West Germany's ’Missile’ Election

Archive Report

Missiles as Election Issue

U.S.-Soviet Interest in Election Outcome

On march 6, West Germans will vote in what could be, in terms of NATO politics and East-West relations, the most important European election in decades. The same day German voters go to the polls, France's socialist government will face a test in municipal elections, but the German election is getting more attention in the United States, and with good reason. At stake is the question of whether the Federal Republic will stand firm behind NATO's 1979 decision to begin deploying new American missiles in Europe at the end of 1983 if arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union have failed to produce an agreement limiting intermediate-range nuclear arms on both sides. The German press has dubbed ...

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