Moscow to Berlin

For over a month, the fate of Berlin had been wearily discussed in Moscow. Then, one night last week, the Western powers' special envoys relaxed: they went to see Vivien Leigh in Anna Karenina. They had achieved "agreement in principle" (TIME, Sept. 6) with Russia. Now, like a pea in a shell game, the problem was passed back to Berlin, where the four military governors of Germany were instructed to work out an agreement in practice.

Here Come the Kings. Among the crowd of curious Berliners in front of the Allied Control Authority building, in Berlin's Potsdamer Strasse, the name of France's General Pierre Koenig caused excitement (Koenig means king in German). "Where's the king?" cried a little four-year-old girl. "I want to see the king."

In Buicks, Cadillacs and Maybachs, the captains and the kings arrived. Marshal Vassily Sokolovsky rode in a '39 La Salle with baby-blue window curtains. General Lucius Clay was late, bounded up the steps whistling a vague tune. With Britain's Sir Brian Robertson and France's Koenig, they sat down to a hard bargaining session. The meeting, though suddenly called, had not required much preparation: the conference room had been kept scrubbed and polished--just in case the military governors, who had not used it for 23 weeks, might come back. Nor had the delegates needed much briefing to start their wrangling over the same old issues.

Social life went on as usual, too. On the second day France's Koenig spread a magnificent buffet complete with pike and ham, cherry tarts and chocolate eclairs--but no Russians.

Limited Victory. In Moscow, the Russians had agreed to lift the blockade if the Russian mark were accepted as Berlin's only money. The Russians might use their currency as an effective weapon to conquer Berlin in the long run--depending partly on just how the men around the table settled the details. The U.S. had originally demanded that the Big Four "control" the Berlin currency. It was likely, however, that the U.S. would give in on the issue of four-power currency "control," settle for currency "supervision," whatever that might turn out to mean in practice.

Many Germans believed that even this Western concession was too much. Cried Socialist Franz Neumann: ". . . Godesberg . . . Munich ... !" The fact remained that if Russia really lifted the blockade, that would be a victory for the U.S., even if limited and far from final.

Above all, the Russians had so far failed in their chief objective--which was simply to blackmail the West into "saving" Berlin by tossing Western Germany to the wolves. Western Germany, whose industrial potential was the most important bulwark standing between Europe and Communism, was going strong (see col. 2).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.