Labor Wants Nuclear Forces Out : American Bases Key Issue in Today’s British Election

David Alston recalls the day, in the spring of 1944, when the first American bombers arrived, and his 2-year-old son pedaled his tricycle down to the barracks, returning with his face covered with ice cream.

The Americans stayed just over a year, with the B-17s and B-24s of the 8th Air Force roaring over the hills of East Anglia on their way to targets in Nazi Germany.

Alston, whose fields of wheat and sugar beets now encroach on the old control tower and the broken concrete runways, said: “They were a first-class lot of people here. There was never any trouble.”

After the war, the Americans and their planes departed briefly but quickly returned to bases elsewhere in East Anglia, first in 1948, to support the Berlin Airlift, then in the early 1950s, to become part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization defenses.

The warmth those first units enjoyed more than 40 years ago is still there, but now a cloud hangs over the U.S. presence. The U.S. bases here have found themselves at the center of a heated political debate during the campaign for today’s general election.

Uncertainty about the future of the U.S. bases touches one of the most fundamental areas of U.S. foreign policy: its relations with Britain, America’s closest ally in two world wars and in the years since, and the role the two should play in the defense of the West.

The issue has been raised by the opposition Labor Party, which has called for a non-nuclear Britain and in pursuit of this goal has promised to demand the withdrawal of all U.S. nuclear forces.

Running his first campaign as Labor Party leader, Neil Kinnock, 45, has also promised to dismantle Britain’s own nuclear deterrent of 64 Polaris missiles and to cancel a $15-billion program to replace them with more modern Trident missiles in the 1990s.

Labor is given only an outside chance of unseating Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in today’s balloting. But the fact that the youthful opposition leader has put such emphasis on the nuclear issue is regarded as an ominous sign for the future.

Minor Adjustments

In theory at least, even if Labor should win the election, it would require only minor adjustments in the U.S. military presence here. Kinnock has committed himself to strengthening Britain’s conventional defenses.

If the United States and the Soviet Union agree to remove medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe--this is being discussed in the superpower arms talks at Geneva--it would automatically eliminate the 96 U.S. cruise missiles deployed at Greenham Common, southwest of London, and halt preparations under way at Molesworth, near Cambridge, for deploying 64 others.

The eight squadrons of American F-111 fighter-bombers based here are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but they also have a non-nuclear role in NATO strategy. Thus they could conceivably remain in place.

But, whatever the theory, the practical consequences of a British government’s demanding the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear forces could be devastating. The U.S. government, which already steadfastly refuses to disclose which of its ships and aircraft around the world are equipped with nuclear weapons, would find such a demand unacceptable, most experts say.

Would Raise American Doubts

Such an act would almost certainly contribute to American doubts about reinforcing a Western Europe seemingly less than eager to defend itself. The prospect of keeping 360,000 American troops in Europe under a diminished nuclear umbrella would trouble U.S. military strategists, and some people say this could lead to an unraveling of the entire alliance.

President Reagan has expressed concern about Labor’s plans. Talking with European reporters the other day about how he would deal with a Labor government’s non-nuclear defense policy, he said, “I would try with all my might to persuade that government not to make these grievous errors.”

Kinnock has already softened his initial position and eased the deadline for completing what he terms “a negotiated withdrawal” of U.S. nuclear forces. Instead of a one-year deadline, he now talks in terms of five years.

But for the residents of East Anglia, the idea of an American withdrawal at any time borders on the unthinkable.

‘Place Would Just Die’

“The place would just die,” said Tom Mapplebeck, who owns a flower stall in the town square at Mildenhall.

Figures published by the 3rd Air Force indicate that the biggest bases, at Lakenheath and Mildenhall, injected $290 million last year into the economy of a region that has little industry and few large employers.

Local government officials note that the 18,000 Americans in the Mildenhall-Lakenheath area constitute a third of the population in their administrative area, which covers 144 square miles.

“The loss of the defense establishment would be an economic catastrophe here,” James Gale, the council’s chief executive, said.

Would End Way of Life

But the departure of the Americans would go beyond money. It would end a way of life in many parts of East Anglia, which has witnessed much aviation history and where the annual two-day air show is the largest event on the local calendar.

In the 1930s, Mildenhall was one of the largest bases of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command and the starting point for one of the great air races of the period--the Royal Aeroclub’s England-to-Australia Air Race in 1934.

The American contribution to this history has also become part of local pride. On walls adjacent to the council chambers at Mildenhall are photos of U.S. Air Force planes and the insignia of the 513th Tactical Airlift Wing and the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing, both based nearby.

Alston, whose Lavenham farm was the base of the 8th Air Force’s 487th Heavy Bomber Group more than four decades ago, talked warmly of the men who served there. He has two guest books nearly filled with the signatures of returning vets.

Spawned Best-Seller

Among the first American pilots assigned there in 1944 was Beirne Lay Jr., who turned his experience into the best-selling novel “Twelve O’clock High.”

At The Swan, Lavenham’s quaint, 14th-Century inn, 8th Air Force photos and memorabilia decorate the main bar. A plaque commemorating the American presence during the war was put up several years ago in the town’s main square.

It was from Lakenheath that the F-111 raid against Tripoli, the capital of Libya, was launched 14 months ago. The tankers that refueled the F-111s took off from Mildenhall.

The raid, unpopular throughout much of Europe, brought mixed feelings in East Anglia, including concern about the possibility of terrorist reprisals, but there were no overtly anti-American feelings.

Americans, Locals Mix

These deep transatlantic ties, coupled with the absence of any major cultural barriers, have enabled American service families to mix with the local population to a degree rarely seen elsewhere outside the United States. Many servicemen have bought houses in the area.

For local politicians, the American connection is seen as a definite asset. The member of Parliament for the regional center of Bury St. Edmunds, Eldon Griffith, has a master’s degree from Yale and worked for Time, Newsweek and the Washington Post before turning to politics.

Even the local Labor Party studiously avoids any hint of anti-Americanism in its anti-nuclear election appeal. Ray Novak, the man running Labor’s campaign office in Bury St. Edmunds, said:

“We’ve got nothing against the Americans. We’re just against nuclear weapons.”

He said the American raid against Libya provided a platform for debating the American role here, but he admitted that the idea of a U.S. pullout is unpopular.

“We know there is a good relationship between the servicemen and the local population,” he said.

Gale, the council official, said, “There may be some in this country who claim otherwise, but the local people are glad the Americans are here.”