Meeting With Stalin As Tension Mounts

Northern Advocate, 23 August 1948, Page 5

Meeting With Stalin As Tension Mounts

LONDON, Sun. (11.45 a.m.). —The Western envoys in Moscow are likely to go to the Kremlin within the next day or two, for what may be the final talk in the negotiations over the Berlin crisis.

A French Foreign Office spokesman said today that M. Stalin was likely to receive the envoys very soon, possibly tomorrow or even tonight.

Reuters Moscow correspondent says the envoys have now agreed on a line of approach.

It was announced today that Western sector Berliners who want to register for ration cards in the Soviet sector will not be given Western-sec-tor ration cards in future-. A British food official declared that Western-sector cards might find their way into the “wrong hands.” CANNY OF RUSSIAN OFFER The Berlin correspondent of the Associated Press says the Soviet’s invitation to Germans to work in the Soviet sector was the fourth similar gesture the Russians have made. The Russians previously offered food and coal to all workers entering their sector, but there were few takers among Western Berliners, who prefer to survive off British and American air-lift deliveries. The British authorities announced that British aircraft have exported 12,300,000 ’ Deutschemarks worth ot goods since the Soviet blockade began. (The Deutschemark is unofficially worth 1/6.)

Big Four talks are likely to be speedily fixed if Russia agrees in principle to the Western terms as a basis. Many observers in Moscow believe the next conference between the envoys and the Russian representative will be the final one, determining whether four-power talks on the German crisis can be arranged.

The envoys had a two-hour meeting at the home of the United States Ambassador (General Bedell Smith) today to discuss their plans. Meanwhile, in Berlin, friction continues between the Russian-sponsored and Western police, and tension is high. DETECTIVE CHIEF ARRESTED

British section German police today arrested Franz Erdmann, director of the Russian sector Criminal Investigation Department, while he was attending a boxing match at the Olympic stadium in the British sector.

The Western police president (Stumm) threatened three weeks ago to arrest Erdmann on charges of kidnapping several Western sector policemen when there was a split in the control of. Berlin’s police. Mr Thomas Headen, United States information control officer, who strayed over the British demarcation line in the Potsdamersplatz into Soviet territory today, was arrested by the Russians and driven away in a jeep. THOUGHT IT WAS BRITISH Mr Headen was standing in the square with his wife and two children when Russian military police drove up, jumped out of a jeep, grabbed Mr Headen and left his wife and children standing in the square. Mrs Headen said her husband was taking photographs on an “island” of Russian territory adjoining British territory. “We thought it was British. We did not knbw it was Russian-controlled territory,” she said. RUSSIAN DENIAL United States military police repeatedly telephoned Soviet military headquarters demanding the release of Mr Headen. The Soviet authorities each time denied knowledge of the arrest of any American official.

The British said Western-sector food stocks were greater than at the beginning of the blockade, while coal

The United States deputy-Provost Marshal (Colonel Kelly) said patrols along the borders had been strengthened and 'reserves were being kept at the alert, because of the state of tension which existed.