Armageddon (68 page)

The leaders would be followed by Action Squads, armed with concealed clubs, knives, stones, bottle bombs, and small arms, who would be loaded on the underground and elevated trains from various points, cross into the Western boroughs where their leaders would be waiting at the town halls, the power plant, radio transmitter, RIAS, and key factories. When they reassembled they would begin riots and seize their locations.

The plan was to create chaos in several dozen places and force the West to commit its garrisons to restore order. Then a second wave of Communists would cross over in trucks and grab dozens of new targets. This follow-up group would include Soviet soldiers and Schatz’s SND police dressed as civilians. By now, the West would be spread too thin to cope with the new mayhem.

At this point, General Trepovitch would offer to send in his troops from the outskirts of the city provided the Western troops agreed to return to their barracks. Tempelhof and Gatow airdromes were the prime targets and would be closed due to “technical difficulties.”

With the West in their barracks, the Russians would “in fact” control the entire city in a bloodless coup.

The propaganda organs would then leap into action and explain that the workers, tired of Western imperialism and unemployment, had rebelled. Only the benevolence of the Soviet Union prevented a blood bath.

0515. Putsch day.

Blessing’s breath darted out, evaporated in the morning chill as his driver, Danny Sterling, pulled up to the Kreuzberg Town Hall where a temporary command post had been established in the foyer.

The Borough of Kreuzberg lay directly across from Mitte Borough in the Russian Sector where a series of rail lines would exchange the heaviest traffic.

Blessing had checked his subway and elevated stations, which were due to take the first shock of the Putsch. It was deceptively calm.

Deputy Police President Hans Kronbach, who had quietly built a force loyal to the Magistrat, made his decision earlier to commit them. They were staked out along with the newly trained Order Companies to spot Communist leaders.

The Constabulary under Blessing would act as a mobile force. In the Russian Sector, dozens of American informers were in Mitte, Pankow, Friedrichshain, Treptow, for the purpose of watching for Communist movement.

The final back-up force was the regular garrison under Colonel Mark Parrott with headquarters at Tempelhof and all troops poised to move to trouble spots.

Blessing stepped outside the Kreuzberg Town Hall, uncapped the thermos jug, sipped some coffee, and offered some to his driver. The street was gray and quiet with only the first small sounds of the day, wheels on the pavement, a pair of angry hungry cats.

He walked over to Victoria Park, where a group of police were hidden, and spoke a few words to the German officer. The quiet made him restless. He got into the jeep and told Danny to drive him toward the major subway and elevated transfer point on the Yorck Strasse. It was 0545. If their information was correct, the Communists would be coming soon. Bless tuned in on the British and French frequencies and heard them checking in. They stopped at Yorck Strasse and waited. 0600.

The sound of wheels on steel rails humming in the distance from the direction of the Russian Sector grew louder and louder. The train leaped into view with a smell of brakes as it screeched to a halt. The doors opened and the first rush of morning passengers exploded onto the platform.

Four known Communists were buried in their number to take up a position at the Kreuzberg Town Hall. At the foot of the steps they were spotted by a member of an Order Company.

Four American Constabulary walked quietly alongside each, snapped on handcuffs, and walked them away quickly and efficiently toward a holding station. One of the Communists began to protest. The soldier locked his arm with a billy club and pressured so that it would break. The Communist became quiet.

Blessing picked up the microphone in the jeep. “This is Sportsfisher One calling all piers. The tide is coming in. How is fishing in your area?”

“Hello Sportsfisher One, this is Redondo,” the squad at Moritz Platz subway radioed back. “One small sand shark.”

“Sportsfisher One, this is Venice Pier,” Koch Strasse detachment called, “the tide is coming in fast but no fish yet.”

‘This is Long Beach Pier calling Sportsfisher One,” called the key complex of Anhalter Banhof, with its numerous exchange points and masses of movement in proximity to the Russian Sector. “We picked up two sand sharks, three blues of about sixty pounds, and a man-eater.”

“This is Sportsfisher One calling Long Beach. Are they hitting hard?”

“This is Long Beach. No, they’re kind of sluggish. We reeled them in easy.”

The pattern was beginning to open. Blessing listened to the British and French frequencies again. All along the line Communist leaders were getting picked up as they departed the trains.

“This is Santa Monica Pier,” called Grozgorschen Strasse elevated. “Couple of big blues hanging around right here. I think they’re waiting for the school of mackerel.”

Bless returned to his command post at Kreuzberg and phoned over a direct line to Colonel Parrott at Tempelhof. In the first fifty minutes they had snagged some seventy Communist agitators.

At Potsdamer Platz, the key exchange point, the first school of mackerel, an Action Squad, was bagged.

A Joint Command in the British Sector assessed the information. By 0620 three hundred known agitators and Action Squad members with no explainable business in the Western Sectors had been spotted and swept up in quick, sure movement.

At 0702, two railcars containing the largest load yet, three hundred Action Squad people, moved for the destination of Beussels Strasse elevated, where they were to disperse for the joint targets of the power plant, the Plötzensee Prison, and the West Harbor. A tip-off came ahead of them and they walked off the train into a mixed company of French and British soldiers with fixed bayonets.

By this time the Russian monitors smelled a Western trap and this was confirmed by the fact that none of their leaders had reported back to Putsch headquarters. And then a frantic call came to Schatz by one Communist who had slipped the Western net after seeing his comrades rounded up.

“They were waiting for us!”

A nausea-wracked, trembling Adolph Schatz phoned Soviet Headquarters and cried, “We have been betrayed!”

Trepovitch tried to head off the disaster of sending more people in. At this rate the West could deplete their loyal core of Communist strength in an hour and it would take weeks, if not months, to build up for another try. He branded Schatz as an incompetent German lout, called off the attempt, and shouted that he was surrounded by spies.

Brigadier General Neal Hazzard entered the mess hall of the Staff NCO Club and the 250 officers and men came to attention. He asked them to be seated and told the guard to shut the door.

“I’ll get right to the point,” Hazzard said. “Fifty of you people have requested to evacuate your families. I have asked the rest of you here so as not to identify and embarrass the others. Here’s the score. When General Hansen left for Washington we told him we’d be here when he got back.

“By that I mean the United States would be in Berlin. In this garrison, the United States of America particularly means our wives and children. For the next two weeks no request for transportation out of Berlin will be acted upon ... as my old friend Trepovitch would say ... for technical reasons.”

A murmur of puzzlement greeted his terse announcement.

“To walk out of here with our tails between our legs would be giving aid and comfort to the enemy and would make a spectacle of our country. This garrison stays ... men ... women ... children.”

Chapter Five

T
HE MEETING OF THE
N
ATIONAL
Security Council was going badly against General Hansen. The President, for the most part, listened to the divergent arguments, interrupting only now and then for a sharp question.

The room housed a glitter of silver stars and braid of admirals and their banks of ribbons to attest to bravery. These were the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Secretary of Defense was there; the Secretary of State was there; the Secretary of the Treasury was there with the Vice President and the ambassador to the Kremlin. Behind them sat their experts and planners.

The forces seeking accommodation, settlement, compromise, appeasement had built an insurmountable case. The State Department had treated the Berlin blockade as an accomplished Soviet victory and sought ways to get off the hook with the least loss of face.

“The B marks have to be withdrawn from Berlin.”

“Throw the matter open to the United Nations while attempting to make a direct political settlement with the Russians.”

Practical men from the Pentagon with slide rules and charts had their turn.

“Berlin is dead weight. The city not only has to import food, but it has to import raw material to keep its industrial complex functioning. As a former national capital the city has tens of thousands of former government employees with no new means of support. Berlin has 300,000 pensioners.”

“Berlin is still in ruin.”

“Berlin cannot be saved.”

“Mr. President. I do not believe anyone can make a determination of how long we would have to be committed. General Hansen speaks in terms of forty-five to sixty days, but suppose it has to go longer. It could well run into months.”

“We have been unable to draw up a cost estimate, but it will run millions a day. The Soviet Union might deliberately keep the blockade going in an effort to bankrupt our economy.”

“Berlin cannot be defended. It is entirely indefensible.”

The generals gave their opinions on the condition of the defense establishment. The country could not call up enough reserve to deter the Kremlin’s planning. Hansen’s own commander, Billy Crossfield, had told him the same thing.

“Sure, we could send an armored convoy up the autobahn, but it is a calculated risk that could mean total war. Suppose the Russians did make a challenge or suppose the closeness of the situation made them fire by accident. Our forces would be swamped.”

“Mr. President. It is suicide to put all of our air transport capability into supplying Berlin. It simply makes us too vulnerable to pressure everywhere else in the world.”

“Mr. President. I do not believe it is possible to supply Berlin from the air, not even for the forty-five days General Hansen desires.”

The ambassador to the Kremlin reported complete frustration in attempts to see Stalin or Molotov, much less pin them down to a meeting.

General Hansen was not without his champions. Hardline men demanded action, but they spoke more out of pride and anger, for on this day practical men brought home the unpleasant facts of life.

“General Hansen,” the President said, “I think we should wrap up this meeting. Is there any more you believe we ought to know?”

Andrew Jackson Hansen studied the room. They were all there. Friends and a few adversaries of three decades. They were hard-nosed, brilliant, dedicated men and he was beaten, for this was not a situation that could be solved with logic. How could one convince wise men to go against the grain of their knowledge?

Yet, there had to be a flicker of hope, for in the final analysis it was not a joint decision, but that of the lone man at the end of the table, the President. He would have to weigh and decide on the words of the day after his captains departed. He was an earthy man, the President, and he was strong on the issue of stopping communism. He was ahead of his countrymen, his diplomats, his Congress, and even some of his military.

There was little room spared in the pages of glory for a general whose fate or talent kept him from the romance of a combat command, the utterance of a salty slogan under enemy fire, or the drawing of a gory wound; but Andrew Jackson Hansen believed, and he placed those beliefs on the line now. The general was pale and watery-eyed from a persistent cold. His chest was heavy from four days of argument at conference tables.

“Mr. President,” he began hoarsely, “gentlemen. A few years ago we concluded a war with the naive hope that an accommodation could be achieved with the Soviet Union to bring us a lasting peace. I shall not insult the intelligence of this distinguished body by a recounting of tragic errors made ... not by you and me alone ... but by the temper of the American people. We know that all that has prevented total collapse has been that thin, thin line of British and American troops on the European continent.”

An uncomfortable fidgeting began around the table from those who had followed the line of try to reason with the Soviet Union.

“If there is one lesson we should have learned it is that the Soviet Union looks upon diplomacy as merely another means of waging war. They do not come to the conference table to seek peace or solutions ... they come to seek victories.

“The blockade of Berlin is designed to force this country to negotiate under pressure.”

He left his chair, walked down the length of the table so that he stood at the opposite end of the table from the President and the eyes of every man could be seen by him. His voice grew more harsh and slower and the room was awesomely silent.

“What are the objectives of the Soviet Union? Above all to prevent us from the formation of a democratic Germany, but if they accept that as an accomplished fact, they fall back to the second goal of ejecting us from Berlin.

“Germany’s only chance of being rebuilt along democratic lines and our only chance of converting her into an ally is possible only as long as the United States stands behind her. And who, who will trust the United States after we leave Berlin? Who in Europe and Asia will believe that the United States will not abandon them too? And, gentlemen, I ask you ... will we believe ourselves?

“Lenin said, give me the currency and I will control the nation. Take the B marks out of Berlin and we have lost Berlin! But is the currency or even the formation of a democratic Germany the true issue? It is not.” His voice quivered.