OPPORTUNITY IN BERLIN

...This division left Berlin, the seat of four-power government, well within the Soviet zone, with the city divided into four sectors, each to be occupied by one of the four powers...

...The decision to rearm West Germany had been quietly taken months before the North Korean attack...

...This view is not generally shared in the United States...

...These are the five major blunders which, in my judgment, are chiefly responsible for the existence of a Berlin problem...

...This may not be the legal position, but such is the hard, common-sense reality...

...The United States must seize the initiative now—-not wait and see what moves are made by the Kremlin...

...The French government had been saying that it was not enough for the United States to avenge a Soviet attack...

...If it was a mistake to create a West German state, thus provoking the formation of an East German Soviet satellite, it was an even greater mistake to allow these two German states to be remilitarized...

...Having made this arrangement, the three Western powers made the almost incredible mistake of failing to obtain the Soviet signature to a document which would guarantee them free access at all times to the Western sectors of the German capital...

...This plan was endorsed by Moscow but rejected by the Eisenhower Administration...

...Since 1957, the Russians have not been alone in fearing nuclear retaliation...

...If we give up the hope of reunifying Germany for the sake of keeping West Germany in NATO, then we must recognize the existence of the East German state, accept the partition of Germany as more or less permanent, and reconcile ourselves to the fact that we cannot in the long run hope to maintain a Western enclave of freedom in the heart of a Communist state...

...For more than a decade, I have argued for the adoption of the first alternative, putting forward a number of specific proposals for its implementation...

...The time has come for the West at long last to take the initiative away from the Kremlin...

...No one can say that Western policy in Europe has been aggressive, except perhaps for the brief interlude when John Foster Dulles was talking about a policy of liberating the Soviet satellites...

...The Western powers decided not merely to treat their three zones as an economic entity but to combine them into a new, separate West German state...

...It is an interesting though discouraging fact that the Senator's proposal has been criticized, not on its merits, but on the ground that any new approach would constitute a sign of Western weakness...

...It has been alleged that the Korean War caused the change of heart with respect to remilitarizing Germany—an allegation which is demonstrably untrue...

...The latter attempt was eventually frustrated by the brilliantly improvised Berlin Airlift, but the Western enclave in the heart of the Soviet's East German satellite remained as a dangerously explosive cause of trouble in the years to come...

...Either choice has its clear implications as to the future of Berlin...

...I have opposed and continue to oppose this kind of solution, except as a last resort in the event that a serious effort to achieve reunification should fail...

...This would be true even if all of Berlin were declared to be a free city...

...This delusive doctrine was originally rejected by the German Social Democratic opposition but has now been endorsed by West Berlin's mayor, Willi Brandt, who is the Chancellor's opponent in the approaching election...

...On the other hand, a continuation of the ten-year-old, unimaginative, and inflexible Western policy with respect to Berlin and Germany will lead to the final folly of yielding to the West German demand for nuclear weapons...

...The Soviet blockade of Berlin (19481949) and the Communist coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia (February, 1948) aroused Western fear of further Communist encroachment...

...Even if a new agreement were to "guarantee" Western access, the escape hatch would almost certainly be closed, and the 2,250,000 West Berliners would inevitably become increasingly dependent upon their Communist surroundings...

...But, if Western policy has been basically defensive, it has, in my judgment, also been far from wise, with the single notable exception of the Marshall Plan...

...The wisest sentence spoken in the whole postwar period by any Western statesman still remains the statement of George Catlett Marshall when, in launching his great proposal, he said: "Our policy is not directed against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos...

...The same thing was true of Vienna Which had likewise been slated for four-power occupation...

...The Chancellor has all but said that his determined efforts to tie Germany to the West have been motivated in large measure by his distrust of his own politically immature people—by his fear of what might happen if some demagogue were to achieve power by blowing upon the by-no-meansextinguished embers of German nationalism...

...This curious reversal of policy remains unexplained to this day...

...Up to this point I have dealt with what might be called the physical errors of omission and commission which have contributed to the development of the present tense situation...

...In addition, it would reduce cold war tensions by creating a militarily neutralized area between Russia and Western Europe...

...It amounts to saying that the West must forever remain on the defensive...

...The Russians began this folly...

...The United States now lives under the same threat...

...It is not difficult to trace the series of tragic errors: One—The United States and the United Kingdom pledged themselves in the Atlantic Charter of 1941 not to seek any territorial aggrandizement and not to countenance any territorial changes contrary to the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned...

...It has been my belief that the only way to defend Western Europe against Soviet attack would be to prevent the attack from taking place—that once a Soviet attack were launched, Western Europe could not be defended with or without a German participation in its defense—and that the rearming of Germany would be more likely to provoke than to deter Soviet attack...

...Thus, no matter what the outcome of the election, Germany will presumably remain stubbornly committed to a defense of an indefensible status quo...

...Somewhat similar proposals were made by Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the British Labor Party, and by George F. Kennan, former United States ambassador to Moscow...

...When the arrangements for Western entry into Berlin were finally made, General Eisenhower's deputy, General Lucius D. Clay, again failed to obtain a written agreement guaranteeing free access from the Western zones to the Western sectors of Berlin...

...This was against Churchill's advice, as was also the American decision to let the Soviet forces liberate Prague and the later decision by President Truman to withdraw from that part of the Soviet zone which the American forces had overrun without first making sure that Stalin would abide by his various agreements...

...I warned publicly before this step was taken that the creation of a West German state would result in two most undesirable consequences: (1) the creation by the Soviet Union of an East German Communist satellite, thus freezing the partition...

...It is, therefore, necessary to mention some of the factors which have kept Germany divided and have made its partition into a major threat to world peace...

...The choice is not between resistance and retreat...

...Five—The Marshall Plan of June, 1947, if accepted by the Soviet Union as an all-European recovery program, might have healed the East-West breach and resulted in an all-German peace settlement...

...Instead, they adopted a plan which assigned Northwest Germany to Britain, Southwest Germany to the United States, and East Germany to the Soviet Union...

...As a result, the American, British, and French forces actually had to obtain Soviet permission to enter Berlin...

...I have always considered that the decision to rearm Germany was a disastrous mistake—a mistake which has increased rather than diminished the danger of war in Europe...

...The moment West Germany became a partner in the anti-Soviet alliance, reunification necessarily meant either that its NATO partnership would have to be renounced or else that a reunited Germany would inherit the partnership...

...I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in favor of this treaty but warned against stretching it into a commitment to defend Western Europe at its easternmost frontier along the line of the Iron Curtain in Central Germany...

...The initial blunders were in large measure due to Stalin's ruthless powerhunger and to President Roosevelt's unwillingness to face and discuss the shape of the postwar world until victory had been achieved...

...In the face of Soviet determination to end this state of affairs, it is not enough for the Western powers to assert that they will, if necessary, fight to preserve their legal rights and the status quo...

...No one knows this better than the people of Poland...

...The best opportunity to explore this type of approach was provided in 1957-1958, when Poland put forward the Rapacki Plan for the denuclearization of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the two German states...

...Thus France, without being bound by the agreement, obtained a veto over its execution...

...Subsequently, it is true that the Russians violated the agreement, especially with respect to reparations...

...West Berlin is not only a Western showcase and propaganda center but an escape hatch through which some 200,000 of East Germany's most useful citizens annually make their way to freedom in the West...

...If we seek reunification at the price of giving up a German military contribution to West European defense, then we have a good case for insisting upon the preservation of the status quo*in Berlin pending the reestablishment of Berlin as the capital of a reunited German nation...

...But the Marshall Plan had been preceded by the Truman Doctrine of global containment which had aroused Soviet suspicion and hostility...

...Three—In order to pursue an almost non-existent German army into what was thought to be a last-stand southern redoubt, General Eisenhower swung his armies southward after encircling the Ruhr, instead of driving straight on to Berlin, thus permitting the Russians to capture the German capital...

...I pointed out to the Senate Committee that such a guarantee would commit the United States to a preannounced strategy in the event of war, much as the French had fatally pre-committed themselves to the defense of the Maginot Line...

...Britain has tended to take a more flexible position but, while the British distrust a rearmed partitioned Germany, they are also apprehensive of a demilitarized united Germany as a competitor...

...Once this had occurred, the aim of American policy became the reunification of the two German states through free all-German elections—a goal which Secretary of State Acheson and Chancellor Adenauer sought to achieve by a "policy of strength"— that is to say by making West Germany so strong and prosperous that it would irresistibly attract East German allegiance...

...For reasons of his own, President de Gaulle has supported West German intransigence, although he obviously has no desire to see Germany reunified...

...Two—The withdrawal of foreign troops from the area to be neutralized...

...it was implicit in the decision to defend Europe at the line of the Iron Curtain...

...The original goal of American policy was to create a single, peaceful, democratic Germany...

...It would be a demonstration of resourcefulness and strength, providing the kind of leadership for which an anxious world is waiting...

...The simple truth is that, if the Western powers relinquish the aim of reunification for the sake of keeping West Germany in NATO, they will have to recognize the sovereignty of the German Democratic Republic...

...It is scarcely necessary to point out that the Kremlin is quite capable of shifting its alliances, turning friend into foe and foe into friend at its convenience...

...This led, in March, 1948, to the Brussels Pact (in which Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg agreed upon mutual defense) and, a year later, to the North Atlantic Treaty in which the United States for the first time in its history committed itself unconditionally to the defense of Western Europe...

...One may question whether his proposal to make all of Berlin into an internationally guaranteed free city meets the need—whether there can be any solution for the problem of Berlin except in the context of a solution to the problem of Germany...

...I submitted an earlier proposal to General Eisenhower before he became President and another, which I prepared for the Arden House Disarmament Conference of December, 1956, was presented to President Eisenhower by two United States Senators—John Sparkman, Alabama Democrat, and Ralph Flanders, Vermont Republican...

...It could remain in the Common Market and, eventually, become part of a strongly united Western Europe, contributing greatly to Western aid to worldwide economic development...

...Korea merely provided a convenient rationalization...

...Failing to obtain the consent of the other three occupying powers, the French proceeded to veto in the Control Council every step leading to the four-power government of Germany as a political and economic entity...

...The latter was rejected by Mr...

...The Western decision to rearm the Federal Republic for purposes of defense came about in an unplanned, almost somnambulistic manner...

...This effort enjoyed somewhat half-hearted support from Britain and France and finally was doomed to failure by the decision to rearm West Germany as a partner in the NATO alliance...

...Nor is it sufficient to "wait and see" what Khrushchev will actually do during the coming months...

...Among these three great leaders, Churchill bears the least responsibility...

...Soviet rejection of the unprecedented Marshall proposal rang down the Iron Curtain across Europe and across a divided Germany...

...From the Soviet-East German point of view, it must be recognized that the existence of a Western-controlled island of prosperity and freedom in the heart of the German Democratic Republic is intolerable— "a bone in the throat which must be removed...

...Surely, this is arrant nonsense...

...But this could happen only in the broad context of an East-West disengagement which would tend toward reuniting all of Europe while, at the same time, constituting an important step toward regional disarmament...

...And this in spite of the fact that both sides feared the rearming of Germany and had pledged themselves to prevent it...

...Unless it is made absolutely clear to the Germans that, if their country remains partitioned, the sole responsibility will rest upon the Soviet Union, the foundation will have been laid for another RussoGerman deal—a deal in which Germany turns its back upon the West and purchases its reunification and perhaps even some of the trans-OderMeisse, Polish-held territories at the price of a Soviet alliance...

...The Potsdam Agreement (August 1945) provided that the Council would operate on a basis of unanimity, which meant that each of the four powers had a right to veto any proposed action...

...Without a new, constructive American initiative, mere resistance to whatever moves the Kremlin may make will lead only to a continuing series of crises provoked at its convenience by Soviet leadership...

...Furthermore, I expressed the view that the desired guarantee would be unfulfillable unless two actions were taken, both of which Secretary of State Acheson had assured the Senate would in no circumstances be considered...

...These were: the permanent stationing in West Germany of a large American garrison, and the rearming of West Germany itself...

...What has deterred a Soviet attack—assuming that such an adventure was ever contemplated— has been the fear of nuclear war...

...Partition into three, four, or five German states had been discussed at Teheran in 1943 and discarded...

...Two—The decision was taken at Yalta to divide the rump of Germany into American, British, and Soviet zones of occupation, with an Allied Control Commission, located in Berlin, empowered to govern all of rump Germany as an economic and political entity...

...No such effort has ever been made...

...The Soviet decision to create socalled "alert-groups" in East Germany was probably taken more as a measure of asserting Communist control within the satellite than as a measure of defense against Western attack...

...Unfortunately, the venerable Chancellor had built his prestige at home and his magic abroad upon the delusion that Germany could be reunited and remain a partner in the NATO alliance...

...Three—East-West agreement to permit the two German states to find their own way toward reunification without outside interference of any sort...

...At best, a continuation of our past inflexible and unimaginative policy will lead to the slow attrition of an ultimately untenable position...

...No one in his right mind could assume that the Kremlin would agree to the latter alternative— that is, agree to reunification if it meant permitting East Germany to join the West German state as a member of the anti-Soviet NATO alliance...

...To put forward such a proposal at the present time would be a sign of imaginative wisdom and strength on the part of the West...

...The West should propose: One—The military neutralization of the two German states and, if still possible, of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and perhaps also Hungary and Denmark...

...No one knows better than Chancellor Adenauer that such an eventuality is no chimera...

...They will have to deal with it as well as with Moscow concerning the future of Berlin...

...The possibility of a Russo-German deal will exist so long as Germany remains partitioned, and so long as Moscow holds the trump card of being able to permit or deny its reunification...

...Then the United States violated it and, by 1947, the Potsdam Agreement had become a dead letter...

...Once the division had become crystallized, it was logical for the Western powers to incorporate their German zones of occupation into what had now become a West European, instead of an all-European, recovery program...

...and (2) a Soviet attempt to oust the Western powers from Berlin on the grounds that four-power government had ceased to exist...

...Once we succumb to that demand, we shall have passed the point of no return...

...However, at Teheran (1943) and Yalta (1944), Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to violate these undertakings by agreeing that the Soviet Union should annex eastern Poland and half of German East Prussia and that Poland should be compensated for its loss by being permitted to annex the remaining German territories east of the OderNeisse rivers...

...If we want to settle the German question, we must make up our minds as to which we want—reunification or the preservation of a West German participation in NATO...

...The existence of this source of recurring tension is the result of an almost incredible series of errors of omission and commission reaching back to the wartime conferences of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin...

...We cannot have both...

...It would, for once, put the Soviet Union on the defensive...

...Eisenhower on the grounds that it would not please the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer...

...Irrespective of whether it seems likely that the Kremlin would accept such a proposal as a basis for negotiation, it is imperative for the West to put it forward...

...The French took the not illogical position that if the no-annexation pledges were to go overboard and if there was to be a Russo-Polish land-grab in the East, then France should be entitled to annex German territory in the West...

...To do this and no more is to invite war or else to face the gradual attrition of an essentially untenable position...

...It is only a slight exaggeration to say that, from 1953 to 1961, American policy with respect to Germany was made in Bonn, rather than in Washington...

...Any one of these crises, including the one we face now, can lead to catastrophic conflict...

...A new, constructive American proposal would not be a sign of weakness...

...On the other hand, a reunified Germany could remain firmly tied to the West in every sense other than that of a military alliance...

...The West completed it...

...Contrary to widely held belief, it was not the Russians but the French who originally sabotaged the Potsdam Agreement and caused the four zones to become in effect four foreign-ruled satrapies hermetically sealed off from each other...

...The Congressional Record of May 10, 1949, shows that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee affirmed that neither of these actions would be taken and that the treaty should not be stretched into a commitment to defend Western Europe at its frontier in Central Germany...

...Later, at AngloFrench insistence, Stalin agreed to let the French occupy a zone carved out of the original American area of occupation and also to let the French have a seat on the Allied Control Council...

...Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen, chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, were closely linked by past association to the leaders of German industry, and Dr...

...There were a number of reasons for this warning...

...Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana was magnificently right in recognizing the need for a new Western initiative...

...To the extent that these were indeed errors of judgment on the part of the West, it must be said that the whole course of Western policy was in a sense dictated by Stalin's aggressive postwar policy, by his ruthless satellization of Eastern Europe, and by his promotion of Communist conspiracy in the countries of Western Europe...

...If the Western powers abandon the aim of reunification, they will eventually be compelled to evacuate those of the 2,250,000 West Berliners who wish to live in freedom and to seek an exchange of the 185 square miles of West Berlin real estate for some piece of East German territory contiguous to the Federal Republic...

...In reaching this decision the three leaders discarded a plan which would have cut the German pie into three slices, each with the point of its wedge resting in Berlin...

...Yet, for the past decade, the United States government has refused to recognize that it was pursuing two mutually exclusive objectives—that it could not achieve both the reunification of Germany and the preservation of a German military participation in the NATO alliance...

...In January, 1942, the Soviet Union and other members of the anti-Axis coalition subscribed to these pledges...

...that France did not want once more to be liberated from enemy occupation...

...The Western powers do have an interest in and a definite responsibility for West Berlin's sturdy inhabitants...

...The stakes are great, for the problem of a divided Berlin situated in the heart of the East German Soviet satellite is now for the third time producing a crisis which threatens war...

...Next time," Premier Queuille said, "you will be liberating a corpse...

...In the long run, their freedom would not be secure...

...Western political policy with respect to Germany has to a large extent been conditioned by the physical or strategic actions taken or left untaken...

...But here we come to another and far-reaching blunder...

...But, for reasons yet to be explained, the French signature to the Potsdam Agreement was never obtained...

...This brings us down to the present...

...Four—As I have stated, the French had been conceded a zone of occupation and a seat on the Allied Control Council...

...The United States holds the key to the future of Western policy...

...This omission is all the more incomprehensible in view of the fact that the United States had insisted upon obtaining precisely such a document from the British, guaranteeing free access from the North German ports through the British zone to the American zone of occupation...

...The developments previously described then led to the abortive experiment in four-power government and the creation of two separate German states...

...Since 1957, Europe has been wondering to what extent it can rely upon American nuclear power as a deterrent...

...The first apparently was never considered...

...This obstructionism was carried to the point of vetoing the creation of nationwide political parties, labor organizations, and even the issuance of uniform postage stamps throughout the four zones...

...The further fact is that West Berlin is strategically indefensible, that it is a burdensome economic liability, and that the Western powers have no rational interest in the physical possession of their sectors...

...The advantages of this course would be that it would not only preserve the Western position in Berlin but that it would once and for all solve the larger problem of Germany...

...The results of this oversight were disastrous...

...It should be made now...

...The Committee approved the treaty with this understanding and, with this understanding, it was ratified by the Senate...

...Yet, within eighteen months the commitment was taken, an American garrison was sent to Germany where it has remained ever since, and—in September, 1950—Secretary Acheson demanded that West Germany be rearmed in order to participate in its own defense...

...Adenauer exercised an almost mesmeric influence over Washington officialdom...

...The fact that there has been no Soviet attack cannot be attributed to the long-delayed addition of a few German divisions to the pitifully small ground and air forces put into the field by NATO during the twelve years of its existence...

...Yet, this problem is actually inseparable from the larger problem posed by a partitioned Germany...

...The French wanted an American guarantee to defend Western Europe against being overrun...