Pulling Out

The U.S. base at Keflavik, Iceland, is set on a dreary, lava-strewn peninsula in a place previously inhabited only by a legendary headless ghost, 35 miles west of Reykjavik. Since 1951, when the U.S. concluded a defense agreement with NATO partner Iceland and sent in 5,000 troops, relations between them and the 170,000 taciturn, insular Icelanders have been nearly as bleak as the landscape.

Though the Americans came by invitation, Icelanders treated them as unwelcome intruders. The Icelanders, jealous of their independence and insistent on their racial purity, have never cottoned to outsiders, coming as occupiers or defenders. For the 1,200 American soldiers, 3,200 airmen and sailors and 800 civilians stationed at Keflavik, only 130 town passes were allowed nightly. Those who got them had to wear uniform and be out of town again by 10:30 p.m., except on Wednesday, the one night all the bars are closed. Some Americans served out their one-year Iceland details without leaving the base. Employing their right of consultation on "composition" of U.S. forces, Icelanders saw that Negroes were barred.

In this inhospitable atmosphere there were sometimes incidents, which Iceland's vigorous Communist Party used for its Yankee-go-home demands, and the Althing once passed a resolution urging withdrawal of U.S. troops, but then did no more about it.

Last week the Pentagon announced that 1,200 Iceland-based soldiers would be moved to a Stateside base in what was tactfully called a redeployment, not a withdrawal. An airbase, radar early-warning and aircraft-control stations remain.