National Affairs: Ceiling Unlimited

With routine briskness, a U.S. Air Force officer walked into Berlin's four-power Air Safety Center one day last fortnight, filed a flight plan for an incoming C-130 Lockheed Hercules turboprop transport plane. Altitude for the flight through the Berlin air corridor to the Communist-surrounded city: 25,000 ft. Instantly, the Soviet representative at A.S.C. protested; ever since the four powers occupied Berlin, the Russians have arbitrarily set an altitude ceiling for non-Russian planes at 10,000 ft., reserved the airspace above for themselves. The U.S. officer shrugged casually at the protest. The Russian reached for his phone.

Moments later, the Hercules took off from Evreux, France. When it flew across the West German border into the southern corridor at 25,000 ft., three Soviet jet fighters closed in, wheeled to within 10 ft. of the transport's wingtips, buzzed annoyingly until it entered the landing pattern of Berlin's Tempelhof airport. On the return trip, also at 25,000 ft., it was harassed by Russian fighters all the way through the corridor to the western borders of Communist-held East Germany.

Top Support. The high-flying trip was no flight of pilot's fancy. Last month Air Force headquarters in Europe proposed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the U.S. challenge Soviet claims to the right to limit flight altitudes in the corridors. The Chiefs weighed the idea, agreed that the U.S. ought to establish its right to fly the corridors at any altitude it deems necessary; in the event of another Berlin blockade, the Air Force will certainly use the huge C-130s for long-distance hauls, which would require higher altitudes than the short prop hauls made by piston-driven C-47s, C-119s and C-548. The Chiefs got President Eisenhower's approval, sent the order, waited for the reaction.

The Russians were quick to register an official protest. Claiming a "prescriptive right" to heights over 10,000 ft., they first warned darkly that "there may be incidents if the Americans fly above the altitude again without negotiation." In Washington, State Department Spokesman Lincoln White replied that the U.S. "has never accepted any altitude ceiling" in the air corridors. Next day the Russian "warning" was backed down to a simple statement that air collisions with Russian planes might result, added: "But that does not mean that any American aircraft would be molested or attacked." Finally Moscow got around to a diplomatic pout that the U.S. was trying to "prejudice" the forthcoming Foreign Ministers meeting.

Top Protests. Its point made, the U.S. did a backdown of a sort, too. The Pentagon plan was to establish the pattern with several flights above 10,000 ft. But Britain's Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd hove into his Washington meeting with Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter heatedly protesting that the flights might cause dangerous incidents in the touchy Berlin situation.* Although West Germany, France and Britain (but apparently not Lloyd) had been duly notified in advance of the 25,000-ft. flight, Herter promised to call off further flights until the two could sit down and talk the whole thing over.

Nonetheless, the U.S. had clearly challenged one arbitrary Soviet restriction on access to Berlin, had just as clearly won its point.