On the Frontiers

In their campaign to keep U.S. missiles out of Western Europe, the Communists have loudly insisted that Soviet intermediate-range missiles are all kept at home in the Soviet Union and not up on Western Europe's frontiers. When Norwegian Foreign Minister Halvard Lange told his Parliament a fortnight ago that there are Soviet rocket-launching bases in East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, a Soviet spokesman screamed, "That's a lie!", and in the three satellite capitals, local Communists echoed the denials piously. But last week the West German government intelligence service backed up Lange's charge, and other Western and neutral officials helped fill in some of the details:

P: From the East German island of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea to the Rhodope Mountains near the Bulgarian-Greek border 1,000 miles away, Russia has built a snakelike chain of at least 14 missile-launching bases in six satellite countries.

P: The big base southwest of Liberec, near the Czech-Polish border, is believed to be the operations center for all the bases. There are four others in Czechoslovakia, one in Poland near the Baltic Sea resort of Kolobrzeg, one in Hungary near Lake Balaton, two in Rumania, three in Bulgaria, two in East Germany (one, near Erfurt, is 150 miles from Bonn, 400 miles from Paris, 450 miles from London).

P: All of the bases are equipped not only with short-range missiles but with the Soviet T-2 IRBM, a two-stage liquid-fueled missile of 75 to 85 tons that can hurl a nuclear warhead from 1,200 to 1,800 miles, depending, says one Pentagon wit, "on how easy you scare."

P: Red army patrols keep the local population away from the bases, pick up and lengthily question anyone who ventures too near. Originally, the bases were supplied with Russian weapons, but in recent months, intelligence reports say, three arms plants (two at Bohumin, one at Snina) have gone into rocket production in Czechoslovakia.

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