restore order within Norway and that the incident was, quote, solely an
internal matter concerning the sovereign Peoples of the Soviet Socialist
Republics, unquote. At the same time, however, Soviet forces also moved
swiftly to secure the neighboring republic of Finland in Order to provide a
safe corridor through which they could outflank Norwegian border positions.
“In the first week of the invasion, large portions of northern Norway,
from North Cape to Trondheim, as well as a pocket of territory in the far
south around the capital of Oslo, were all overrun by Russian tank, ground,
and airborne forces.
“Norwegian home defense forces have proven to be more stubborn than
expected, however, and a large area in the south-central Part Of the country,
centered around the city of Bergen, remains under the control of free
Norwegian forces.
“President Connally’s support of the Norwegian resistance immediately
resulted in heightened tensions between the USSR and the United States.
Moscow declared a military exclusion zone covering both the Norwegian and
Barents Seas, and a warning was delivered by the Soviet ambassador to the
President that the Soviet Union would tolerate no outside interference from
any foreign power. The incident signaled a return to the Cold War days of
military confrontation and brinkmanship. Worse, it presented the old NATO
alliance with a challenge that, seemingly, it simply could no longer meet.
“Norway, You May recall, was a founding member of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, which was founded on the basis of mutual Cooperation
against the Soviet threat. Since the dissolution of the Warsaw pact in july
of 1991, however, NATO’s forces have been drastically scaled down, with Member
nations unable to agree on the charter’s future course, let alone on a Proper
response to Soviet aggression in Scandinavia. With Great Britain’s withdrawal
from the organization two years ago, and the subsequent loss of American bases
in that country under the policies of Britain’s new Labor government, there
seems to be little will among remaining members to enforce the treaty’s
provisions for mutual assistance.”
Film footage of an American aircraft carrier at sea, the number 74
painted on her flight deck. Subsequent scenes show American sailors on her
deck, wearing helmets and green or brown or yellow jerseys, readying an F-14
Tomcat for launch; of jet-blast deflectors rising behind thundering engines;
of naval aircraft hurtling off the bow of the carrier as steam boils from the
catapult.
“Despite considerable opposition from congressmen who warned that the
United States was involving itself in foreign matters that were no longer in
America’s best interests and that military posturing could lead to world war,
President Connally last week ordered an American aircraft carrier, the U.S.S.
Thomas Jefferson, accompanied by a number of supporting vessels, to defy the
Soviet exclusion zone as a show of support for the embattled government of
Norway.
“Early reports of actual combat between American and Soviet forces, of
aircraft shot down on both sides, and even of American surface ships and
Russian submarines being sunk in a series of engagements from Iceland to the
coast of Norway, have not, at this time, been confirmed. A virtual press
blackout has settled over the Pentagon, indeed over this entire city, though
ACN has been able to confirm that the President has ordered a DEFCON 2 alert.
That means that U.S. forces are mobilizing and are now at a state of readiness
only one step removed from all-out war.”
The camera view finally switches to the ACN reporter, an attractive young
woman with blond hair and a direct, professional manner, standing in the
Pentagon press room, speaking into a microphone.
“Clearly, military confrontation has once again brought the world to the
brink of war. It is widely believed here in the Pentagon that the marshals
who now rule the Soviet empire have gambled on a foreign adventure, the
invasion of Norway and Finland and a military confrontation with the West, in
order to distract their people at home from the continuing crisis of empty
food shelves, widespread shortages, and a collapsing economy. By forcing a
showdown with the West, one which they evidently feel they are strong enough
to win, they may be able to secure at last their own power in the face of