TIME Bureau Chief Emmet Hughes cabled this account of how the Russians' steady, day-after-day squeeze was working in Berlin:
Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky is a courteous man who likes Jane Austen's novels and earthy Russian proverbs. His favorite version of his favorite proverb before he walked out of the Allied Control Council meetings was: "I want to skin this bear before I shoot it." The bear is Berlin's city symbol. By this week, the Berlin bear looked pretty well skinnedand 3½ million Berliners wondered how close the Marshal's well-manicured finger was to the trigger.
How did the Soviets do their skinning? Simple....
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