AN AMERICAN’S COURAGE AND ITS STRANGE REWARE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27112, 7 August 1953, Page 8

AN AMERICAN’S COURAGE AND ITS STRANGE REWARE

BEHIND THE BERLIN RISINGS

[By

STEWART ALSOP,

in the New York "Herald Tribune”}

(Reprinted by Arrangement)

Berlin.—This is the story of how one man served the interests of the United States—and how he was rewarded. The man in question is Gordon Ewing State Department Foreign Service dfficer. Class Three. He is a youngish man, with a hesitant manner and a small moustache. It does not often fall to Class Three Foreign Service Officers to take independent decisions which might affect the course of history. But this was Gordon Ewing s peculiar lot. . _ , _ At 2.30 in the afternoon of last June 16, Ewing was attending a routine aammstrative meeting at the headquarters of RIAS, the American radio station in Berlin, of which he is political programme director. The meeting was interrupted by the incredible news that the workers in the Soviet sector of Berlin were staging a march on the Communist government buildings. His Own Decisions From this moment on. for 36 hours, Gordon Ewing had to take on his own responsibility a whole series of hairraising decisions. The RIAS station is the official arm of the American Government. As everyone knows, the Soviets have the physical power to take over all Berlin in a matter of hours. Overt officially inspired American provocation to rebellion by the Germans against the Soviet occupying power might give the Soviets precisely the pretext they need to move on Berlin or to make the worst possible trouble for the American Government in some other way. As the afternon of June 16 wore on, it became clear to Ewing that what was happening in East Berlin was no flash in the pan. A full-scale riot was in progress, Communist flags were being torn down. Communist police cars burned ana wrecked. At 4.30 in the afternoon, a workers’ delegation from the Soviet sector appeared at the RIAS station and requested permission to broadcast an appeal for a general strike, to begin the next morning.

Momentous Choice This was Ewing’s first big decision. His superiors in Bonn and Washington did not know the situation, and there was no time to consult them anyway. A weakling might have ignored the workers’ request, and continued the regularly scheduled broadcasts. A fool might have given the Soviets a valid pretext for any counter-action they wished to take. Ewing did neither. He simply included, qn the regular hourly broadcast, a deadpan straight news account of the visit of the strike leaders, and of their plans for a strike. Then came a second big decision. Dr. Eberhard Schutz, star radio commentator for RIAS, a former Communist with a passionate hatred for Communism, submitted to Ewing the text of a brilliant commentary on events in East Berlin, ending on the note, “We

hope we shall have more surh tories to report.” Again, a timiS would have killed the Schutz com tarv. Ewing pondered for a 5 minutes, and told Schutz to Ewing “broke” the regular to devote all radio time to th risings. Toward midnight an friend among the American official 0 Berlin telephoned Ewing andJJ “Gordon, I hope you know what doing. You could start a S way.” Meanwhile, all over East Germ little groups of angry men were? tered around radios, listening as ft-? described the events of the dav the strike leaders’ plans for the i! day. On June 17, the incredible £ pened. In city after city the won? rose, chased the terrified CornS functionaries out of their offices took over the cities. * The incredible could not have h pened without the RIAS broad!? which Ewing boldly approved i nightfall on June 17 Soviet troorj S 1 tanks had crushed the uprising. 5 at a terrible cost to the Soviet Un! for which Lavrenti Beria was to dearly. By the morning of Jij Gordon Ewing was tired, for he not slept for two full days and a! kind of lonely courage he had played is peculiarly exhausting. Beta leaving his office for a rest, he glanS at the American wire service repoS On McCarthy’s LM Gordon Ewing, he read, was one the “pro-Communists" whom Senatl Joseph R. McCarthy meant to "tab by the scruff of the neck.” So S! Carthy hinted darkly, was EwS wife. In a way, Ewing was not & tirely surprised. McCarthy obvious],’ meant to use the brilliant Schutz i prove his charge that RIAS was "na by Communists.” As for Ewing’s prett7 wife, her eccentric stepfather had taka her as a child on a trip to Russia—and this was grist for the McCarth mill. Finally, Ewing knew that a Ger. man journalist-adventurer, whom hi had fired from RIAS for his.inabflS to distinguish fact from fancy, hii been pouring poison into eagerly ceptive American ears. As this is written. Ewing exists ini sort of limbo. McCarthy had not« made good his threat, and the Stall Department had not yet offered Ewinj up to McCarthy as a blood sacrifice, m in the case of Charles Thayer, Theodore Kaghan and other able men hen in Germany. But the pattern is very familiar. It is now generally accepted practice here, for example, to encourage any disgruntled foreigner ti blacken the reputation of any American official. Surely, these days, th United States has an odd way of rewarding courage and intelligence h those who serve the interests of th United States.