of conventional defenses is persuasive,” Kinnock said. He noted that Rogers has also called for a conventional buildup.

Kinnock argued that Britain’s current Polaris force is outmoded and largely useless because London would never go into a nuclear war on its own.

As for U.S. nuclear facilities in Britain, Kinnock said they are no longer needed.