BONN, Germany, Dec. 12 (AP)--The latest Soviet blast at Berlin stiffened Western resolution today to stand firm in the divided old German capital, come what may.
The two key West German figures in the crisis, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, got together in Bonn and adjusted their differences.
The West German Foreign Office said the new rough talk from the Kremlin was an attempt to sow fear and divide the allies ahead of the NATO conference in Paris next week.
The Foreign Office said Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's remarks to a Munich newspaper exceeded diplomatic limits. Khrushchev said an allied attempt to keep supply lines open to Berlin by force would be met by Soviet force.
In Paris, the Foreign Office said yesterday's Tass Agency statement on West Berlin also was aimed at affecting the NATO meeting. Tass accused the Western allies of refusing to negotiate on the Soviet proposal to make West Berlin an unarmed free city.
Both the French Foreign Office and British sources in London said Moscow was merely repeating what had been said in the original note on Nov. 27 announcing the Soviet Union would junk the four-power occupation agreement on Berlin.
West Berlin newspapers played up Washington's declaration of U.S. determination to stay in Berlin under such headlines as "We Will Not Be Threatened."
A sobering note, however, came from West Germany's Ambassador to Washington, Wilhelm Grewe. He said he believed the Soviet Union might once again try to impose a total blockade of the West's sector of Berlin. Grewe told the National Press Club the West faces a dangerous situation even though Russia probably does not intend to start a major war over Berlin.
The East German Communist radio said the Tass declaration was an answer to "the totally unreal suggestions of a tank breakthrough to Berlin and creation of a corridor carved out from part of the (East) German Democratic Republic."
Khrushchev's tough talk probably speeded an agreement between Christian Democrat Adenauer and Socialist Brandt. The two conferred for an hour at Adenauer's home on the line to be taken in Sunday's foreign ministers conference in Paris. Brandt emerged from the talk with the brisk anouncement:
"As far as the forthcoming talks in Paris are concerned our views are agreed." He declined to go into details.
The meeting was something of a reconciliation between the two. There had been a public dispute between Berlin and Bonn over whether Adenauer had paid enough attention to Brandt and his socialist advisers when visiting Berlin last week.
"On this Brandt said: "We have no quarrel. If there was one it doesn't exist now."
The healing of this breach was an important step toward building a common front in the West. It would have been embarrasing for the Germans to go to Paris openly divided.
But there was less agreement on how the threat should be countered. Adenauer wants the West to give a flat "No" to Khrushchev. He would sidetrack other questions on Germany until the Allies can negotiate out of the shadow of the Berlin ultimatum.
His chief political opponents, the Socialists, want the West to explore the possibility of talks with the Russians on the German unification and European security.
Read more in News
Good News And Bad News