Word: western
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Though it besieged 2½ million Berliners and a handful of Western soldiers, by last week the Soviet Union was on the defensive. Morally, at least, it was the West which now laid siege to Russia...
...categorically asserts that it is in occupation of its sector in Berlin with free access thereto as a matter of established right ... It will not be induced by threats, pressures or other actions to abandon these rights . . . The U.S. Government is therefore obliged to insist that . . . traffic between the Western zones and Berlin be fully restored. There can be no question of delay...
Moscow took its own time about sending an answer. What the Kremlin wanted was a Big Four conference preferably while the blockade was still on, not just about Berlin but about all of Germany-and maybe more. That would give the Russians a chance to swap Berlin for Western concessions elsewhere-e.g., scrapping plans for a Western German state (see below...
...Coblenz, German leaders met last week to consider proposals for a Western German state (TIME, June 14). The plan was a keystone in the dike against Communism which the U.S. is trying to build. Allied officials had feared that the Germans would stall or get bogged down in squabbles between the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats. But in Coblenz, too, Western Germany's new unity before the Russian onslaught worked wonders. The tall, slim bottles of Rhine wine and the excellent cuisine generously furnished by the French may have helped. Socialists and Christian Democrats basically agreed...
Last week most Western observers seemed to be muffing that essential point. If the anti-Communist world failed to understand the Tito crisis, it would pass up a Kremlin-sent opportunity for a victory in the Cold War-a war which, for the West, consists of one-third military preparedness, one-third economic recovery, and one-third political action that has to begin with a knowledge of what the Communist parties are all about...