The Battle of the Passes

In the remote stations of the cold war, they also serve who only sit and look at television. Under a 1947 occupation agreement, a U.S. military mission limited to no more than twelve officers and noncoms sits in Potsdam in Communist East Germany. In a comfortable lakeside villa they go about an ordinary daily routine of playing cards, listening to the radio or dialing in their favorite television programs. Similar twelve-man Russian missions sit in Frankfurt in West Germany, and in the former British and French occupation zones.

In January, as a calculated harassment, the Russians announced that the regular Soviet passes issued to Allied missions in East Germany were no longer valid. Instead, the Russians offered new passes co-stamped by the Soviets' puppet East German state. The U.S. refused to be drawn into a trap that would amount to recognizing the legal existence of the so-called German Democratic Republic, and the battle of the passes began. Britain, France and the U.S. retaliated by ordering the twelve-man Russian missions in their zones not to venture out of town.

Last week, after six weeks of stalemate, the Russians backed down. The Soviet commander in Potsdam announced that "guided by the desire not to worsen relations among the great powers, especially in view of the forthcoming summit conference," the old Russian passes would be revalidated as of March 14, for an indefinite period.

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