One for the Mets

When the Russians first began using armored cars instead of buses for the daily changing of the guard at the Soviet war memorial, Western officials accepted the switch as a practical measure to protect Russian troops from stones hurled by West Berliners. But the Russian convoy grew and grew and grew. At first there were only three small four-wheeled armored personnel carriers. Then the small APCs were replaced by three larger six-wheeled armored cars. Then the Russians suggested that they might want to add a fourth. "What next?" groaned U.S. offi cials in Washington and Berlin. "Tanks?" The U.S. last week decided to put an end to the daily 2. 2 -mile circus. To the Russians went a curt announcement: as of midnight next day, there would be no more junketing through the U.S. sector to the war memorial. Instead, the Communists could either break a path through their own Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, or use the Invalidenstrasse crossing point directly into the British sector, where the monument is located.

There were some tense hours, for many West Berliners expected the Russians to try a showdown. But when the deadline came, the Soviet troops drove to Invalidenstrasse, avoiding the U.S. sector as directed. Some Westerners seemed jubilant that the West for once had made the Russians knuckle under, instead of vice versa. "Well, whaddya know," guffawed a G.I. "The Mets finally won a ball game." Whether it was even a moral victory was doubtful. Many a critic of the West's painfully cautious Berlin policy wondered aloud why the Russians were not ordered to go back to riding buses and to stop driving armored cars into West Berlin.

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