A Plan For Berlin

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30348, 25 January 1964, Page 3

A Plan For Berlin

Berlin: Success of a Mission? By Geoffrey McDermott, C.M.G. With a Foreword by Anthony Greenwood, M.P. Andre Deutsch. 147 PPThis book is in part an account of a most unfortunate controversy, all the more unhappy because it concerns a man’s professional reputation and work. After an outstanding academic career, Mr McDermott entered the Foreign Service, in which he did so well that in his late forties he was appointed to the difficult and exacting post of Minister and Deputy Commandant in Berlin in 1961. There he remained for 11 months, a period which included the building of the wall, but in some way, which has yet to be explained, he apparently offended his superiors and was suddenly “retired” from the Foreign Sendee, an event which caused a considerable stir at the time and led to some strong criticism in Parliament. Mr McDermott presents a formidable case in his own defence, and there the matter unhappily rests. Mr McDermott also tells us of the Berlin situation as he saw it in those eventful

months, and describes the plan which ' •> worked out for the settlement of the dangerous Berlin problem. It may be summarised in the proposals that the Western powers and Russia should make an agreement, renewable after 20 years, that German reunification is their long-term aim, that the present German frontiers should be recognised as definitive, that there should be three separate German States —the German Democratic Republic and Berlin as well as Federal Germany—all members of the United Nations, some of whose important agencies should be moved to Berlin. The four Powers should agree on guarantees for the access of their representatives to Berlin, which could make agreement with any powers (except the other two German States) for the stationing of troops in the city. It is an interesting plan which Mr Greenwood suggests was the real reason for the termination of Mr McDermott’s diplomatic career, although this was denied by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Home. The reader will find it difficult to see how the proposed solution could have given serious offence, and will regret that neither Mr McDermott nor the public has been given a satisfactory explanation.