Baby Airlift

The natural market for many of West Berlin's skilled industries is densely populated Western Germany. But to ship their products west through 110 miles of Red territory, Berlin businessmen must get clearance from Russian trade inspectors. For weeks, the Russians have been holding up Berlin's westbound exports on the pretext that they must be accompanied by "certificates of origin" showing the sources of all raw materials used in their manufacture. Last week, with 12,000 tons ($17 million worth) of export goods piled up in West Berlin, the West met this new threat to Berlin's reviving economy with:1) a new airlift in reverse, 2) a trade embargo between West Germany and the Communist Eastern zone.

Under contract to the West Berlin city government, four-engine U.S., British and French commercial aircraft began flying 100 tons of freight daily from Berlin to the west. Prospects were that unless the Russians dropped their demand for "certificates of origin," this "baby airlift" might be reinforced with military aircraft. At the same time, along the 500-mile curtain between East & West Germany, western border guards halted all freight, depriving the Soviet zone of a daily inflow of $238,000 worth of western goods, among them badly needed iron and steel products. Backed by the Allied High Commission, the Bonn government refused to ratify a new trade agreement between East & West Germany until the Communists stop interference with West Berlin traffic.

The Reds' reaction: a threat to put an all-out blockade on West Berlin.

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