In the most recent elections they had also become the largest single party in the Czech assembly. In February 1948 the communist Minister of the Interior began dismissing proWestern security officials and promoting instead those favourable to the communists and to the Soviet Union. Non-communist members of the Government strongly protested at this action; and, when their protests were ignored, resigned. President Benes then reformed the government, which was now almost totally dominated by the communists. Jan Masaryk remained as Foreign Minister, and publicly defended the newly formed government. But a week or two later he mysteriously fell to his death, probably through suicide.
The permanent representative of Czechoslovakia at the UN under the previous government, Jan Papanek, wrote to the UN Secretary-General calling for an investigation into the events, on the grounds that there was strong evidence of foreign involvement (principally the fact that the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, Zorin, formerly Soviet ambassador to Czechoslovakia, had been in Prague at the time of the developments). Since Papanek was no longer recognised as the representative of the new government, however, he was not recognised as competent to raise the question at the UN. Shortly afterwards the representative of Chile, though not then a member of the Council, asked the Security Council to investigate the matter and circulated Papanek's letter to all members. After considerable discussion, the Security Council agreed to consider the matter and invited Papanek himself to appear. Papanek spoke eloquently about the attempt of the Benes government over the previous three years to retain its independence, about the attempts of the Soviet Union to extend her influence over it and repeated the accusations of foreign involvement in the February events.
It was then proposed by pro-Western powers that a sub-committee be set up to examine the question. There was a prolonged discussion, lasting for three meetings of the Council, on whether or not this proposal was a procedural or a substantive decision. If it had been procedural, it would not have been subject to veto. The Soviet Union was able to quote the formula agreed during the San Francisco Conference (p. 46 above), under which the decision whether or not a question was procedural was itself subject to veto. The president of the Council ruled accordingly. The Western permanent members could, if they had so wished, have prevented this formula from being applied by opposing the president'S ruling. But in fact they submitted: the words of the understanding were so clear that they could scarcely have done otherwise without a blatant breach of faith. Since the action to establish a committee, the only one which was in effect open to the Council, was excluded, it decided to allow the entire matter to drop.
In June 1948, the three Western occupying powers in Germany, the United States, Britain and France, had undertaken a currency reform in their zones and in West Berlin. This was taken by the Soviet Union as an indication that the three powers were seeking to build up a wholly separate economic, and possibly political, system in the west of the country and to abandon the occupation statute. She immediately forbade the circulation of the new currency in East Berlin. And she proceeded to institute a tight blockade of West Berlin, preventing any contact by land from West Germany and so preventing the city from receiving the supplies of food and other goods on which it depended. The Western powers in turn retaliated by instituting an airlift to maintain these supplies.
Intensive negotiations in Moscow, London and elsewhere terminated in an apparent agreement on 30 August. An agreed directive was sent to the commanders-in-chief of the four powers in Germany. This provided for ending the blockade and the re-establishment of a joint currency for Berlin, but under four-power control. However, disagreements immediately broke out over the implementation of this agreement, and the blockade continued. On 29 September 1948, the Western powers wrote to the UN Secretary-General drawing attention to the serious situation resulting from the blockade. This was a violation of the Allied rights of occupation, and was designed to secure by force what the Soviet Union had been unable to obtain by peaceful means. They asked that the Council should consider the threat to the peace which resulted. The Soviet delegate protested that it had been generally agreed that questions arising immediately out of the war, especially those concerning Germany, were matters for the Allies and not for the UN. He quoted Article 107 of the Charter, under which nothing in the Charter 'shall invalidate or preclude action in relation to any ex-enemy state, taken or authorised as a result of the war, by the governments having responsibility for such action' (it is doubtful how far this supported the Soviet Union's position, since the Soviet blockade of Berlin could scarcely be said to result from the war). He stated that four-power agreements governing Berlin provided procedures for settling any disputes which occurred there. In any case, the 'restrictions' on transport and communications did not represent any threat to the peace. They had been made necessary because East Berlin and the Soviet Zone of Occupation had been 'threatened' by the Western currency reform and the flow of currency coming from the West.
The Council decided, against the votes of the Soviet Union and the Ukraine, to consider the matter. The Soviet Union and the Ukraine thereupon announced that they would take no part in the discussion. The Western powers then expounded their charge that the Soviet measures represented an illegal violation of their occupation rights in Berlin. At this point a new type of UN initiative occurred: the non-permanent members took it on themselves to seek to adopt a mediating role between the two blocs (a precedent that was to be repeated in later years). The president, on their behalf, requested further factual information on the background to the dispute. Such information was provided by Western delegates. But the Soviet Union reaffirmed that she was not prepared to discuss the matter in the Council at all (though she continued to attend its meetings).
duced a resolution which was intended as a compromise. It called for the removal of the Soviet restrictions, but also for an immediate meeting of the four military governors to arrange for a unified currency throughout Berlin, based on the Soviet Zone mark. This was a reasonable proposal which, since it was the currency question which had sparked off the blockade, might well have been acceptable to the Soviet Union. But she was in a highly suspicious mood, and, moreover, believed that she had might on her side. She resisted the proposal that she should raise the blockade before the introduction of the joint currency, and accordingly vetoed the resolution when it was put to the vote.
In the following month, while the Security Council was meeting in Paris, the president of the Council made another move. He tried to secure agreement from the four powers for the establishment of a technical committee to discuss the means of creating ajoint currency. Meanwhile the presidents of the Security Council and the General Assembly joined in an appeal to the powers to settle the Berlin dispute peacefully among themselves. The Technical Committee was duly set up as proposed. It was at first asked to report in ten days. Its life was twice extended. But this still did not succeed in securing agreement. Eventually, in mid-February, it had to report that it had been unable to resolve the differences. At the beginning of March the Western powers imposed certain countermeasures against trade between East and West Berlin.
By now it was clear that all formal UN moves had failed. It was time for informal measures. The Secretary-General brought together the chief delegates of the United States and the Soviet Union at the UN in private discussions under his chairmanship. The representatives of Britain and France later joined these talks. For once the great powers were able to meet at the UN without the glare of publicity and propaganda. By this time the failure of the Soviet blockade, as a result of the Western airlift, had become apparent. Some softening of the Soviet position emerged. At any rate, on 4 May it was announced by the Secretary-General's representative that agreement had finally been reached on all major questions affecting Berlin. The agreement provided that both the Soviet and the Western restrictions were to be removed on 12 May. Nine days later, on 23 May, all questions concerning Berlin, including the currency question, were to be considered at a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers in Paris, in the context of the German question as a whole.
This was a considerable coup for UN diplomacy. There was no final settlement of the Berlin question, or even of the currency problem. But at least the blockade was brought to an end. The Berlin dispute was undoubtedly the most serious East-West issue which had so far come up at the UN. It was widely believed at the time that, if unresolved, the blockade could culminate in world war. It was for this reason that the Assembly had so urgently pleaded with the four powers for a negotiated settlement. No doubt it is true that, even if the Secretary-General had not instituted the final round of discussions, they might still have taken place in some other forum. But the fact that it was the UN which in this case laid on the successful negotiations did much to enhance its faltering prestige. At last, it was felt, the new organisation was doing exactly what it had been set up to do: settling disputes between the major powers and averting the danger of war. Another conclusion, less obvious, but perhaps more important to the organisation, was less widely drawn: that on such issues private negotiation is often more successful than public confrontation.
André Godard
