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WAYWARD OFFICERS GO HOME TO FACE REPRIMAND

What Could Have Been an International Incident Turns Out to Be Too Much Booze in Wrong Place

By Janice Johansen

Associated Press Foreign Correspondent

Berlin February 13—

What at first appeared to be an international incident in the making turned out to be nothing more than two officers, one Russian and the other American, drinking too much in the wrong places.

The issue was resolved at nine o’clock this morning in Berlin, when the Russian officers marched Colonel Robert Mattingly, of USFET headquarters, to the center of the Glienicke Bridge while simultaneously American officers marched Major of State Security Venedikt Ulyanov, of the Allied Commandantura, to the same place.

A white line in the center of the bridge over the River Havel marks the dividing line between the Russian and American zones of Berlin. Once the two officers reached that line, Russian officers released Col. Mattingly into the custody of an American captain, probably a military policeman, who in turn released Major Ulyanov into the custody of a Russian major, also probably a military policeman.

This reporter has learned exclusively that despite early reports that Colonel Mattingly was missing and kidnapping was suspected, and that Major Ulyanov had been kidnapped in retaliation, the truth seems to be that prior to their exchange on the Glienicke Bridge Colonel Mattingly was sitting in a jail cell in Thuringia, in East Germany, after his arrest for driving under the influence, and Major Ulyanov was sitting in a West Berlin jail after his arrest for public intoxication on the Kurfürstendamm.

Both headquarters, Berlin Command and the Allied Commandantura, refused to confirm or deny what this reporter had learned, but a U.S. Army spokesman said “the incident is under investigation.”

[ ELEVEN ]

Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri

1330 5 March 1946

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,” Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill said.