Word: airlifters
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...week's installment of the East-West crisis. It showed that his absence had not been planned as a rebuff and a "delaying action"; it showed that the Kremlin was not willing that the battle of Berlin should play itself out in the strong-arm terms of Western airlift v. Soviet blockade. It helped to dispel, or at least palliate, a war scare in London, where Foreign Minister Bevin had gravely briefed a grave House of Commons. In answer to a question from Winston Churchill, Mr. Bevin said that the demobilization of 20,000 men a month from...
...Russians had shown clear signs of interest in a four-power conference, and although they had said they would accept no "prior conditions," some preliminary deal might be patched up. The great and growing success of the airlift had made the Russians lose face, on top of other losses in the spring and early summer...
...then came some welcome news. The conferees had agreed that the Allied airlift to Berlin could be stepped up to 4,500 tons a day by next fall. A new airport would be constructed in Berlin to handle additional C-54s. The planes could be supplied without serious strain on either the Air Force or its military transport service...
...increased airlift meant that the U.S. could not be driven out of Berlin by Russia's starvation tactics. It would give the Western Allies freedom to conduct negotiations in their own time. Announcing the decision at a Pentagon press conference, Clay was cautiously optimistic. "I don't want to minimize the situation in Germany. It is a serious situation. However, I do not think there is anybody in the world who is out looking for war at this moment...
That the West would have a few months in which to pull up its political socks became probable last week when General Lucius Clay declared that the Berlin Airlift could be expanded and continued indefinitely (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). If it used the interval to apply the lessons it had learned from the Berlin crisis, the West would come to a conference with the Russians with little reason to fear a setback...