In Greece, the Truman Doctrine is meeting its first great test. Left in a shambles by one of the most terrible of the Nazi occupations, Greece saw nearly a third of her population starved, murdered, frozen, or diseased. These valiant people, often divided against themselves, were asked to fight a most horrible civil war.
Greek Communists using bases in Yugoslavia to hit and hide have kidnaped tens of thousands of Greek children, divorced them from their lives and parents, and are training them as future agents of this barbaric order.
As the Greek tragedy wore on, a tired Britain became unable to guarantee the freedom of the Mediterranean. As massive American aid pours in, the Communists are being driven deeper and deeper into the hills.
The Achilles heel of communism, Yugoslavia, first to stand up against Moscow, is closing its borders to the guerrilla bands and it appears that an end may be in sight.
The only ray of light in this bleak picture is the accommodation worked out to neutralize Austria.
In a few years the Soviet Union has swallowed up Eastern Europe and now stands on the brink of creating an empire from the Baltic to the Mediterranean to the English Channel. It is so vast that not even a Hitler dreamed of it. The Soviet Union has patented a method of results without the death of a single Red Army soldier. In Berlin we have been subjected to every harassment short of open warfare. We take our cue from the Greeks that when free men hang tough, they will prevail. If Berlin falls, then the take-over of Western Germany and Western Europe becomes academic.
All that stands between the Soviet Union and the English Channel is a thin line of American and British soldiers and the resolution of free men.
Chapter Thirty-six
THE TENSION IN BERLIN was like that brief lull between the time the air-raid siren stopped and the first bomb fell.
The rumor was planted and spread that the Americans were about to pull out, that food reserves were nearly gone in the Western Sectors, and that there was no room “for the adherents of partition.”
With the Supreme German Council no longer functioning, the only official contact was through the Berlin Kommandatura where the moves and countermoves increased the tempo toward the showdown.
On April 11,1948, the Berlin Assembly continued to defy the Soviet Union by once more voting down the anti-Fascist front.
Two days later General Trepovitch attempted to seize the police force by declaring it wholly under Soviet command. The Western commandants were able to block the take-over because Neal Hazzard had been farsighted enough to have Hans Kronbach appointed as deputy president months before. Kronbach had quietly built a strong pro-Western force which could splinter away from the main body.
On April 16 all Western papers in the Russian Sector were seized, all printing plants confiscated.
Along with this there began a harassment of German civilians traveling in and out of Berlin. The rail lines and highways were entirely within Russian-held territory. After getting away with the pressure on the Germans, Trepovitch ordered harassment on the daily American trains which ran personnel, mail, and supplies to and from the zone.
Each train leaving Berlin was now forced to submit to tedious inspections on the Russian contention that the Americans were supporting black-marketeering and smuggling.
On the autobahn, trucks were compelled to submit manifests and their cargo was inspected carefully. Soviet checkpoints made these inspections last for hours, lining up hundreds of vehicles waiting for clearance.
Then the canals were hit and barges waylaid.... The Soviet Union had succeeded in snarling traffic hopelessly.
At last Neal Hazzard warned that no Russian troops would be allowed to board any American train or convoy.
Trepovitch quickly adjusted to the tactic. Without prior warning the rail lines and highways would be shut for hours for “repairs” or due to “technical difficulties.”
Berliners watched it all happen with growing apprehension.
By mid-April the American garrison began to feel the pinch. General Hansen phoned the USAFE commander, Barney Root, at Air Force Headquarters in Wiesbaden.
“We’re going to need supplies flown in to take care of the garrison.”
“How much do you figure, Chip?”
“Eighty tons a day.”
“Eighty tons! Hell, Chip, all we’ve got around here are a couple dozen old Gooney Birds. They can handle only about two tons a flight. Let me get together with my people and see what we can scratch up. Send us a list of requirements and we’ll get it to you somehow.”
Barney Root was able to locate a few Douglas Skymasters in Italy and the Middle East. These four-engine craft had a ten-ton capacity. Crews were called in from bases in England and two days after Hansen’s call the first of them touched down on the runway at Tempelhof to begin the “milk run” to Berlin.
Meanwhile, General Hartly Fitz-Roy worked out some sort of relief for the British garrison and both supplied the French.
At the Air Safety Center, still under four-power operation, and through spies around Tempelhof, Igor Karlovy was able to study the proceedings. In bad weather the planes stacked up overhead resulting in minor chaos. It all confirmed Igor’s findings. The West was having trouble getting in a few hundred tons of supplies a day for their garrisons. The greater task of supplying two million people needing thousands of tons daily was beyond comprehension.
To make matters more tense, Russian fighter planes ran through the corridors on the contention that the corridors were illegal, did not exist, and the skies were Russian-owned.
Into this city came Senator Adam Blanchard.
It had long been fashionable for members of the Congress to tour Berlin, get themselves photographed, make a statement or two for posterity, and generally lend themselves to the “glamorous” situation.
Hansen and Hazzard and other top staff officers were compelled to spend hundreds of hours at Tempelhof welcoming the junketing legislators. Some were hard-working and sincere men desiring to help the situation, others were utter bores and nuisances.... Hansen deliberately lived in a small house without guest facilities.
Adam Blanchard was not a common-garden-variety senator. From the minority party, he held seats on both the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Forces Committee. Although no one could figure what good he could do in Berlin, everyone knew he could do a great deal of harm. The silk-glove treatment was ordered.
Blanchard, as suspected, had come to Berlin with a purpose in mind. He was to run for re-election with a swell of discontent in the party hierarchy of his state. Key industrialists, traditional conservatives, and crusty old isolationists controlled the party machinery. They were sick as hell of being taxed to death to feed undeserving and ungrateful Europeans and keeping a costly American occupation army “over there.”
Blanchard had gone along with the Truman Doctrine earlier, bringing further growls that he was getting a little “pinko” around the edges. The senator was now on tenterhooks on how he would vote for the Marshall Plan. He evaded that issue.
His advisors conjured up the idea of a “fact finding” trip to Germany, and Berlin in particular, after which he would make a declaration to soothe the troubled waters back home.
At the end of four days of briefing and tours in Berlin, Adam Blanchard’s people called a press conference which was arranged for the entire corps, Communists as well as Western journalists in attendance.
“We want to get out of Germany as soon as possible,” Blanchard said. “The first step will be to hand over the authority to the State Department and pare down this costly occupation force.”
“That son of a bitch!” Neal Hazzard said.