This is an excerpt from a declassified memo sent by the Department of State The abandonment of Berin would be interpreted throughout Germany and Europe as evidence of our lack of determination both to defend our rights and to support democratic peoples in their effort to resist totaltarian threats and pressures. Psychologically and politically such a step would have profound consequences, leading to a hasty effort on the part of many European people to [align] themselves with the communists, to whom it would befelt that central Europe had been abandoned. What action did the United States take to support the idea in this memo? It pushed for war crime trials to punish Nazi leaders who had taken part in the Holocaust. It instituted a blockade to cut off East Berlin from getting supplies from the Soviet Union. It joined Britain and France in a year-long operation to air-drop supplies into West Berlin. It granted diplomatic recognition to the Jewish state of Israel.