Toward Meeting No. 89

There was a faint touch of detente in the Berlin air. The U.S. removed its M48 tanks from the threatening spot at West Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie, the Friedrichstrasse passageway to the Communist half of the city; next day the Russians pulled back their own tracked T-54 tanks from the sector boundary.

The surface relaxation did not mean that East and West had come any closer together on Berlin basics. It now was clear that the second conversation between U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko two weeks ago had produced no progress at all. Gromyko flatly refused even to discuss the future of East Berlin, would only talk about changing West Berlin's status. He was not at all interested in internationalizing the Autobahn through East Germany from Berlin to the West ("Would the British like to see the highway from London to Dover internationalized?" asked an East German newspaper sardonically). He also repeated his familiar demand that any settlement must permit Russian troops to join the U.S., British and French garrisons in West Berlin.

U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk still hoped that things eventually would simmer down to tacit agreement to leave things the way they are, with both sides talking on indefinitely. "What we'd like," said a State Department aide last week, "is to reach that stage when we open the morning paper and read, 'Ambassador Thompson and Mr. Gromyko held their 89th meeting on Berlin yesterday.' "

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