West Germany: Conversation in Berlin

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In addition to imposing strict travel control over passenger and freight traffic between West Berlin and West Germany, Communist Boss Walter Ulbricht has solemnly decreed that no senior of ficials of the West German government may set foot on East German territory. Last week Ulbricht's law was flouted by his closest ally. After secret arrangements worked out by the Soviet Union through Swedish intermediaries, a black Mercedes with a Russian driver called for West German Foreign Minister Willy Brandt in West Berlin, whisked him past East German checkpoints without even bothering to stop, and drove him to a suburban villa in East Berlin.

There, with only three aides present, an extraordinary confrontation took place. For eight hours, Brandt, the author of West Germany's policy of conciliation toward Eastern Europe, talked with the U.S.S.R.'s ranking authority on German problems, Pyotr Abrasimov, the Russian Ambassador to East Germany and a member of the Communist Party Central Committee.

What did they talk about? On his return to West Berlin, Brandt was unusually closemouthed about his meeting, refusing to answer newsmen's questions. But, after talking with many of Brandt's Socialist and Cabinet colleagues, TIME Correspondent Herman Nickel pieced together what happened in East Berlin. His report:

First over coffee, then at supper on the terrace, and later over Russian cognac, Brandt tried to impress on his Soviet host the fact that, as he put it, "the East German measures are damaging and place a burden on efforts to reach a detente." Despite the good personal relations between the two men (they met five times while Brandt was still West Berlin's mayor), it was a tough session. Though he issued no blustery warnings, Brandt made it clear that Bonn would not allow itself to be provoked into abandoning its policy of improving relations with the East bloc —a policy whose moderate success in Bucharest, Prague, Belgrade and Budapest obviously seemed to Ulbricht and his Soviet backers to be a dangerous flanking operation.

In a cool ploy, Brandt openly mused whether the East German moves were indeed serving the best interests of the Soviet Union. He explained that Ulbricht's aggressive actions only encouraged the rise of right-wing extremism in West Germany and strengthened the obduracy of conservative elements that oppose West German ratification of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which Russia and the U.S. jointly sponsor.