Threat to a Lifeline

One word keeps Berlin alive: access. Without the 13 channels through which planes, trains, autos and barges move through East German territory, West Berlin could not survive. Any threat to that access, however small, is a threat to Berlin's life. Last week, after three years in which its lifeline went largely unchallenged, West Berlin was once more threatened by an attempt to limit its contact with the West. East Germany announced that it would not allow members of West Germany's rightist National Democratic Party, or other "neo-Nazis," to travel through East Germany to Berlin.

The threat seemed limited, consider ing that the N.D.P. has only 28,000 members out of Germany's 60 million people and that the Western Allies have little love for the party. Still, it was a breach that could be widened--and who could tell how broad East Germany's definition of a neo-Nazi could grow? The East Germans apparently have the N.D.P. list of members in Berlin and West Germany and insist that they will not let them pass border checkpoints. The U.S., France and Britain immediately declared that, under Allied agreements, everyone has the right to travel between West Berlin and West Germany. Their commanders in West Berlin also reminded the Russians that the Allies hold them, and not the East Germans, responsible for the free flow of travel to Berlin.

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