1. The Soviet Union gave the poor excuse that there were technical difficulties with the barge traffic and road traffic, then they took it a step further by cutting electricity from Berlin, and there excuse was that there was a "shortage of coal" as well.
2. The USA did not believe that these were genuine reasons because Stalin had a plan to cut off West Berlin from any dependence on foreign allies aid, so that West Berliners would be more dependent on the USSR for government and currency. Stalin just wanted to have some excuses to put his plan into action. Plus. the Soviet Union was one of the superpowers and was very wealthy, so a shortage of coal seemed unlikely. Also, Stalin wanted to cripple Germany and so if they had no resources, that would be crippling Germany and be very convenient for Stalin.
3. In Source 33 it is from an Historian (American most likely) and he talks about how nothing got accomplished from the Berlin blockade because neither side gained any kind of power or certainty (unbiased opinion). Then in Source 34 there is a commentary from a Soviet saying that the US planned the airlift because they disliked the Soviet Union and used propaganda to turn people against them and that the US only made things worse by almost starting a war over Western Berlin. And finally Source 35 was President Truman talking about how the blockade was testing our ability to give aid and resist fighting a war, and we were successful in helping. The Blockade only made the US closer to the Western European people.
4. I think that Source 34 and 35 would be the most useful to historians because it gives both sides of the conflict. Source 34 is a Soviet talking about the US failure in helping West Berlin, and Source 35 is President Truman talking about the US accomplishment. A Historian would probably want to find out the opinions of the people on either side of the conflict so that he could get a good idea of how they felt about each other and so that he could seem unbiased about the incident.
5. I think that Source 33 gives the most reliable view of the blockade because it is an unbiased view from a Historian who has studied this subject and event in history and seems like a pretty reliable source of information because it tells the reader both the situation and what was or was not accomplished, even though it is still an opinion.
