GENERAL MARSHALL ON CRISIS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25554, 23 July 1948, Page 7

GENERAL MARSHALL ON CRISIS

“The United States will do everything possible in the Berlin crisis to reach an acceptable solution and to avoid the tragedy of war for the world,” said the United States Secretary of State (General G. C. Marshall) in Washington yesterday. “Our position, I think, is well underrtood. We will not be coerced or intimidated in any way in our procedures under the rights and responsibilities that we have in Berlin and generally in Germany. At the same time we will proceed to invoke every possible resource of negotiation and diplomatic procedure, but I repeat that we are not going to be coerced.” General Marshall said he would not add anything more until he had had a chance to discuss the position with the United States Military Governor in Germany (General Lucius Clay). General Clay arrived by aeroplane from Frankfurt last evening. He refused to discuss his report on the crisis, saying as he stepped from the aeroplane: “I have returned for a quick trip at the request of the Secretary of the Army (Mr Kenneth Royall) to report on the German situation. There is nothing else I can say at this time.” Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, the Foreign Secretary (Mr Ernest Bevin) said that the Russians had never raised any objections to the supply by air of the British, American, and French sectors of Berlin. NEXT WESTERN ? The London correspondent of the “New’ York Times” reports that the next Note from the three Western allies to Moscow will agree to an extension of four-Power talks from Berlin alone to Germany as a whole, provided their right to remain in Berlin is fully recognised and such talks are not held under the pressure of the Russian blockade of Berlin. The correspondent adds: “A Note to Me scow was prepared by the British Foreign Office and accepted with slight changes for France by the Foreign Minister (Mr Georges Bidault) before the French governmental crisis. The text is now being studied in Washington. “Emphasis is placed in London on the fact that all three Western Powers are agreed on the fundamental issue of their right to be in Berlin. Every- • thing is being subordinated to that, and the proposed Note will either disregard or pay little attention to the question of feeding Berlin, which was such an important feature of the first group of Notes.” According to the political correspondent of the ‘‘Daily Express,” the Note to Moscow will express willingness to start talks about the whole German position, and Russia will be asked to say what she thinks should be discussed. He adds: “The Note will insist on

the three Powers’ right to stay in Berlin, but it will not insist on the lifting of the Berlin blockade as an absolute condition for further talks, although this demand will not be abandoned.”

Russia had never given any warning that Yak fighters would “saturate” the Beran air corridors. The agreement on the air corridors was explicit in tne Control Council’s minutes. That agreement had not been abrogated. A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that the Soviet food offer had not led the Western Powers to plan to end or modify the air lift operations. In fact, they intended to increase the air lift, which had by no means reached its peak. Sixteen United States Air Force Shooting Star jet fighters have arrived at a Royal Air Force base in Hampshire from Michigan. They took 11 days to complete the trip, but the actual flying time was little over 11 hours. The squadron made the Atlantic crossing from Goose Bay to Stornoway in four hours 40 minutes, an average speed of over 430 miles an hour. The commander (Lieutenant-Colonel D. Schilling) said he was satisfied they could take jet aircraft as far as anyone wanted to send them. The fighters will remain in England for two days and then go to Germany for training and tactical exercises with Superfortresses. The United States Air Force has announced that Superfortresses from Germany took off from Furstenfeldbruck, in Bavaria, in the early hours of yesterday for a bombing training mission over Heligoland. The bombers returned within seven hours. JOTE TO MOSCOW “A new Note of protest against the continuance of the Soviet blockade of the British and American sectors of Berlin has now been drafted by British, French, and United States officials and awaits approval by the new French Cabinet,” says Reuter’s Washington correspondent. “The new Note is not expected to contain any spectacular threat, for example. of breaking through the Soviet blockade with armed convoys.” The correspondent also says that American officials have been appealing to the American press in the last 24 hours for calmer treatment of the Berlin crisis. In support of these appeals officials say that threatened interference by blind-flying Soviet aeroplanes with American and British transports carrying supplies to Berlin has failed to materialise, and that with two months of good flying weather officials of the Powers concerned have a good opportunity of reaching a settlement through diplomatic means while the air bridge feeds Berlin. “The present situation in Berlin would have been avoided if Britain and America had shown a firm hand.” said Cardinal Griffin. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, in London yesterday. He blamed “those thugs at the top” for most of the world’s misery and added: “It was suggested to me that an atom bomb on the Kremlin at the proper moment is the answer, but of course as a bishop I could not say that.”