Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [254]
The fat, sad-eyed reporter was denounced in traditional terms as a “reactionary tool of yellow journalism” and ejected from the Soviet Zone through the Brandenburg Gate and advised he could never, never return.
Sean was happy to learn that Big Nellie was back in Berlin, for life granted him few real friends. The Press Club in Dahlem was jammed with journalists now who had been caught up in the Berlin story. It was good, Sean thought. The press had been a faithful ally of General Hansen from the beginning, and at last the Airlift story was catching the public fancy.
Sean brought Big Nellie up to date on the events in Berlin. The Lift had set down two thousand tons the day before. This was less than half the required daily minimum, but more Skymasters were on the way. He spoke of the big building programs at Tempelhof and Gatow.
“As a matter of fact, I just left two of Stonebraker’s men. They’re scouting around in the French Sector for a site for a third airfield.”
Sean said the Berliners were holding up unbelievably under intolerable conditions, but there was a growing fear among Falkenstein and the German leaders that the West might negotiate Berlin away without their having a voice in their own fate.
Big Nellie handed Sean a copy of the column he had just filed. “It’s a masterpiece,” he said.
Sean smiled. As usual, he had found a unique thesis.
SOPHISTICATED SIEGE by Nelson Goodfellow Bradbury
All of the classic definitions of the word “siege” are defied by the bizarre blockade of Berlin. It is a situation unique in history.
Man has laid siege to man from the mythological siege of ancient Troy to the Biblical sieges of Jerusalem and Jericho on through to the sieges of Carthage and Paris and in recent years we saw it in the blockades of the Spanish Civil War.
Until Berlin, all sieges have had the goal of military victory. Long and involved sieges were embarked upon to starve and demoralize the besieged and followed by an attack that spelled destruction or submission. The Siege of Berlin breaks all of the rules and in many ways does the complete opposite of historic conceptions. In Berlin the enemies live side by side, eat together in the same cafes, swim in the same lakes, attend opera together, and in some instances have social contact.
Here, the enemies go to extremes not to get into a fight.
This is a battle of will power. The protagonists battle for the minds and souls of men.
The phenomenon runs through the performance of normal life. The railroads, canals, sewage plants, phone systems continue to function only by cooperation between the Russians and the West even though there is no official contact between them.
Even the Airlift is closely watched by Russians in a four-power Air Safety Center.
Two separate police forces cooperate on certain criminals. Populations shift daily by hundreds of thousands through public transportation facilities.
The city administration has the ridiculous and near impossible task of trying to serve two masters while being voted into office to serve a third. And while the Berlin Magistrat is forced to take orders from both sides you will find duly elected Communists in public office in the Western Sectors and duly elected borough mayors from the democratic parties in office in the Soviet Sector.
Two currencies wage a battle for recognition confounding every rule of economics. This fight for the money is a good measuring stick of the way the people think, for despite its impossible physical position the Western B marks continue to thrash the “wallpaper marks” of the Russians.
In this, strangest of all sieges, the West continues to hang on by the skin of its teeth while in Karlshorst and Potsdam Trojan horses are being built for the Berliners, and in Moscow, Trojan horses are being built for the West.
Sean handed the column back to Nellie. “Like you said, nothing short of brilliant.”
“Sean,” Big Nellie said abruptly, “you’re wearing your heart on your sleeve. Tell me to mind my own business.”
“Things used to be clear to me.