BERLIN DISCUSSIONS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25566, 6 August 1948, Page 7

BERLIN DISCUSSIONS

Western Envoys Confer For Hour STANDING COMMITTEE MEETS IN LONDON (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p-rn.) LONDON, August 5. “The French and United States Ambassadors in Moscow and the American charge d affaires (Mr Roy Kohler) conferred with the British envoy (Mr Frank Roberts) and the British charge d affaires (Mr Geoffrey Harrison) at the British Embassy for an hour last night,” says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. • “None of the envoys would say anything about the meeting, but it i» understood that they have received replies from their governments on their reports on their talk with Mr Stalin. It is believed that the replies did not call for any immediate approach to the Soviet Foreign Office.” P Impenetrable secrecy is still being maintained in London, Washington, and Paris about what took place at the talk between Mr Stalin and the three Western envoys, but the diplomatic correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” thinks that Mr Stalin, for considerations, may have asked the Western Powers to defer any action about establishing a Western German government pending a four-Power conference. Consideration of any such proposal, he says, would have made it necessary to summon to London the British Military Governor in Germany (General Sir Brian Robertson). Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent says that the three-man standing committee on the Berlin crisis—Sir William Strang, Mr Lewis Douglas, and Mr Rene Massigli—met in London yesterday for the first time since Mr Stalin received the Western envoys. It is believed that the committee discussed the coordination of the Western Powers’ policy on the next step in the diplomatic exchanges with Moscow. The next move will probably be another interview with Mr Stalin or Mr Molotov

zig for the Leipzig Fair, which will oe open from August 29 to September Other German papers quoted the Russians as saying that the line to Berlin—which has been closed to Western traffic for nearly seven weeks for technical reasons”—would be opened for these trains. A spokesman for the bizonal railway administration said that he had not received any news of the impending reopening of the Berlin-Helmstedt line, but trains to Leipzig would now fall under the British-American ban on traffic from the Western zones to the Soviet zone. The British and American authorities have refused to help in increasing German rations in the French zone unless the French stop feeding their troops from German supplies. The French said that they would be unable to stop using German food before January 1. 1949. In Bizonia. the Germans get 1990 calories daily, compared with less than 1500 in the French zone. The air lift to Berlin continues. Skymasters have replaced Dakotas on all flights from Frankfurt to Berlin. They flew 2104 tons of supplies into Berlin in 24 hours. Work on the new airport in the French sector of Berlin started yesterday. This aerodrome is expected to be of great assistance to the air lift. Sixteen American jet aeroplanes, which arrived in Germany two weeks ago, will return to the United States to-day. Twelve shooting star jet fighters unloaded from a United States Army transport at Glasgow yesterday are the forerunners of a fleet of 81 aeroplanes which will be assembled and flown to the Furstenfeldbruck airfield in Germany. The remainder of the aeroplanes will arrive in Britain with 370 airmen in the United States aircraftcarrier Sicily next week-end. A United States official statement described the arrival of the jet aeroplanes as part of the United States Air Force’s norma! training programme.

An acute shortage of food is report- ; ed from the Rushan zone of Germany, j The Berlin correspondent of ‘‘The ' Times” says that the shortage is partly i caused by the requisitioning of stocks ] in fulfilment of the Russian offer to < take over the responsibility of feeding ' the whole of Berlin. J "Food is in fact so short that many Berliners with relatives in the zone i are known to be sending them some : of their own inadequate supplies,’’ the : correspondent says. “At Zittau people ’ who crossed the frontier into Czecho- ■ Slovakia in search of food were sent < back in lorries. 1 "Public demonstrations occurred in many areas in the zone, and arrests are said to have been made,” A Berlin City Council spokesman ' said yesterday that the council had decided to approach all four occupying Powers for money to-meet its obliga- i tions. The spokesman added that the i council had 'told the Western Military Governments that an increased supply of Western deutschemarks for : circulation in Berlin would be a good answer to the Russian freezing of bank accounts of firms in the Western sec- : tors. Western-zone police yesterday de- : tained two Eastern-zone police, who < entered the American zone in pursuit of Dr. Wilhelm Kuehnast. formerly Berlin’s chief prosecutor, who escaped from house arrest in the Russian sec- ; tor of Berlin. The Soviet authorities in Germany have reopened the border between i Thuringia, in the Soviet zone, and Bavaria, in the United Spates zone, for traffic on a small scale, reports the German News Agencv, quoted by Reu- i ter’S correspondent in Hof. rr h-> Russians closed the border after the intro- ; duttion of the new Western German ; currency at the end of June. < The Russian-licensed “Berlin Zeitung” yesterday said that 45 special ; trains from the Western zones would ] pass through the Soviet zone to Leip- :