Chapter 12 charts the diplomatic effects of the airlift’s unexpected success: Stalin’s decision to abandon the blockade, the Jessup-Malik talks, and the Paris Council of Foreign Ministers meeting. Most accounts hold that Stalin decided in January 1949 to lift the blockade, but he may have made his decision in March, after it became clear that winter would not ground the airlift. In the Jessup-Malik talks, the Russians tried, without success, to trade a lifting of the blockade for a suspension of the London program. In Paris, both sides advanced maximum proposals. They settled for the status...

Chapter 12 charts the diplomatic effects of the airlift’s unexpected success: Stalin’s decision to abandon the blockade, the Jessup-Malik talks, and the Paris Council of Foreign Ministers meeting. Most accounts hold that Stalin decided in January 1949 to lift the blockade, but he may have made his decision in March, after it became clear that winter would not ground the airlift. In the Jessup-Malik talks, the Russians tried, without success, to trade a lifting of the blockade for a suspension of the London program. In Paris, both sides advanced maximum proposals. They settled for the status quo: the division of Berlin, Germany, and Europe. In doing so, they brought the initial phase of the Cold War to a close.