Word: spitsbergen
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Soviet Russia insistently asked for air bases on Norway's Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen. The democratic world, remembering reports that Communist influence had gripped postliberation Norway, waited for Norway's answer. On Feb. 15, in a secret session, the Norwegian Parliament took up neighbor Russia's request. This week Oslo let out the news: Parliament, by 101 votes to 11, had voted "No." The 11, of course, were Communists...
...Bismarck. 4. Spitsbergen...
...long as U.S. servicemen-even radio beacon operators and weathermen-remain at Greenland outposts, the U.S. is exposed to verbal sniping from Moscow for "keeping troops on foreign soil." But with the Soviets trying to muscle in on Norway's Spitsbergen (TIME, Jan. 20), Washington military men thought this might be as good a time as any to buy Greenland, if they could...
...November 1944, Russia first asked Norway to share Spitsbergen with the Soviet Union, and to cede neighboring Bear Island outright. Trygve Lie, then Norway's Foreign Minister, refused. In April 1945, Russia tried again, suggested a joint regional defense system. Nothing came of that, either. At the U.N. Assembly last November, Foreign Minister Molotov reminded Norway's Foreign Minister Halvard M. Lange that Russia was still interested...
...When the Spitsbergen story finally reached the press last week, it sent cold shivers down many a diplomatic spine. The State Department frigidly recalled that the 1920 treaty giving Spitsbergen and Bear Island to Norway had been signed by 30 nations, including the U.S. and U.S.S.R., and could not be amended (at least in theory) except by general consent. The treaty specifically prohibited military installations on the islands...