November, 2019
Berlin – In 1945, this city was a mess. After the Nazi surrender, Russian troops took revenge on the Berlin population. The main parts of the city were rubble. Power plants and transportation facilities were largely destroyed. Food supplies were running out.
American, British, and French forces were slow to reach Berlin, hampered at every step by the Red Army. U.S. Army occupation forces, led by Colonel Frank Howley for the American sector in Berlin and by General Lucius Clay for the entire U.S. Zone in Germany, did not have solid support from Washington. Many in Congress thought a Soviet takeover of Berlin was inevitable and wanted an American pull-out.
Soviet Russia had designs on all of Europe. Berlin was the focus for maximum pressure. If Berlin fell, it would signal that America could not be counted on as a reliable ally. Berliners knew that, and for a time American resolve was in doubt. The crisis came in 1948, when the Russians walked out of the four-powers Kommandatura building and began a blockade of West Berlin to force it into submission.
President Truman agreed to a massive effort to try to supply West Berlin by air. Against all odds, it worked. At the same time, Secretary of State George Marshall conceived the Marshall Plan for overall European recovery, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created for mutual defense against Soviet Russia.
The story of the Berlin Airlift is well told today at the Allied Museum* on Clayallee in Berlin, the major thoroughfare named after the American who led the effort. Truman Plaza is nearby. Berlin today is a thriving beacon of freedom from which the rest of the world can learn. Thirty one Americans died in the airlift effort.
In a few days, Berlin and the free world will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Berlin's Soviet sector finally collapsed, to be followed soon by the rest of the Soviet puppet state of East Germany.
My family and I were there to see the wall opened in 1989. It was not a given. The days leading up to it were tense. The Red Army still had Berlin surrounded. What was a given was the resolve of the U.S. and its NATO partners to stand firm. That made all the difference.
Contrast this with our current international posture of retreat and withdrawal, which now resembles that of early 1948 when American resolve was much in doubt. Our 45th president is without forward vision or historical insight and talks of getting out of "endless wars." Even veterans who have fought in recent wars and sacrificed much are showing misguided agreement.
Perhaps this should not be a surprise. Some of America's wars were ill-advised and tragic: Viet-Nam and the 2003 invasion of Iraq are stains on the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush. Johnson misled the American people badly with his prevarications about the Tonkin Gulf attacks; Nixon sabotaged peace talks to win election in 1968; Bush made up Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for war.
Conversely, we should not forget that U.S. leadership wisely reversed Iraq's aggression against Kuwait, initially defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan, and ended Caliphate rule in much of Syria.
That these successes were not properly consolidated in their aftermath does not mean they should be lumped in with our failures. It means that those who did not consolidate them must be held accountable, Democratic and Republican presidents alike. They should have learned from President Truman, who knew that Berlin came at such cost that it could not be abandoned.
Our current president is going one step further than retreating from America's historic role in protecting freedom. He is casting doubt on what America stands for. In 1948, it was understandable that some American public opinion was against remaining in Berlin to defend Germans, who had been our enemy. In 2019, however, an American president is shamefully turning his back on Kurds, our ally in the fight against the Caliphate. That is beyond the pale. America is also abandoning the cause of freedom in China, as China exterminates the Uighur people and threatens democracy in Hong Kong.
It is well to remember 1948 and the Berlin airlift to note that our opponent then was Soviet Russia, bent on expansion. How little changes. Russia, still led by a former Soviet agent, is now our geopolitical opponent in Syria and Ukraine. President Truman knew what he had to do and took courageous action to save the free world from Russian totalitarianism. Our current president seems not to know which side he is on.
I am one veteran who yearns for another Harry Truman and will do everything possible to see that America returns to its proper, hard-won role in world affairs.
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* I am proud to say that my late wife, a German citizen with great respect for America, helped in the creation of the museum.
