THE VITAL QUESTION ON VIETNAM HAS WILSON GIVEN NUCLEAR GO-AHEAD?

JANUARY 26 Namara's latest visit to Vietnam.

S the Wilson government preparing its biggest betrayal of all? Tied by billion-dollar threads to U.S. imperialism, have the Labour leaders given the go-ahead for nuclear weapons in Vietnam?

This is the question raised by the world tour of U.S.

Strange McNamara. He visited Saigon on November 28, the bomber base at Guam.

But his Vietnam visit followed discussions with the Britain. What did Harold Wilson, one-time 'left', discuss w The Atomic Aircraft Carrier 5 The Enterprise the largest atomic-powered aircraft carrier in the world operating with the Seventh Fleet off the coast of Vietnam. VIETNAM:

VOTE "[EFT' MPs attacked their leaders' Vietnam policy at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Wednesday. were softened by 'polite and moderate terms', according to lan Aitken in Thursday's 'Guardian'. John Mendelson, MP for Penistone, urged Prime Minister Wilson to tell President Johnson that Britain insists on the unconditional cessation of U.S. bombing attacks on North Vietnam and an assurance that the Vietcong will be invited to any peace negotiations. But such demands mean nothing as 'polite demands. These critical 'lefts' have to take a stand on Vietnam by voting against Wilson's support of U.S. aggression, even if it means bringing down is now AGAINST WILSON 'Defence' Secretary, Robert returning to Washington via NATO powers-starting with ith the man in charge of the brutal imperialist war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants?

NOT IGNORED The question of a European H-bomb was certainly on the agenda, both in London and Paris.

But Vietnam could not have been ignored.

Recent reports from Washington stress the growing desperation there at the defeats suffered by U.S. forces at the hands of the Vietcong. * The war was once planned to end in December 1965. i Toat war tre ycais dgo wien U.S. advisers' in South Vietnam numbered some 15,000. Now, when 170,000 U.S. men are in action with 600,000 South Vietnamese troops, McNamara tells the world that 'it will be a long war'.

And so; as the casualty lists lengthen, the American ruling class debates whether to try to find a compromise or step up the slaughter.

Already, another 100,000 Americans are expected to be shipped out to Vietnam in the new year.

But more than troops are involved here. The U.S. Seventh Fleet, operating off the coast, comprises 125 warships, including three aircraft carriers.

One of these is the nuclearpowered U.S.S. Enterprise.

Four hundred strike planes operate from these carriers.

The further 'escalation' of the war undoubtedly raises the question of adding to all the other horrors practiced on the Vietnamese people by using atomic weapons.

Since they see no way of bringing Vietnam under their SEVEN HUNDRED IMMIGRANTS SEVEN hundred workers at R. Woolf and Company, Hayes, Middlesex, went on strike last Wednesday after the alleged suspension for three days of one of their fellow workers for being ten minutes late.

On Tuesday morning this week all the men are reported to have received their cards.

According to a report in the 'Weekly Post', Southall, a document issued by N. S. Hundal, the convenor, claims that over the past two years the management at Woolf's have continually attempted to break up their trade union organisation.

The document puts forward the following reasons for the strike:

1. The management has contuously over tha given preferential treatment to non members and over the PUBLIC MEETINGS SACKED Newsletter Correspondent same period there has been constant victimisation of shop stewards. We are therefore demanding 100 per cent trade unionism.

2. Many of our members are regularly taking home only the bare minimun, despite the fact that they are always being asked to work harder and in fact have been doing so.

Whilst this has been going on, wage claims for the lower paid workers have been pending for very lonz periods: one such claim nas en pending tOL over a year. We are demanding these outstanding claims are settled at once.

A further point states that all agreements between the employers and the workers must be honoured.

The majority of the workers at Woolf's are from India and Pakistan and they organised themselves into the Transport and General Workers' Union.

TOLD TO GO

On Tuesday the strikers were told to go early to their Transport and General Workers' Union branch 1/686 biennial general meeting, where they were to be informed of the latest developments in the strike.

After a discussion on the strike, the several hundred Woolf's men, who had turned up to the meeting were told to go home by a union official and did SO.

When this action was questioned by two members of the branch they were told that the hall was not large enough.

One of the members moved that the business of the meeting— the election of officers-should be postponed for two weeks and that a larger hall should be found.

But the chairman is reported to have refused to accept the motion.

The two members continued to object, on the grounds that the militant members of the branch were being denied their rights, whereas at least one member of the British National Party was in the meeting.

A union official then allegedly called the police into the meeting and the two trade union members were removed.

Full support must be given . to the Woolf strikers by the labour movement. T&GWU members must also ensure that they enjoy full union rights.

Not sanctions - Arms!

THE seriousness with which the Wilson government intends carrying out the farcical sanctions against the Smith regime in Rhodesia was brought home when his 'left' lap-dogs revolted on Tuesday evening over the movement of crude oil by the British Petroleum tanker, 'British Security', to Rhodesia.

Wilson claimed that stopping 'British Security' might harm Zambia, and twice, in Parliament, he said that stopping the tanker would be only a moral, ineffective gesture.

This contempt of the right wing for the rights and safety of the African workers and peasants must be answered in Britain not merely by effective sanctions carried out by British workers, but the raising of the demand of arming the Africans.