World: A Sop for Walter

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Adhesive to Moscow through thick and thin is East Germany's Walter Ulbricht, who has waited all these years for a peace treaty that would permit him to order the U.S., Britain and France out of West Berlin. The permission never came, because Khrushchev was confronted by the West's readiness to fight for its rights in Berlin. How to keep Walter reasonably happy? After a round of "fraternal meetings" with Ulbricht in Moscow last week, the answer came with announcement of a 20-year "friendship pact" between East Germany and the Soviet Union. The document pledged mutual assistance in case of aggression and spoke vaguely of West Berlin as "an independent political unit" but specifically upheld the Potsdam Treaty, which had established the Western presence in Berlin. To avoid any misunderstanding, Moscow had made it clear to Washington that the new treaty did not affect the West's position—and was therefore meaningless.