Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 26, 1990                   TAG: 9007260556
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CLAUSEN, WEST GERMANY                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. WITHDRAWING CHEMICAL WEAPONS

The convoy took away the first batch of 100,000 gas-filled artillery shells stored at a U.S. military site at Clausen, which is near Kaiserslautern in the southwest part of the country.

The lethal cargo, destined for destruction on a Pacific atoll, is being removed under a 1986 U.S.-West German agreement at a cost of $83.1 million.

Hundreds of crack paramilitary West German police troops lined the convoy route and stood guard on overpasses as the the long line of 80 trucks began shuttling the shells at about 8 a.m.

Vans carrying police with riot gear accompanied the convoy.

West German authorities said someone phoned in a bomb threat against the convoy but that the first shipment proceeded without incident.

The first trucks arrived at Miesau, about 30 miles away, 2 1/2 hours later. At Miesau, the containers are to be loaded onto special trains that will take them to Nordenham, on the North Sea, where they will be placed aboard U.S. Navy ships for transport to Johnston Atoll.

The weapons will be destroyed in a specially built incinerator on the U.S. atoll about 800 miles southwest of Hawaii.

Only about 20 of the 80 trucks that left Clausen actually carried the chemical weapons sealed in air-tight containers, said U.S. Army spokesman Jim Boyle. He said the rest contained decontamination crews, firefighters, West German and U.S. soldiers, police, monitoring teams and medical staff.

"The chemical team is equipped to contain any incident," he said. "The operation is going as planned."