End of the Short Fuse

The signing of a preliminary agreement on Berlin last week was the most important step toward detente in Europe since the Austrian Peace Treaty of 1955. One by one, the ambassadors of the U.S., Britain, France and the

Soviet Union entered the palatial Allied Control building in West Berlin, once the seat of the Prussian High Court. Then, seated at a long oak table, each man signed his name no fewer than twelve times. U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Rush welcomed the agreement "as a sign of the Soviet Union's desire to move from confrontation to negotiation." Soviet Ambassador Pyotr Abrasimov threw out his hands and shouted: "All's well that ends well!"

And so, apparently, it had. After 17 months of negotiations, the ambassadors had produced an agreement marking the end of a quarter-century in which Berlin has stood as a symbol and focal point of hostility between the Soviet Union and the West. The most important gain for the West was a Soviet guarantee of free and "unimpeded" travel along the Autobahnen, rail lines and waterways that separate West Berlin from West Germany (TIME, Sept. 6). The Soviets promised to improve communications and to permit West Berliners to visit East Germany. The Soviets, in turn, won an acknowledgment that West Berlin is not a constituent part of West Germany, plus the right to open a consulate general in West Berlin.

The actual agreement was reached three weeks ago, but the week of the signing was a time of high tension. For three days, negotiators struggled with snags in the German translation of the agreement-a crucial document that will be used by East German and West German negotiators in working out details. The problems arose from the fact that the West Germans made their translation from the official English text of the treaty, while the East Germans used the Russian text. The result: a translation gap.

Ironed Out Snags. The agreement, for instance, refers to "transit traffic" between West Germany and West Berlin. The West Germans translated the phrase as "Durchgangsverkehr," literally, "through traffic," while the East Germans wrote it as simply "transit," which means travel between foreign countries. The Russians complained that their language did not even contain a word for Durchgangsverkehr. The West Germans feared that acceptance of the word "transit" without qualification would imply an admission that West Berlin was foreign to West Germany, and might even allow the East Germans to reapply traffic controls along the access routes in keeping with "international practice." Eventually such snags were ironed out.

The agreement will not go into effect until negotiators from the two Germanys and two Berlins have agreed on the last detail of how it will be implemented. At that point, there will be an even grander signing of a Berlin Protocol. But last week's agreement will accelerate the process that began last year when West German Chancellor Willy Brandt embarked on his Ostpolitik; it enables him now to submit to the West German Bundestag the renunciation-of-force treaties that he negotiated with Moscow and Warsaw. That in turn could lead to a state treaty between the two Germanys, opening the way for United Nations representation for each. The agreement could also hasten the advent of a European security conference, through which the Russians hope to achieve Western recognition of East Germany and of the status quo in Eastern Europe. It will also lead to negotiations for mutual and balanced force reductions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations.

"There is no doubt," wrote TIME Correspondent Benjamin Gate from Berlin last week, "that the signing of the Berlin Agreement marks the close of 26 years of East-West tension over the status of West Berlin, tension that often found Americans and Russians muzzle to muzzle. To the Russians, West Berlin was not only a thorn in the Soviet side, but also a place where the West could be squeezed whenever the Kremlin so decided. It was this atmosphere that made West Berlin the short fuse to World War III in Europe. Today West Berlin has been defused. The agreement is, as Ambassador Rush said, 'an attempt to achieve a more civilized world.'"

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