Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [202]
Chapter Thirty-two
A FEW DAYS BEFORE the Foreign Ministers’ Conference in Berlin the Truman Doctrine was declared stating that any further attempt to expand communism would be met with force.
From the end of the war there had been innumerable meetings of heads of state and their deputies in Washington and London, Moscow and Paris.
Conferences were directed now to easing the growing antagonism between the Soviet Union and her former allies. Now it came Berlin’s time as the site to attempt to determine a settlement for Germany.
“Mrs. Hansen is on the phone. General.” Sean said.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Andrew. I just received another of those calls. Some terrible things were said about you.”
Agnes sounded shaky. He was tied up with preconference work until very late. Tomorrow dignitaries would start arriving. All the members of his staff and their wives were receiving anonymous telephone calls at all hours promising death if the Americans did not get out of Berlin.
General Hansen and Colonel Hazzard were both sleeping with pistols at their bedstands after refusing to put guards on their homes.
“Mother,” Hansen said, “I’ll send a car for you. See if Claire Hazzard will go to the movies with you. Go to the Staff Club afterward and I’ll fetch you on the way home.”
“I’ll do that, dear. I am sorry to have bothered you.”
Sean dispatched a car for Mrs. Hansen. “Those calls are damned hard on some of the women,” he said. “Don’t you think you’d better put a guard on your house for Mrs. Hansen’s sake?”
“Hell no. When you think about it, Sean, it must be terrible for defenseless people behind the Iron Curtain to be subjected to such naked terror with no way for them to fight back. I guess the Russians must be real successful there.”
The day the delegates arrived in Berlin the Soviet Union announced they were holding war games and the sky became black with fighter planes. They buzzed the incoming transports menacingly.
Hansen called Lieutenant General Barney Root, the USAFE Commander in Wiesbaden. The American Secretary of State landed at Tempelhof under an escort of the new jet fighters, followed by other squadrons flying in formation spelling out the letters U.S.A. The Soviet planes cleared the corridors.
It was on this note of hostility and tension that the Berlin Conference of Foreign Ministers convened.
The main arena was in the Sanssouci Castle in Potsdam, but throughout Berlin subcommittees argued the points of difference.
At the Napoleon Quarters, French Headquarters, the most important Committee on Reparations met with General Hansen heading the American delegation. His old adversary from the Supreme German Council, Marshal Alexei Popov, sat on the far side of the U-shaped table.
The first session was not more than a half hour old when Marshal Popov set down the Russian reparations demand of ten billion dollars from the Western Zones from current production.
Popov, the gray fox, finished, leaving the place almost stunned. There was some parliamentary small talk, but everyone was waiting until the floor rotated to the Americans.
Andrew Jackson Hansen took off his specs, folded his hands, and looked straight at Popov. “My government is going to reject your demands,” he began bluntly. There was a buzz around the room.
“Let me explain our position, Marshal Popov. The United States is not going to make any further reparations until you agree on German iron production. The ten billion dollars you are now asking for could well be the entire output of German industry. America is in Germany for the purpose of allowing the Germans to establish a trade balance so they can take care of themselves.”
“To build for another war!”
“Now, you just wait a minute. I’m not finished. My country is pouring hundreds of millions into Germany. Your country is taking hundreds of millions out. What are you after? A direct payment from Washington to Moscow?”
Popov’s face reddened.
Hansen continued firmly. “We want the zone borders opened and Germany run