Word: east
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Isolated deep within hostile East Germany, West Berlin depends for survival upon its right of free access to West Germany. Last week that right suddenly acquired a price. In a swift move, the regime of Communist Boss Walter Urbricht forced all West German and West Berlin travelers through East Germany to buy transit visas at $2.50 a round trip. After July 1, truckers and bargers will be required to pay new taxes on their cargoes, and after July 15 all West German travelers will be required to carry passports (in the past they needed only identity cards...
Walter Ulbricht was not really interested in revenue. The move seemed intended primarily to underscore East Germany's claim that it is a sovereign nation. It was also likely that Ulbricht, as the East bloc's last surviving Stalinist, hoped that a new Berlin crisis might induce a show of comradely support in Eastern Europe, dampening the trends toward liberalism in Czechoslovakia and Rumania. Since it was his third move in recent months against West Berlin's access routes, Ulbricht also obviously hoped to shake the city's self-confidence and discourage foreign investors...
...Reasonableness. On receiving the news, West German Foreign Minister Willy Brandt, the former mayor of West Berlin, hurried back from Vienna. Ironically, he had been on his way to Belgrade to seek President Tito's support for West Germany's new policy of easing tensions with the East bloc. In Bonn, Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger held an emergency Cabinet session. In Paris, London and Washington, the allies, who guarantee West Berlin's security, conferred about what to do. The painful decision was to do nothing, aside from making a few perfunctory gestures. Kiesinger flew...
...allies were reluctant to take any retaliatory action, such as refusing to grant travel documents to East Germans for trips to NATO countries, because the East Germans had carefully left U.S., British and French access rights untouched. For its part, the West German government was unwilling to hit Ulbricht where it would hurt him most-restricting inter-German trade-since that would also hurt the average East German. Kurt Kiesinger's Grand Coalition is committed to a policy of trying to make life easier, not harder, for the East German population. Furthermore, because of the partial success...
Early one morning last week, as the capital was stirring to life, Communist gunners cut loose a savage rocket barrage aimed at the heart of the capital. Firing from positions six miles east of downtown Saigon, they launched 26 Soviet-made 122-mm. missiles, whose only warning is a high-pitched whistle. Two missiles smashed into two houses in Gia Long Street and killed eight civilians. Another landed within 200 ft. of the Rex, originally an apartment building and now a U.S. billet. American officers there abandoned their breakfast and threw themselves under tables while Vietnamese waitresses screamed in terror...