“The Berlin Blockade [of 1948] posed a major challenge for the United States and its allies.  They correctly perceived that Stalin did not want war, but they also recognized that the blockade created a volatile situation in which the slightest misstep could provoke conflict.  Certain that the Allied position in West Berlin was militarily indefensible, some U.S. officials pondered the possibility of withdrawal.  Others insisted that the United States could not abandon Berlin without undermining the confidence of Western Europeans –a ‘Munich of 1948,’ warned diplomat Robert Murphy.  Previously more open to negotiations with the Soviets than Washington, [Gen. Lucius] Clay now urged sending an armed convoy through East Germany to West Berlin.  Truman and Marshall chose a less risky course, ‘unprovocative’ but ‘firm’ in Marshall’s words.  Drawing on the Army Air Force experience carrying supplies over the Himalayas to China in World War II and a mini-airlift during a Soviet ‘baby-blockade’ of West Berlin just months before, they turned to air power to maintain the Western position in Berlin and sustain its beleaguered people.  It was the sort of thing Americans do best, a stroke of genius.”  –George Herring, From Colony to Superpower, p. 624

Discussion Questions

  • How was the US airlift response to the Berlin Blockade a classic illustration of containment doctrine as it was emerging in the late 1940s?
  • What were some of the most significant consequences of the Berlin Blockade?