The Minneapolis Star from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 1

Saturday, Aug. 19, 1961 LXXXIII-NO 229 Two Sections 26 PAGES FE. Telephone 3-3111 Price 7c PEOPLE TAKE LAST LOOK AT FREEDOM 25-mile Wall Fencing in East Berlin MINNEAPOLIS TEMPERATURES ..62 5 a.m. ...54 10 a.m. .60 4 3 a.m.

a.m. a.m.. 12 ...56 ...60 ...59 .55 a.m. to 9 ON 8 a.m. a.m.

a.m. a.m. Noon, ....56 ...52 none. .54 .53 11 Forecast: Noon p.m. a.m.

Fair. ...62 ..67 .65 THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR EDITOR'S NOTE: The Communists are erecting a 25-mile wall around West Berlin so that soon the peoples living under their regime will not even be able to see the who shiny showcase of a free people. A UPI correspondent drove through East Berlin tells what the barrier means in the following dispatch. By EDWARD J. SHIELDS BERLIN (UPI) Two tired, gray-haired women try to smile through tears as they wave their handkerchiefs.

Ten yards away, in West Berlin, a smartly dressed young wife- and her husband wave back and hold up their baby for its grandmothers to see. The grandmas know they may never hold the child. Between them is the wall. Perhaps within days they will not even be able Russ Reject West Protest on Berlin MOSCOW -(UPI) The Soviet Union, in a swift answer, announced today it has "categorically rejected" United States, British and French protests over the communist closing of the West Berlin border. The allied protest notes were delivered to the Kremlin Thursday and were rejected as "groundless" in replies delivered to the big three western governments Friday--all within 24 hours.

The Soviet reply re-stated Moscow's previous position that East Germany was acting as a "sovereign state" to protect its own borders and this was no other government's business. In its reply to the United States, the Soviet government accused the western powers and West Germany of being responsible for the conditions that it said forced the East German government to close the EastWest Berlin border last Sunday. It said the Soviet government "fully understands and supports" the East German regime's "temporary" border closing. Mrs. Paige, Legislator, Dies at 91 Mrs.

James Paige, legislator, lawyer and civic leader, who became the first woman member of the Minnesota legislature and served there for 23 years, died today. She was 91. Born in Newport, in 1870, the daughter of Dr. Edward Payson Hurd and Elizabeth Campbell Mabeth Mrs. Paige Hurd, Hurd Paige received her preliminary education there before going to the University of Nebraska.

Leaving Nebraska after one year, she attended the Normall Art school in Boston, before going to Paris where she studied at the Julian Art Academie in 1894. Returning to America, she came to Minneapolis as supervisor of art in the Minneapolis public schools, and in 1895 married James Paige, professor of law and an acting dean of the law school of the University of Minnesota. Gave Up Art Giving up her career in art, she was admitted to the Minnesota bar five years later. She became prominent in PAIGE Turn to Page 3A Features Comics, Page 4A. Editorial, Page 6A.

Sports, Pages 10, 11A. Theaters, Pages 12, 13A. Radio and TV, Page 13A. Day's Records, Pages 12A, 12B. Weather, Page 12B.

to see their children and their grandchild across the border. The wall is growing higher day by day. A green-uniformed "peoples policeman" carrying a rifle slouches over. "Come on, Oma (Grandma)," he says, not unkindly. "You must move back from the border." "Why do we have to be walled in like a ghetto?" one of the elderly ladies snaps.

'Protective' Measure "It's for your own protection. You know perfectly well." This is the Communist party reply the border guards give a thousand times a day. "So we need protection against our grandchildren, against that baby?" But they know words will not tear down the wall. With one last wave they turn and walk into the dusk to their tiny rooms. The scene was repeated over and over as we drove along the East Berlin side of the border at into freedom.

the end of the day, watching workmen mortaring "I just suddenly felt ashamed," he mutters as stones on concrete blocks, raising the wall higher West Berliners clap him on the back and take him and higher. off to a refugee shelter. Three days ago it was rusty rolls of barbed wire. Bodies wait for burial on the border. The grave Yesterday it was four-foot high concrete blocks.

diggers are East Berliners, but the only entrance to Today it is Tomorrow? five feet high and topped by bricks. the graveyard is in West Berlin. The grave diggers The East Berliners may be shut be- can no longer cross. hind the 25-mile long "Chinese wall" without even In another border in a cemetery working-class a peephole to the west. district, with entrances from both east and west, Sudden Decision armed Vopos patrol the paths between the mournA Vopo policeman) few ers.

A few escapees have made it through here, playfrom his (people's fellows. lounges a steps ing a grim game of hide-and-seek around the tombaway A dozen or so West Berliners stones and burial mounds to the stand across the street, jeering and shouting "why slip past Vopos. don't you dig potatoes? Why don't you dig (Com- Hansi Goes Home munist boss Walter) Ulbricht's grave?" In a remote corner of the border, where the work Suddenly, it happens. The lounging Vopo crews have not yet got around to replacing the straightens, grabs his submachine gun, takes three barbed wire with concrete blocks, a worried, middlequick paces, leaps to the top of the wall and stumbles aged woman cries across to two West Berliners, "Please find out how my France Joins U.S., Britain in Berlin Buildup; GI's on Way obscures the trees as a simulat- situation in mind, have higher morale than ever before explodes near men of the Third and are throwing their hearts into their work. Story and in a training exercise at Camp more pictures on an inside page.

report the men, with the Berlin British Rushing Troop Carriers BULLETINPARIS -(UPI) France announced today it will join the United States and Britain in sending military reinforcements to West Berlin. LONDON -(UPI)- Britain joined the United States today in reinforcing its garrison in West Berlin. An official announcement for the war office said that a consignment of armored troop carriers is being sent by train to Berlin today. The announcement said 18 armored personnel carriers and 16 scout cars were being sent to reinforce the British garrison of some 3,000 men. The equipment is being sent by rail through East Germany from a British base in West Germany.

It is due to arrive in West Berlin later today. A defense ministry spokesman said there were plans to send additional British troops to West Berlin at this time. The British move was designed as a gesture, in alignment with the United States, to demonstrate allied determination to stay in Berlin and keep the routes to the city open. It also was intended to bolster morale in the city. HEIDELBERG, Germany-.

(UPI)-A battle group of 1,500 American soldiers left its base near Mannheim today and headed for West Berlin under orders from President Near Miss Smoke shell battle group, engaging McCoy, Wis. Officers Kennedy to bolster the United States garrison in the isolated city. A spokesman at the headquarters of the United States army in Europe identified the unit as the 1st battle group of the 8th infantry division's 18th infantry. The announcement said the troops carried full combat gear. The battle group started EYE ENER FOR NEWCOMERS Aldermen Join Police on Rounds of Trouble Spots By CHRIS PORTERFIELD Minneapoiis Star Staff Writer TROOPS New Minneapolis aldermen Turn to Page 3A are doing homework on some North Sea Baltic Sea ROSTOCK HAMBURG BREMEN I EBERSWALDE CANAL POLAND BRAUNSCHWEIG BERLIN HELMSTEDT ESSEN AUTOBAHN EAST GERMANY BONN ERFURT Airport 5 BRITISH Gotow Airport MANNHEIM SOVIET WEST GERMANY US Zone BERLIN UPI Facsimile map BLACK LINE SHOWS ROUTE OF AMERICAN TROOPS INTO BERLIN Force from Mannheim base will spend tonight in Braunschweig Johnson in Berlin, Vows 'No Retreat' BERLIN (UPI) Vice President Johnson flew into isolated West Berlin today with a pledge to its people that the United States would follow a firm policy of "no retreat" in the Berlin crisis.

Johnson's pledge had earlier been delivered to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in a brief stopover in the West German capital of Bonn. Johnson was accompanied on the flight from Bonn to West Berlin by West German Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano. It had been thought that Adenauer might also go to Berlin, but his office announced that he would not go along. Also flying with the vice LYNDON Turn to Page 3A Dranow Jury Deliberating A Minneapolis federal court jury resumed deliberations today in the mail fraud case of Benjamin Dranow, 53, former owner of the John W. Thomas Co.

The case went to the jury Friday at 3:25 p.m. after instructions from Judge Gunnar H. Nordbye. Dranow, owner of the department store from 1956 to 1958, if convicted, faces a maximum prison term of five years on each of 21 counts as well as heavy fines. The present management of the store, head by Stanley "Please find out how my Hansi is.

Last week I took him to the hospital over there. Now I can't visit him. He should be home with me." The West Berliners locate her child. The doctors arrange for an ambulance. The Communists unbend a little and the West Berlin vehicle drives through an opening in the wall to take young Hansi home.

At Wollank St. one of only 12 heavily controlled breaches in the wall, hundreds of East Berliners gather after work to peer under the railway bridge, at the swirling traffic bright shop windows on the western side. A dozen armed keep them moving. But a tavern on the corner reaps the profit. Every table is full, for the open door commands a view across the barrier, and the Vopos dot not yet move a man away from his beer.

The customers stare longingly at the west. But nobody wants to talk to us. We are obviously westerners, and at the back of the restaurant a hardened Communist in factory workers militia uniform is keeping an ear on careless conversations. Game of Catch On Bernauer coils of barbed wire across a grassy vacant lot mark where the concrete wall will rise. A well-dressed woman carrying a shopping bag strolls up to it.

Across the wire, 1 in East Berlin, a girl in her early, twenties holding a small child by the hand, stands waiting. Suddenly the woman reaches in her bag and throws a package of food across the wire. The girl moves to catch it but a chubby Vopo is quicker. He scoops it up and tosses it back to West Berlin. The woman turns and walks away in tears.

"That was my daughter," she says. In Teltow, the border is a canal. A commuter who worked in a West Berlin factory until last Saturday suddenly finds himself cut off from his 600 marks a month job. He received 360 east marks a month and 240 west marks -which he could exchange in West Berlin for another 1,200 cheap east marks. In Communist East Germany, that meant good middle-class comfort.

The Communists gave him a new job-at 340 east marks a month. As the Vopo guard turns WALL of the city's problems by tagging along with police on nighttime rounds of local trouble spots. Three freshmen members of the city council have taken a first-hand look at the local crime picture by accompanying the police morals squad on its investigations, cruising with patrolmen in a squad car, inspecting a precinct and touring headquarters and city jails. At 3 a.m. today, Alderman Donald P.

Risk of the first ward took part in a morals squad raid at a north Minneapolis house. Six men and a Risk woman were arrested on suspicion of illegally buying and selling liquor. "It was educational," Risk said later, "and tiring. Those boys didn't knock off until 5 a.m., and they'd been working most of the day before. I take my hat off to them." Janes' Idea The idea was started by Alderman Robert P.

Janes of the Twelfth ward, who rode in a squad car about a month ago. He encouraged other council members to take advantage of the opportunity to get a close look at city problems. "Several new members, including Mrs. Elsa Johnson, said they intend to get in on it," Janes said. "We also want to get down to the fire department and look through some of the other wards besides our own, SO we'll be familiar with the situation throughout the city," he added.

Last Saturday, Janes and Alderman Gerald R. Nelson of the fourth ward were given a tour of trouble spots by the morals squad. "I was really shocked to see what goes on down on Hennepin avenue," Nelson said. "I don't think most people have any idea of what it's like." Both aldermen were encouraged at recent police efforts to eliminate prostitution. But Janes said the tour impressed upon him the need ROUNDS Turn to Page 3A D.

Smith, is not involved in Turn to Page 3A the trial. AP Wirephoto EAST BERLIN WORKERS WORK ON WALL Concrete blocks will separate two sectors Risk.