Stalin. He was in power from the 1930s to the early 1950s. The Berlin Blockade occured in 1948.
The Soviet Union caused the Berlin Blockade.
The Soviets tried to force the Western Allies to abandon a currency reform, and possibly even Berlin itself. -JenniferMichelle Kinsel (:
{| |- | Berlin is located deep in the middle of what was Eastern Germany. The capital city of Berlin was split in two, with the US supporting the Western half and the USSR supporting the Eastern half. At one point, the USSR cut they only access to Western Berlin by blocking the train lines. The US airlifted supplies into the city for months and eventually the blockade was lifted. |}
The obvious other options were: 1. War between the West and the Soviet Union. 2. A negotiated settlement, which would probably have involved swapping West Berlin for a part of the Soviet Zone, say Thuringia. Neither option was attractive.
Allies had to air lift supplies into West Berlin because the USSR had all roads blockaded. The eastern part of the city was under the control of the USSR, and the western region was under the control of the allies. The USSR hoped that by shutting off all routes, the allies would turn total control of Berlin over to them.
The Berlin Blockade escalated the Cold War by showing that the Soviet Union did not want Germany to be a independent, unified country. Because West Berliners were cut off from the rest of the capitalist world, they needed food to be flown in by Allied planes. It is also significant because of the "candy bombers" (Germans who were children back then still remember pilots dropping sweets during their supply runs).
During the Cold War, the nation of Germany was divided into West Germany, which was a democratic nation allied to NATO, and East Germany, which was a communist nation controlled by the USSR. The city of Berlin was also divided into east and west sections, but by an odd twist of fate or geography, West Berlin was inside East Germany. In the early 1960's, the USSR decided to cut off the flow of traffic and commerce from West Berlin to the rest of West Germany. Their intention was to force the surrender of West Berlin by non-violent means, so that they could incorporate it into East Germany (which would then include all of Berlin). While they might have simply invaded West Berlin, that could easily have resulted in WW III, and the USSR was always cautious about that, since nuclear war would have been ridiculously destructive and very likely would have resulted in the extinction of the human race. As it turned out, President Kennedy was not willing to surrender West Berlin, and he arranged an airlift of supplies, to defeat the Soviet blockade, and so West Berlin never did surrender. The blockade failed. Now, of course, the Cold War is over and Germany is re-united.
His two big crises involved the USSR , the most notable being the Berlin blockade and the Cuban missile crisis. He also ran into serious trouble in Viet-nam, trying to keep a favorable government in power.
The Berlin Airlift proved to the USSR the US would not let Berlin be cut off. The USSR wanted to starve Berlin into joining them.
Because America would be destroyed by the USSR!
The U.S.S.R. did not have a president. The leader of the country was the General Secretary of the Communist Party, which was Joseph Stalin at the time of the Berlin Airlift.
The simple result is that the Warsaw Pact side stopped the siege and opened the road and rail links again. Score one for the West. The impact - trickier - the West was more cohesive and mutually supportive, West Germany moved sharply away from neutralism and comitted itself deeply to NATO.
the American, British, and French zones of Germany were unified.