Reforger I

A silver C-141 Starlifter transport last week whistled to a stop at Rhein-Main airbase near Frankfurt. Out of it filed a 65-man U.S. Army unit, the advance party for one of the largest troop airlifts ever undertaken. Within the next two weeks, a total of 12,000 U.S. fighting men, including two brigades of the Army's 24th Infantry Division, will be flown from their U.S. stations to join the 220,000-man U.S. Seventh Army in West Germany. In addition, 96 droop-nosed F-4 fighter-bombers will jet from Stateside bases to West Germany.

The exercise, called Reforger I, will be the largest American maneuver in Europe in the past five years. Its aim is to demonstrate the U.S.'s ability, in the event of a crisis, to airlift swiftly large numbers of U.S. troops to the NATO theater. The flown-in army units and F-4s are particularly suited to illustrate the point since they were permanently stationed in West Germany until last year. They were withdrawn at that time to the U.S. in order to reduce American military spending abroad, and thus help stem the outflow of U.S. gold reserves.

Reforger I was originally scheduled for later this year. As a result of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the date was moved forward to reassure the NATO Allies that the U.S. could quickly reinforce Europe in a crisis. Because of stormy weather, seven transports were forced to put down at other bases short of their Rhein-Main destination. But dozens of others got through, delivering 447 tons of equipment and 2,058 troopers in three days. The exercise will culminate in a one-week war game early next month.

Though the Soviets sent 200,000 soldiers into Czechoslovakia only five months ago, they professed outrage at the comparatively modest influx of 12,000 U.S. troopers. Tass, the Soviet news agency, attacked Reforger I as "a new provocative plot." Elaborating on that theme, Izvestia, Moscow's evening newspaper, warned that "the new military demonstration is directed at increasing tension in Europe." What bothers the Soviets most of all is that the war game will be held in Bavaria at the NATO maneuver site of Grafenwoehr --located only 30 miles from the Czechoslovak border.

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