Thunder in the Wings

Not since the 1953 East German uprising had the tide of refugees from Communism reached such flood proportions. In a week, the grey procession of escapees showing up at registration centers in West Berlin and West Germany leaped from the normal 500 a day to almost 1,500. At the big Marienfelde refugee barracks, the registration clerks were swamped, and West Berlin authorities had to charter extra planes to haul the escapees out to the West. One reason was the new food shortage in East Germany, which had brought tighter rationing of potatoes and butter, new crackdowns by Red Boss Walter Ulbricht. But the overriding impulse that sent East Germans by the hundreds surging across the frontier was a cold fear inspired by Nikita Khrushchev and his threat to provoke a new Berlin crisis.

Eastern Panic. As the refugee flow soared higher and higher, a U.S. Air Force Convair droned up the 110-mile corridor from West Germany one day last week and landed at West Berlin's Tempelhof Airport. Into the hot sun stepped Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, 85, to clasp the welcoming hand of Berlin's Socialist Mayor Willy Brandt. For a few hours, both could forget that they are rivals in the campaign for the fall elections. "I have come here in a moment of crisis," declared Adenauer. "I intend to show that the Federal German Government and I personally have close ties with this city." After touring the city, Adenauer called a huge press conference, took pointed notice of the spate of refugees. "There seems to be a growing panic in the Soviet zone," declared the doughty old Chancellor, suggesting that West Germany might soon offer the hapless East German people 5,000 tons of butter to raise their ration. "The latest in a series of Western provocations," sputtered East Berlin's Neues Deutschland.

Western Retort. The three Western allies were standing firm in the determination to keep Berlin free. In a televised address, French President Charles de Gaulle warned that the Russians were trying "to settle unilaterally the fate of Berlin by jeopardizing the communications . . . and the position of the American, British and French troops there . . . I proclaim once again that there is no chance of this being accepted." If Nikita Khrushchev really wants peace, declared De Gaulle, he will not get it "by making offstage thunder" to frighten the world.

Some of Khrushchev's recent thunder took the form of an astonishing remark to Britain's ambassador in Moscow, Sir Frank Roberts: he boasted that he had all Western Europe at his mercy. Only six hydrogen bombs would be needed to wipe out Britain, said Khrushchev, and nine more would take care of France as well.

And last week, at a Moscow dinner in honor of Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah, Nikita rose to launch an attack on the U.N., declared that "even if all the countries of the world adopted a decision that did not accord with the interests of the Soviet Union and threatened its security, the Soviet Union would not recognize such a decision but would uphold its rights, relying on force. And we have the wherewithal to do this."

With these words, as the U.S. State Department was quick to note, Khrushchev gave away the hollow hypocrisy of his offer to make West Berlin a "free city" backed by "U.N. guarantees." All might go well until the U.N. handed down a decision that Moscow did not like. Then, presumably, "the Soviet Union would uphold its rights, relying on force."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.