"We Will Not Be Coerced"

Though most of Harry Truman's attention was centered on his message to Congress, he could no longer ignore the threatening storm clouds piling up over Europe. Early last week he called General Lucius Clay and his political adviser Robert Murphy home from Berlin for consultations on the Russian blockade (see INTERNATIONAL). Then tension in official Washington mounted almost hourly.

At the White House, President Truman conferred urgently with Secretary of State George Marshall and Defense Secretary James Forrestal. General Clay arrived and plunged into a round of top-level conferences at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill, with the National Security Council at the White House.

But then came some welcome news. The conferees had agreed that the Allied airlift to Berlin could be stepped up to 4,500 tons a day by next fall. A new airport would be constructed in Berlin to handle additional C-54s. The planes could be supplied without serious strain on either the Air Force or its military transport service.

An increased airlift meant that the U.S. could not be driven out of Berlin by Russia's starvation tactics. It would give the Western Allies freedom to conduct negotiations in their own time. Announcing the decision at a Pentagon press conference, Clay was cautiously optimistic. "I don't want to minimize the situation in Germany. It is a serious situation. However, I do not think there is anybody in the world who is out looking for war at this moment."

No Division. At the State Department, U.S. policymakers studied the next move. Secretary Marshall stated the U.S. position firmly: "We will proceed to invoke every possible resource of negotiation and diplomatic procedure to reach an acceptable solution . . . [But] we will not be coerced or intimidated in any way."

That was language that the men in the Kremlin might understand. Less understandable was the bland remark of President Harry Truman. The prospects for peace, said the President, were not only good, they were excellent.

But if the Kremlin was looking for signs of wavering, it found no comfort in the Republican opposition. At his Pawling, N.Y. farm, Governor Thomas E. Dewey conferred with Harold Stassen, talked daily with Foreign Adviser Dulles, who had been thoroughly briefed by George Marshall. General Dwight Eisenhower accepted an urgent invitation to come up for a talk. At a joint press conference, Eisenhower declared: "We agreed that our country must stand with absolute firmness in Berlin."

After conferring with Senator Arthur Vandenberg and Dulles, Dewey issued a formal statement that carried the weight of G.O.P. policy. Said he: "The present duty of Americans is not to be divided by past lapses, but to unite to surmount present dangers ... In Berlin, we must not surrender our rights under duress."

No Stampede. At week's end, the atmosphere in Washington had lightened perceptibly. Accompanied by State Department Counselor Charles Bohlen, Clay flew back to Germany for a new series of conferences. After talking to Ambassadors Lew Douglas and Walter Bedell Smith in Berlin, Clay hinted this week that the U.S. was willing to reopen four-power talks on a settlement for all Germany. It was a concession; the U.S. had demanded that talks be confined to Berlin, and conducted on the Berlin level.