Tass denies US reports of strikes at auto plants

The Soviet news agency Tass, clearly stung by US press reports of strikes at two Soviet auto plants in May, denied the accounts Wednesday, Monitor correspondent David K. Willis reports. Tass said it contacted the plants in Togliatti and Gorky "and learned that the collectives of both these plants were working normally and regarded the inventions of these slanderers as nauseating."

The agency said the Washington Post and other newspapers had reported "deliberately lying reports" about alleged mass strikes, contending the strikes involved as many as 200,000 people. The Monitor reported a strike at Togliatti, at a plant built by the Italian Fiat company, involving hundreds of workers for two days. The information came from unofficial Soviet sources in touch with officials in a government ministry.