1. The Berlin Crisis

5. We feel the Soviet position is unacceptable…
We feel the Soviet position is unacceptable….no one nation can declare such agreements [as post-war division & democratization agreements] null and void.
To pass in silence over this matter will be to trade our rights to Berlin for the lifting of the blockade
We feel that the real goal is to disrupt the economic recovery of the Westerns Zones and thereby, European economic recovery
Truman’s Moscow based negotiating team

6. The so-called “Berlin Crisis” is entirely an outgrowth of your own incredible stupidity. When you attended the Potsdam …I am inclined to think that you were just too dumb to know that … a corridor [to access Berlin] was necessary.
 In the meantime, you seem to be willing and even eager to force this country into a war with Russia merely for the purpose of “saving face.” If you do this, the blame for such a war will rest upon your own shoulders, and the blood of American boys butchered in this war will be on your head…
Phillip Johnston, Kansas

7. About 2 million people live in West Berlin. What should the Allies do?

8. What They Did:

11. western powers organized and airlifted
Lift lasted just under 11 months
2,326,406 tons of food, coal, passengers, and other items into the city
total of 278,228 flights.
At the height of the airlift, planes flew around the clock in four hour blocks taking off and landing every 90 seconds. At any given time there were thirty-two aircraft in the air.