There were no cheers in Berlin last week. There were not even many smiles. During the ten months of grim siege, Berliners' hopes had been mocked too often by false rumors. Berliners would believe the news of the blockade's end when they saw trains and trucks rolling into Berlin again from the West.
In Potsdamer Platz last week, an old man creakily stooped to retrieve a cigarette butt. He expressed the city's skepticism: "New rumors, eh? Ha, they're all just like soap bubbles—too shiny to be true." Near Tempelhof airdrome, where the U.S. and British planes were still droning in,...