(2 of 2)
The Second Night. This one was really tough, and for a while it looked like it might turn into the real thing. The U.S. commander, 1st Lieut. Raymond Fields, ordered his men not to get out of their trucks, even to relieve their bladders and bowels; they performed those functions right where they were. A U.S. aerial reconnaissance flight circled overhead, and a Russian jet buzzed about it. As the blockade slipped into a second night, the Russians brought up light and heavy antiaircraft weapons. At length the men started to get out and move about in groups of two and three, never far from their vehicles. Latrine screens were set up. One G.I. began giving haircuts to his buddies. At one point, Lieut. Fields himself marched up to the Communist lift-gate, raised it, got back in his truck and ordered his driver to go on through. But just as his truck inched across the line, two Russian personnel carriers drew up and blocked Fields's path. This stopped the Americans again.
And then, 52 hours after it had started, the new Berlin Blockade ended as suddenly as it had begun. The convoy was waved on its way with friendly Russian smiles.
What did it all mean? Who knows?
But in the midst of all the talk of an end to the cold war, it served notice on the U.S. to beware. And right in the middle of it all, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko went into the White House for a 120-minute conference with President Kennedy—and came out smiling.