Blockade Of Soviet Mission Called Blunder

Chronicle (Levin), 5 March 1949, Page 5

Blockade Of Soviet Mission Called Blunder

1 — LONDON, March 4. The Times, in an editorial this morn ing, severely criticises the treatment of the liussian Kepatriation Mission in Fiank i'urt. ' ' Througliout the world the policies of the Soviet Union and Western Powers are at present in eonflict, " The 'J'inies says. " In these circumstanees it is the duty oi' the Western Powers to pppose furllier Cornmunist expansion, {. -^to mahe t hemselves as strong as possAlfie and to maintain in the countries for which they are responsible, the principles oi' f'reedom and humanity for which they stand. It by no means follows i'roiii this that the Russians should he treated, when oceasion arises, as fallously and as contemptuously as they teml to treat othersJ. The blundering 'blockade' of the liussian Repatriation Mission in Frankfurt, now reported to have been recalled to the Soviet Zone L a perfeet example of the wrong approach." The Times continues: "No doubt this particular mission has no right to be there and no doubt the Russians' refusal to leave was extremely irritatiug, vet no one can pretend that their presence -was a serious affront to the

TJnited States or that it endangered the position of the Western Powers in Germany. If the premises were required, there were surely other more reasonable and more dignified means of evicting them than by surrounding the premises with barbed wire and cutting the watei mains outside. The result of the episode is a 'victory' which the Americans will.prefer to forget but which the Russians wfli always remembe^.,, I