Allies fly supplies to West Berlin; Britain demands Reds lift Berlin blockade

BERLIN, June 26, 1948 (UP) - Lieut. Gen. Sir Brian Robertson, British military governor, formally protested today to Marshal Vassily D. Sokolovsky against the Soviet blockade of Berlin and asked that normal traffic be restored at once.

The protest was the first formal representation to the Russians by any western allied representative here since the Soviets halted all surface transport to Berlin Tuesday.

"I request that arrangements be made by the Soviet military administration to restore normal traffic communications to and from Berlin immediately," Robertson said in a letter delivered to Sokolovsky this morning.

American planes began flying milk and medical supplies into Berlin to alleviate the plight of 2,500,000 Germans affected by the Russian effort to squeeze out the western Allies.

Communist-controlled trade unions here threatened a general strike. A feature of the Soviet campaign was the stirring up of unrest among the Germans.

The Berlin city council was reported to be planning to intervene in the four-power dispute on the off chance that such a move might bring some relief for the Germans caught in the squeeze.

The council previously had directed the distribution of food for all zones of Berlin. Yesterday the Russians ordered it to halt all movement of food from the Soviet zone into the western sections.

The British intend to stay in Berlin despite a "ruthless attempt by the Soviet government to create a state of siege," the Foreign Office said in a formal statement in London today.

The Foreign Office statement ran counter to mounting speculation that the western Allies might be considering the possibility of having to get out of Berlin if the Russians kept on the heat.

Britain, France and the United States were consulting on firm joint action. Talks were going on in Berlin, London and Washington.

Also in London Winston Churchill said that only firmness and resoluteness towards Russia, and maybe not that, could prevent a third world war. Churchill said that the Soviet isolation of Berlin had raised issues as grave as those at stake at Munich 10 years ago.

"There can be no doubt that the Communist government of Russia had made up its mind to drive us and France and the other allies out and turn the Russian zone in Germany into one of the satellite states under the rule of totalitarian terrorism," he said.

The decision to appeal to the UN was said to have been made at a closed meeting of the City Council late yesterday. A final draft was expected to be drawn up Monday and submitted to American or British authorities with a request that it be forwarded.

Two trainloads of potatoes which crossed the zonal border before surface transport was halted a week ago reached Berlin, and a third was reported on the way. But it was a mere drop in the bucket.