The Berlin Deadlock

...For my part, I should be quite ready to bring to bear on it every conceivable force of contact, conversation, bargaining and inducement...

...Khrushchev's comment at the Twenty-first Soviet Communist party Congress was more moderate than had been anticipated...

...I do not believe that the people of West Berlin could be induced to accept a migration of this character, unless of course they were threatened with extinction...

...Such a move would undoubtedly strip the present city of all reason for being...

...All we can be sure of is that, as an ironical result of American intervention in World War II in Europe, the USSR can now challenge the United States at every turn...

...One can also be certain that such a trek would suck in at least half the population of East Berlin...

...It is also a target for missiles of every description...

...These differences of opinion are, it must be admitted, products of Soviet strength...

...Here, George N. Shuster examines Hudson's suggestion and explores other ways of solving the Berlin deadlock...

...Who can doubt that if the U.S...

...and its allies were to face the Berlin crisis in the same state of confusion which marked their response to the Suez putsch, the outcome would in all likelihood be a shattering defeat for the West...

...Those living there would inherit a metropolis doomed to extinction...

...By way of contrast, one can envisage the creation of a West Berlin military force...

...Hudson: "Politically iit would be a disaster of the first magnitude, because of the effect on West Germany and the disruption of NATO which would ensue...

...The third kind of action would be Allied defense of West Berlin...

...Implicit in it was the promise that even if Pankow were to take the initiative, Moscow would not be deterred from intervention...

...Or, in the hope of achieving a settlement, a German Government which inherits the legacy of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer will make some sort of bargain with Moscow, thus upsetting oatastrophically the balance of power in Europe...

...We need not, I believe, assume a frontal attack on the isolated city (though this is of course possible), but rather attempts to close the corridor across which ground transportation westward now proceeds, and/or a shutting-down of air traffic...

...I need only quote Mr...

...But we must admit that "six months hence" the Soviet ultimatum could very well bring Westem forces in Berlin into conflict with East German military units, at which time Moscow would respond to a call for help...

...The British reason from the premise that reunification is the major German concern, and that therefore the German Government and people will inevitably take whatever steps seem feasible to effect unity...

...These things are perilous and in all probability morally shocking...

...Certain elements in the U.S...

...In my judgment, had such a force been recruited during and after the East German uprising of 1953, the situation today would be entirely different...

...It was decided not to take this risk, but instead to rely on the airlift...

...had signed a treaty which supposedly assured the Hungarian people of a variety of democratic rights...

...I believe some things oan be done to achieve this, distasteful though they may be...

...Keeping the corridor open by force was a question which General Lucius Clay had to face in 1948...

...The corridor is not terrain on which any sort of maneuver is possible...

...Cut off from Western coal supplies, the inhabitants would freeze to death, even assuming that the pipeline from the Baku oil fields becomes a practical reality...

...Indeed, this monstrous creation would not exist if we had not, in an hour of fatuity, decreed that it was to exist...

...It was deG. F. Hudson, ill his article, "The Berlin Ultimatum" (January 19), suggested "the transfer to West Germany of everyone in Berlin who wished to go and the construction in West Germany of a new city to be called New Berlin or Free Berlin" as a solution to Moscow's threat...

...Public opinion generally may not...

...To ship household goods as well, which in the majority of oases constitute all that families possess, might well require more than a year...

...That pledge we have underwritten with the lives of American fliers...

...Manifestly, if the Soviet dictator were to persist in leaving the West no choice except that between shooting and not shooting, only four kinds of action would be possible...

...But the odds against it, in case of a shooting war and Soviet intervention, would be very great indeed...

...One would be to adopt Mr...

...Two alternatives are usually envisaged: Either there may be a military adventure, set off by an East German uprising which armed units from the West would assist...

...Such a feat, granted that the vast amount of money to accomplish it could be found, would take three years to complete...

...This would be a fantastic undertaking, but it would be far easier to accomplish them evacuation of the city...

...This also was not achieved, despite draconic efforts...

...The first is to seek to make it advantageous for the Soviets not to rock the boat...

...There are in West Berlin enough German veterans to man effectively all other required military units—anti-ta,nk battalions armed with the latest weapons, machine-gun companies and infantry...

...It also believes that the welljbeing of the German Federal Republic is so inextricably bound up with the prosperity of a united Europe that bargains with the Soviet Union will remain chimerical...

...seem to feel that when you begin to converse with Communists, the latter automatically become quite all right...

...Second, we must assert anew, vigorously and bluntly, that we will maintain strong armed forces in Western Europe until an acceptable settlement of the whole European question has been reached...

...Professor Shuster, President of Hunter College, served as U.S...

...The inevitable results would be that West Germany would sooner or later be forced to strike some kind of bargain with Moscow...

...The likelihood, therefore, is that if the worst happened and the Pankow regime resorted to military force, the airlift would come into being once again...

...Far more difficult would be the dismantling of West Berlin industry...

...But we have told West Berlin that it is like one of our own cities and that we would never desert it...

...They would be far more reliable than any armed men Ulbricht can mass in the East...

...That kind of doom might not impress the Russians, but it would surely strengthen, rather than weaken, German desires for reunification...

...We must therefore hope that, despite Khrushchev's threat, the status quo can be preserved...

...This it could never manage to do on the basis of good will, support from its own citizens or international law...

...The fourth possibility is oapitulation...

...It remains just as vitally interested in the fate of other peoples in the Soviet satellite areas as it is in the fortunes of East Germany and so builds its hopes on an overall settlement...

...Yes, there is one danger...

...We must assume that industrial plants would therefore be abandoned and simply be rebuilt wherever the new Berlin was staked out...

...Of the courses of action suggested, arming West Berlin is the least rash, though it would be dangerous indeed...

...Recognizing" the German Democratic Republic oan certainly be accompanied by franker talk about it than has of late been the custom with us...

...Surely few of us are mad enough not to realize that this would be the route to total surrender...

...This H. G. Wellsian maneuver, if carried out, would imply that the reunification of Germany had ceased to be considered a matter of sovereign importance by us and our allies...

...It may be taken for granted that if Khrushchev withdrew Soviet troops from the territory of the German Democratic Republic, the existence of a West Berlin "army" might well dissuade Pankow from risking adventures...

...Of course it would be degrading, but it need not necessarily look like a loss of face...

...Third and finally, it does not seem to me that negotiating with Grotewohl is more reprehensible than dealing with Khrushchev...

...this would probably result in the involvement of the NATO powers, as a consequence of Soviet intervention...

...It is hardly possible to envisage anything more serious...

...Only the most rigorous discipline would dissuade West Berlin armed units from intervening in the East in case of trouble...

...Deprived of Western markets and financial assistance, the city's enterprise would collapse...

...But let us assume that under some kind of truce the evacuation could be effected...

...The German Democratic Republic can be upheld only by force, and Khrushchev's pronouncement was a very impressive and disheartening guarantee that the force required would be made available...

...During the course of Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan's visit to this country, there was a half-hearted, emotional and sometimes half-witted discussion of doing business with the Soviet Union...

...To be sure, the U.S...

...But it is clear that responsible Western policy-makers have not ignored the warning As a matter of fact, efforts to bring about a unified Western position have never been more pronounced...

...The situation would then be like that duri,ng the Hungarian uprising, save that Allied military units would be on the premises...

...The argument, which one hears again and again, runs as follows: The U.S...

...Recently Europe has once more begun to doubt that we intend to do so—a reflection of its inner anxiety, which must be taken seriously and counteracted...

...Land Commissioner for Bavaria...

...This is utterly unthinkable...

...The transportation available would not bring the population out in less than three months, assuming that each person left with no more than a suitcase...

...There it is, and we have no recipe for getting rid of it...

...One may add that the surrender of the West Berlin population would be, from the moral point of view, far more grievous than was the write-off of Hungary...

...We do not know what the Kremlin has in mind...

...Koenigsberg, once the home of Immanuel Kant, is today a shambles...

...Quite as difficult, in all probability far more difficult, would be the provision of the necessary utilities...

...as Mr...

...American opinion, on the other hand, is formed on the basis of other considerations...

...If the Party could have doubled the size of its vote, there might have appeared some reason to surmise that more of the same effort—a combination of pressure and lure—would in the long run make the Party strong...

...Indirectly, too, the strategic strength of the Western democracies would thus be fatally reduced...

...Hudson suggests, be willing to look at the scene thus conjured up with the requisite realism...

...We ought to make our terms for doing so crystal-clear, and we should then try to open up channels of trade which Moscow will not wish to cut off...

...To be sure, the fears currently influencing British public opinion would become more realistic...

...Obviously, the situation has changed for the worse since then, except that the German Democratic Republic does need avenues of its own for trade with the West...

...West Berlin would in a short time be an even more spectacular ruin...

...Let us assume that there were moved into Tempelhof airfield some squadrons of military planes manned by volunteer pilots—a force comparable to that which General Claire Chennault once formed in the Far East...

...Organizing such units would be a risky business, but far less so than evacuation...

...Maintaining the water supply is, for example, one of West Berlin's contemporary headaches...

...If so, it failed...

...A marked diminution of the tide of refugees from East Germany would have had comparable results...

...Hudson's suggestion and move West Berlin lock, stock and barrel to the West...

...The new architecture would soo,n degenerate into a heap of concrete and broken windows...

...But they are less dangerous and less immoral than war...

...But I think we all agree that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's very blunt first version of what may well become a more explicit and uncompromising demand some months hence is a bargaining move...

...It would be much harder to accomplish in any West German area contiguous to the Iron Curtain...

...Of course it may well be that the Khrushchev statement was timed to intimidate West Berlin itself during the course of elections marked by a rather grandiose Communist party campaign effort...

...This is the delusion which may yet undermine our security...

...A Soviet move to oust those units would mean either war or capitulation...

...Instead, dozens of defecting intellectuals and officials have proclaimed, more effectively than ever, the bankruptcy of the regime headed by Walter Ulbricht, Otto Grotewohl and Wilhelm Pieck...

...indeed, the debacle was about as complete as it could well have been...

...The only offsetting factor is the vital need for Western products, raw materials and trade which the German Democratic Republic cannot ignore...

...has become a target for Soviet intercontinental missiles, and therefore its safety can best be assured by withdrawing from every situation likely to induce Moscow to use such missiles...

...signed to enable the thoroughly reprehensible German Democratic Republic to stand on its own feet...

...In other words, the Soviets would have to agree to the migration, which would certainly be one of the most harrowing in history...

...Western determination to keep the city free does not preclude a negotiated settlement with the Kremlin THE BERLIN DEADLOCK By George N. Shuster THE PROBLEM of German reunification is discussed in Great Britain within the context of public opinion quite different from that in the United States...

...But educating ourselves is a matter apart from the well-being of the people of West Berlin...