Nato Arms: Unnerve the Allies

Ever since mustard gas seared the lungs of millions of soldiers during World War I, Europeans have agonized over the use of chemical weapons. The controversy seemed to revive last week, when Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands declared their opposition to the NATO defense ministers’ endorsement of U.S. plans to resume the production of chemical weapons next year.

The U.S. stopped producing chemical arms in 1969. But Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger has insisted that the U.S. must modernize its chemical arsenal to counter the Soviet buildup of these weapons. Congress has stipulated that funding for the new program is contingent on the assent of NATO allies. Some U.S. Congressmen, however, feel that because the approval came from the defense ministers instead of NATO’s political council, it did not meet congressional standards for going ahead with the chemical-arms program.