After Outcry, Bonn Suspends Plans for New Missile

The West German government announced Wednesday that it will suspend a project to build a short-range missile, after a political outcry here and in East Germany over disclosure of the project.

The government said the projected missile was designed to carry a non-nuclear warhead. West Germany has no nuclear weapons under its control. The project, undertaken jointly by West German and U.S. firms, appears to have been begun without the knowledge of some lawmakers. It came to light Tuesday in a television news report.

The report suggested that the missile could carry a nuclear warhead and might be a successor to the U.S.-built Lance, a surface-to-surface nuclear weapon that is becoming obsolete.

East Germany accused the Bonn government of planning to build a nuclear missile, and it said this was a provocation connected with the European talks on conventional weapons that are scheduled to begin next month in Vienna.

The Communist daily Neues Deutschland said that East Germany is alarmed because the West German project was disclosed after the Warsaw Pact powers announced reductions in their military establishments.

“We are dealing with a provocation against the Vienna disarmament talks,” the newspaper said. “While we are trying to rid our continent of all atomic means of mass destruction, the enemies of disarmament are trying to give West Germany the power to use nuclear weapons.”

Friedhelm Ost, spokesman for the West German government, said that Chancellor Helmut Kohl had decided to put off development of a short-range missile. But he said the government will not cancel what he termed a “very interesting” project until the East-West disarmament negotiators agree on reductions in Europe’s conventional forces.