West Germany's ‘Missile’ Election

Report Outline
Missiles as Election Issue
Alliance Ties and Strains
Europe's Economic Malaise
Special Focus

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 1983 “the year of the rockets” and the March 6 vote “the rocket election.”

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl sought new elections after he came to power Oct. 1, ousting Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt. Schmidt's government fell when its coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), deserted the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to join Kohl's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian faction, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which is led by Franz Josef Strauss.

Not since the late 1940s, when the specter of Communist parties taking power in Italy and France haunted U.S. leaders, have outside powers tried so hard to influence the results of a European election. At a press conference at the White House on Feb. 16, President Reagan was asked what he thought the consequences would be for the Western alliance if a new German government took office and declined to deploy the new American missiles. Reagan replied: “I think it would be a terrible setback to the cause of peace and disarmament.”