Ex-Bonn Defense Minister Takes Over NATO Leadership

West German Manfred Woerner took over as NATO secretary-general on Friday and challenged the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact to show evidence of “new thinking” by confining its military role to defense.

Woerner succeeded Britain’s Lord Carrington, who retired after four years in the top civilian post of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He said at his first news conference that the Western alliance was formed on the concept of military restraint.

It “has purely defensive aims and confines itself to what is needed for its own defense. That is something new in history. It is to be hoped that the Warsaw Pact will follow this example,” said Woerner, a former West German defense minister.

“This would be a decisive new turn for the foreign and security policy of the Soviet Union and conclusive evidence of the well-publicized ‘new thinking’ in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact,” said Woerner, 53.

Woerner is the first West German to become secretary-general of NATO since the alliance was set up in 1949 and West Germany joined in 1956.

He said he would work to foster coherence, unity and the strength of the alliance and seek improved East-West relations “not only by continuing arms control efforts but, above all, by progress in the political and humanitarian field.”