News In Brief

Cruise missile tests begin over Canada

The first test of US cruise missiles in Canadian airspace began Tuesday after a Canadian federal court judge rejected an 11th-hour attempt by antinuclear demonstrators to block the test.

The court did not accept the argument by the antinuclear group Operation Dismantle that there is clear evidence cruise missile tests jeopardize Canadians' constitutional guarantees of life, liberty, and security.

Four of the missiles were tested over the Arctic, but they stayed attached to a B-52 bomber throughout a flight along a 1,560-mile corridor of mostly frozen tundra from the Beaufort Sea to northern Alberta.

Canada was considered an ideal site by the Pentagon because its huge, flat expanse of northern wasteland is similar to the type of terrain the ground-hugging cruise would encounter on an attack path into the Soviet Union.