Berlin will cause a world war only when the United States is willing to go to war with the Soviet Union to free Berlin from the trap it is in. If we won't defend our own vital interests against the aggressive and arrogant actions of communists 90 miles from our shores, what would prompt us to cross the ocean and defend Germans from communists?
The cold fact of the matter is that we should not defend Berlin. This is a job for Germans, not Americans.
The Germans are an able and prosperous people. They are capable of fighting their own war, if war is necessary to protect them from communism.
It is inaccurate to refer to the eastern part of Germany as "communist Germany." That part of Germany is under communist enslavement; but the Germans who live there probably hate communists more than any other people on earth do.
The uprisings of 1953, and the endless stream of refugees fleeing from the communist zone in Germany, are proof enough that the communists could not hold East Germany without the presence of Soviet troops.
There is enough hunger and poverty and hatred of communism in eastern Germany to justify the conclusion that even Khrushchev knows he has a bear by the tail there. If we would do our part, Khrushchev would either turn loose and run; or the bear would pull loose and destroy Khrushchev.
What part should we play? We should do exactly what the President and the State Department assure the world they will not do: we should present the Soviets with a fait accompli, and an ultimatum.
We should call an immediate conference with the governments of France, England, and West Germany to explain that America has devoted 16 years and many billions of dollars to rehabilitating and defending western Europe; that Europe is now in many ways more soundly prosperous than we are; that the 180 million Americans can no longer be expected to ruin their own economy and neglect the defense of their own homeland for the purpose of assisting and defending the 225 million people of Western Europe; and that, therefore, we are through.
We have no need, at home, for all of the vast stores of military equipment which we now have in Europe for the defense of Europe. What we do not need for the defense of our homeland, we should offer as a gift to West Germany, since we produced the material in the first place for the purpose of resisting communism, and since the West Germans are the only people in Western Europe who apparently want to resist it.
We should give the West Germans (and the other western powers) six months to train whatever manpower they want for manning their own defenses. At the end of that time, we should pull out and devote ourselves to defending America.