ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

Q: What sorts of issues did you talk about with the Soviets?
PERINA: We would talk about all issues that came up related to Berlin. The Soviets
really had an inconsistency to deal with because they wanted to have their cake and eat it
also. They wanted to support the position of their ally the GDR but also still be regarded
as one of four occupying powers of Berlin that had special privileges in West Berlin, such
as access, a role in quadripartite discussions and so on. So they supported the GDR
publicly but not always privately. A lot of things I talked about with my Soviet
counterpart consisted of problems caused by the GDR—impeding our access to East
Berlin via Checkpoint Charlie, causing problems through new restrictions on the air or
road corridors to West Berlin and so on. The Soviets would usually say that it was none
of their business and that we had to talk to the GDR, but then they would go ahead and
help resolve the problem by bringing the East Germans into line. It was a continual tug of
war. There was also another category of problems I dealt with, and those were problems
caused by the Soviets in West Berlin. We recognized privileged Soviet access to West
Berlin because this stemmed from our interpretation of Berlin’s status and we wanted the
same privileges in East Berlin but of course we kept a close watch on them when they
came. The problems that arose varied from drunken Soviet soldiers getting into bar fights
to clear cases of attempted espionage by Soviet personnel from East Berlin. I remember
one instance where I had to call my counterpart in the middle of the night, and we
expelled two Soviet military officers for attempted espionage. They were caught redhanded
trying to buy information from U.S. military personnel. In these cases, we would
turn them over to Soviet authorities with a protest, and the Soviets would give a pro
forma protest in return. We would not arrest them because we did recognize a type of
diplomatic immunity for all occupying powers in all of Berlin, so we just kicked them out
of the Western sectors. Toward the end of my time, we had another kind of incident—
Polish hijackings of aircraft to West Berlin. They became a favorite way for Poles to
escape from Poland, and we must have had six or seven toward the end of my Berlin tour.
Q: Was this a result of martial law in Poland?
PERINA: Yes, the country was moving toward martial law, and a lot of Poles were trying
to get out because they saw a big crackdown coming. One of the favorite ways to escape
was to hijack a plane and fly to West Berlin where they would land at Tempelhof airport
and become our responsibility because it was in the U.S. sector. The distance from
Poland to West Berlin was very short, and for Poles it was the closest thing to reaching
American custody and protection. We had a number of these, mostly commercial airliners
from LOT but also private planes, crop dusters and so on. We soon had a set routine of
dealing with them. We would hold the crew and passengers overnight and question them,
giving everyone the option of staying in the West or returning to Poland. We made a
point of always punishing the hijacker or hijackers because we didn't want to condone
hijacking, but they were handed over to German courts and often received fairly light
sentences, though these did usually include imprisonment. There was an internal debate
we had after the first hijacking on whether the hijackers should be tried by us, by the
Americans, in courts that we establish. This was consistent with our position on the rights
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