The Bus Ruckus

In Berlin last week, the U.S. had a lot more trouble with its Allies than with the Russians.

Fortnight ago, when the U.S. told the Russians that they could no longer use Checkpoint Charlie as the crossing point for their daily convoy to the Soviet war memorial in West Berlin, the Reds meekly shifted the procession to the shorter route across Sandkrug Bridge in the British sector. Same day, at a meeting of Allied commanders, U.S. Major General Albert Watson proposed that the Russians be instructed to return to using buses instead of the formidable, six-wheeled armored cars that had been brought in to protect Red soldiers from rock-hurling West Berliners last month.

The British commander at once protested that he lacked authority to act, explained that the issue was one for the Foreign Office to decide. After three days of wrangling, the issue was passed on to representatives of the three Western ambassadors in Bonn. There the British gave way, only to have the French representative balk, declaring he could do nothing without permission from France's Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, who was junketing around West Germany with Charles de Gaulle. An other day passed before French approval arrived. By the time the Russians received the tripartite note "suggesting" that they revert to buses for their convoy, both the message and the Western wrangle were the talk of Berlin.

Finally, 24 hours before the allotted deadline, the grinning Russians appeared at Sandkrug Bridge in a red-painted civilian bus with a bilious, pea-green roof. As the bus passed through without incident, the ruckus subsided. Far from solution, however, was the chronic indecision among the Allies, who on a relatively minor issue took two weeks to:1) agree that there was a problem, 2) decide to do something about it, and 3) do it.

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