Long Beach Council Backs Missile Treaty

LONG BEACH — It’s not often that the City Council gets involved in international affairs, but this week it made an exception.

At the request of Councilman Tom Clark, the council voted unanimously to ask U. S. Sens. Alan Cranston and Pete Wilson of California to support the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. The treaty was signed earlier this month by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

“Rarely does an event occur that presents the opportunity to shape the future of our country and probably the world,” Clark said, adding that the treaty banning ground-launched intermediate-range nuclear missiles “offers a tremendous opportunity to create a nuclear weapon-free world.”

Resident Richard Rose congratulated the council for its action but he suggested the officials take it a step further and urge the U. S. Navy to no longer base two battleships in Long Beach.

“Long Beach will continue to sit under the shadow of the nuclear mushroom” unless such battleships are removed, Rose said.

The council did not vote on Rose’s request. Clark said: “You have to begin somewhere.”

According to the authoritative Jane’s Fighting Ships 1987-88, the Long Beach-based battleships New Jersey and Missouri carry Tomahawk missiles, Harpoon missiles and other armament.