 demonstration of exemplary discipline under stress, but is regarded by others simply as a manifestation of lack of will to resist. “We are not unfamiliar with the charge,” the editor said. “A few weeks ago, there was a newspaper publisher visiting here from Arkansas. He said, ‘I’m going home and tell my readers that the United States shouldn’t lift a finger to do anything about the wall until the West Berliners do something about it themselves.’ Of course, we reject out of hand any idea of appeasement at the wall. At the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that any serious exchange of fire at the wall could set off a chain reaction that might well end in disaster. If something happened at the wall, it could give the Communists the chance to do what they’ve always wanted to do—take over West Berlin on the pretext of intervening to ‘restore order.’ Also, the Allied forces are still in charge of this city. It is still occupied. All the authority that the Berlin government, officials, and police have is what is delegated to them by the Allies. As for a solution, we know that it can be reached only through an agreement between Washington and Moscow. Anything that jeopardizes the possibility of effecting that agreement is against the best interests of Berlin and of Germany. Meanwhile, we must be patient. The philosophy of the people in West Berlin is that one must maintain one’s existence, knowing there will be no calm.”
Later that night, I decided to have a last look at the wall, and just before eleven o’clock, I stopped by Potsdamer Platz, which before August 13th was one of the busiest spots in Berlin, crisscrossed by streetcars, buses, and all manner of other traffic almost as if no border existed. Since the wall was erected across the square, it has been rendered lifeless, and the area around it is languishing. Most of its grocery stores, small restaurants, and shops, which used to do a substantial part of their trade with East Berliners, have either gone out of business or been turned into souvenir stands. The windows display collections of both black-and-white and color pictures of the wall, and some display color slides as well. Since the wall has become Berlin’s premier sightseeing attraction, a great many tourists visit Potsdamer Platz in the course of each day, but scarcely anybody goes there after dark, and when I arrived all the stores but one were closed. The single light came from what was once a small shop and is now being used as a headquarters for the police on border duty in the area. Inside, a policeman was eating a sandwich and reading a newspaper. Another policeman was standing out on the street, and a third was sitting in a small wooden observation tower, from which he could survey the square. No other people were in sight on the West Berlin side of the wall, nor, I discovered when I had climbed a few rickety steps to a stand looking into East Berlin, were any in sight on the other side. Beyond the wall, one sees the customary barbed-wire barrier, then a high metal fence topped with barbed wire, then a row of tank traps, and then another barbed-wire barrier. At the far side of the square, one street was illuminated. The other streets converging on the square, and the square itself, were dark. There were no sounds, no movement. I recalled that the Berlin correspondent of the London Times, a woman who has lived in Berlin all her life, had told me the day before that she had recently seen a rabbit run across the eastern part of Potsdamer Platz—a sight that would once have been about as likely as seeing a rabbit run across Times Square. It didn’t seem hard to imagine now. A military truck came down the one lighted street and turned off into one of the dark side streets. Apparently, it was time to change the guards, for two Vopos materialized out of the darkness on the right side of the square and then two more on the left side. A fifth and sixth came out of the shadows almost directly ahead. They walked across the square and turned the corner where the truck had stopped. Presently, what I took to be the ne