Berlin 1961

by Frederick Kempe

  Though the men in the room did not know to what extent Acheson spoke for Kennedy, he no doubt reflected the president’s growing sense of urgency. The president had been frustrated throughout the year with the lethargic decision-making process of the State Department, which he called “a bowl of jelly,” and of the Pentagon, which often took days or weeks to answer his questions. He wanted his apparatus to deal more quickly with a world where he would have only minutes to decide matters that could cost millions of lives.

  Acheson gave the group just two weeks to explore his ideas. He said a decision should then be made on his proposals, and action should then begin on implementation. Gauging the surprised faces around the room, Acheson said he knew he was outlining a very risky course, but it was not foolhardy if the U.S. government was really prepared to use nuclear weapons for the protection of Berlin, on which it had staked its entire prestige. “If we [are] not prepared to go all the way, we should not start. Once having started, backing down would be devastating. If we [are] not prepared to take all the risks, then we had better begin by attempting to mitigate the eventual disastrous results of our failure to fulfill our commitments.”

  After Acheson ended his presentation, the room fell silent. Acheson knew that those who drove policy in Washington were those who were most determined to do so, and none among Kennedy’s top foreign policy team offered a dissenting view. The State Department’s Foy Kohler, an Acheson ally and the meeting’s chair, broke the ice by expressing his general agreement. He added, however, that the British opposed Acheson’s idea of demonstrably sending troops up the Autobahn to protest any communist restriction of access to Berlin. Macmillan had argued they would be “chewed up” by the Soviets.

  The Pentagon’s Paul Nitze added that Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh, who headed the British policy planning staff for Berlin and Germany, had said “it was essential not to scare people to death with our buildup.”

  If the NATO allies opposed actions to defend Berlin, Acheson argued, the U.S. needed to know now. “We should proceed not by asking them if they would be afraid if we said ‘Boo!’ We should instead say ‘Boo!’ and see how far they jump.”

  Ambassador Thompson, a known Acheson opponent who had flown in from Moscow for the meeting, warned, “We must not corner [Khrushchev] completely.” As it was important for the Russians not to think the U.S. was isolated from its allies, “it would perhaps be best not to say ‘Boo!’ first before getting the British leaders with us.”

  Acheson fired back that it would be quite a problem to convince Khrushchev they were serious while, at the same time, letting the British know they were not.

  Unlike Acheson, Thompson was convinced the Soviet leader did not want a military confrontation and would do much to avoid it. He believed lower-profile actions would be more effective and less likely to provoke Khrushchev into his irrational worst behavior and perhaps provoke just the war that the U.S. hoped to avoid.

  Nitze, however, doubted that lower-profile actions could be effective, since it would be difficult to engage in contingency planning without introducing initiatives that would require high-profile presidential declarations and justifications to Congress.

  Acheson interjected that they might be able to avoid some of that sort of noise, since Congress might be convinced to go along with many measures on the basis of existing emergency legislation, which could be followed later with a supporting resolution.

  Acheson seemed to have thought through everything.

  Asked about the president’s timeline, Acheson said the basis for decision should come before the secretaries of state and defense by the end of the following week. It had to be done within ten days at the very outside. Acheson was issuing deadlines, and everyone was saluting smartly.

  The Pentagon’s Nitze said a working group should start within three days, and that its job would be to list the steps necessary regarding Berlin. It would set a target date for getting a full set of military recommendations by June 26.

  That was fast for government work.

  THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1961

  To add a theatrical touch, Khrushchev wore his wartime lieutenant general’s uniform, replete with a hero’s decorations, at the military celebration for the twentieth anniversary of Hitler’s Soviet invasion. Khrushchev had not worn the uniform since he had served as political adviser on the Stalingrad front during World War II. Given his midsection growth since then, the Soviet army had to tailor him a new one.

  As backdrop for the meeting, a documentary film about Khrushchev’s life as a military and political hero, called Our Nikita Sergeyevich, had just opened in Moscow theaters. The review in the newspaper Izvestia said at its opening: “Always and in all things side-by-side with the people, in the thick of events—that is how the Soviet people know Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev.”

  Before television cameras, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin praised Khrushchev as “the pioneer explorer of the cosmic age.” The Soviet leader received another Order of Lenin and a third golden hammer-and-sickle medal for “guiding the creation and development of the rocket industry…which opened a new era in the conquest of space.” Khrushchev decorated seven thousand others who had contributed to the flight. To consolidate personal alliances and neutralize rivals, he gave Orders of Lenin to his Politburo ally Leonid Brezhnev and to a potential rival at the October Party Congress, Frol Kozlov. Before acting on Berlin, Khrushchev was protecting his flanks like a master politician.

  Khrushchev framed the Western refusal to compromise on Berlin as a threat not only to Moscow but to the entire communist world. Like the Nazis twenty years earlier, he said, the West would suffer complete failure because of the growth in military strength of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp.

  One after another, the Soviet Union’s military heroes and top commanders praised Khrushchev for his leadership and sounded the alarm about Berlin. Marshal Vasily Chuikov, commander in chief of the Soviet Union’s ground forces, told the crowd, “The historic truth is that during the assault on Berlin there was not a single American, British, or French armed soldier around it, except for the prisoners of war whom we freed.” Thus, he said, the Allies’ claims to special rights in Berlin so long after surrender “are entirely unfounded.”

  The crowd cheered.

  General A. N. Suburov, former commander of Ukrainian partisans, bore personal witness that Khrushchev was a gifted military strategist who could evaluate a major enemy at a historic moment and prescribe the proper course of action behind an achievable plan. Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky said the Americans and their allies were creating “a gigantic military apparatus and a system of aggressive blocks” around Soviet borders that must be resisted. He said they were stockpiling nuclear arms and rockets and creating areas of tension in Algeria, the Congo, Laos, and Cuba. They were carrying out the same policy that had led to World War II, he declared, “blinded by class hatred for socialism.”

  Khrushchev was developing the background story for whatever action he would order on Berlin. The Americans were Moscow’s most dangerous enemy. Berlin was the battleground to be cleared. Khrushchev was the hero of the past and the present who would lead the socialists of the world at this historic moment. It was at the same time a Berlin battle cry and a campaign event in advance of the October Party Congress. The future of Berlin and Khrushchev were inextricably linked.

  Khrushchev then paid his military a substantial reward for their support. Since the mid-1950s, he’d cut defense budgets and manpower while redirecting conventional arms resources to nuclear missile forces. Now he reversed the Soviet troop drawdown, provided access to new weaponry, and increased spending to give balanced support to “all the types of troops of our armed forces,” because the military “must have everything necessary in order immediately to smash any opponent…for the liberty of our Motherland.”

  The delirious crowd cheered their leader.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1961


  Even as Dean Acheson was putting the final touches on his new Berlin assessment, he jotted a personal note to his former boss, President Harry Truman, containing concerns about his new boss. He was “worried and puzzled” by Kennedy, he told Truman. “Somehow he does succeed in being a President, but only in the appearance of one.”

  Four days later, on June 28, Acheson submitted a preliminary version of his Berlin report to Kennedy in preparation for a press conference the president would hold that day, and a crucial gathering of his National Security Council and key congressional figures the day after.

  The thirteenth press conference of Kennedy’s six-month-old administration was a result of rising public and media pressure. His reluctance to discuss Berlin through most of June had given rise to reporting that he was behind the curve both with the public and the Pentagon in their willingness to stand up to Khrushchev. Time magazine, the largest-circulation American weekly, said in its July 7 edition, “There is a wide and spreading feeling that the Administration has not yet provided ample leadership in guiding the U.S. along the dangerous paths of the cold war.” It called upon Kennedy to seize the Berlin challenge “unhesitatingly and with boldness.”

  Kennedy complained to Salinger about such reports. “This shit has got to stop,” he said. What particularly irked him was Richard Nixon’s attack on Kennedy, that “never in American history has a man talked so big and acted so little.”

  As so often in his presidency, Kennedy’s rhetoric at the press conference was tougher toward the Soviets than the reality of his policy. “No one can fail to appreciate the gravity of this threat,” Kennedy said. “It involves the peace and security of the Western world.” He denied that he had seen a proposal for military mobilization for Berlin, though he said he would be considering “a whole variety of measures.” The statement was true only in the narrowest sense, in that Acheson was due to discuss military contingencies with the president the following day.

  CABINET ROOM, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 1961

  The first three paragraphs of Acheson’s report on Berlin contained an unequivocal call to action.

  The issue over Berlin, which Khrushchev is now moving toward a crisis to take place, so he says, toward the end of 1961, is far more than an issue over that city. It is broader and deeper than even the German question as a whole. It has become an issue of resolution between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., the outcome of which will go far to determine the confidence of Europe—indeed, of the world—in the United States. It is not too much to say that the whole position of the United States is in the balance.

  Until this conflict of wills is resolved, an attempt to solve the Berlin issue by negotiation is worse than a waste of time and energy. It is dangerous. This is so because what can be accomplished by negotiation depends on the state of mind of Khrushchev and his colleagues.

  At present, Khrushchev has demonstrated that he believes he will prevail because the United States and its allies will not do what is necessary to stop him. He cannot be persuaded by eloquence or logic, or cajoled by friendliness. As [former British Ambassador to Moscow] Sir William Hayter has written, “The only way of changing [Russian] purpose is to demonstrate…what they want to do is not possible.”

  With that as preamble, Acheson tersely laid out his proposal. Berlin was a problem only because the Soviets had decided to make it one. Their reasons were several: They wanted to neutralize Berlin en route to taking it over; they wanted to weaken or break up the Western alliance; and they wished to discredit the United States. He said that the “real themes should be that Khrushchev is a false trustee and a war monger, and these themes should be hammered home.”

  Acheson’s goal was to shift Khrushchev’s thinking, to convince him that Kennedy’s response to any test in Berlin would be so firm that Khrushchev wouldn’t risk it. He wanted the president to declare a national emergency and order a rapid buildup in American nuclear as well as conventional forces. He said American forces in Germany outside Berlin should be reinforced immediately by two or three divisions, to a total of six. The underlying message: If anyone was to back down over Berlin, it would have to be the Soviets.

  The Acheson report listed three “essentials” that, if violated, would trigger a military response. The Soviets could not threaten Western garrisons in Berlin, they could not disrupt air and surface access to the city, and they could not interfere with West Berlin’s viability and place in the free world. Acheson said a 1948-style airlift should be the response to any interruption of access. If the Soviets blocked the airlift more effectively this time, given their enhanced military capability and Berlin’s larger supply needs, then Kennedy should send two American armored divisions up the Autobahn to force open West Berlin.

  Acheson had thrown down the gauntlet, but Kennedy wasn’t yet prepared to pick it up. The president said little during the meeting. He doubted the American people were ready for a course as ambitious as Acheson was proposing. The Allies would be even less willing. De Gaulle had his hands full with Algeria, and Kennedy knew Macmillan had no stomach for troops storming up the Autobahn.

  Thompson led the arguments against the plan. He disagreed with Acheson that Khrushchev’s motive was to humiliate the U.S., and said it was instead to stabilize his Eastern European flank. Thus, he favored a quieter Western military buildup and thought it ought to be accompanied by a diplomatic initiative for Berlin negotiations after the West German elections in September. Thompson argued that if Kennedy declared a national emergency, it would make the U.S. look “hysterical” and could force Khrushchev to make a rash countermove he would otherwise avoid.

  Admiral Arleigh Burke, the U.S. Navy chief, also opposed Acheson’s plan. The veteran opposed the scale of the military “probe” recommended by Acheson, or an airlift unconnected with a probe. Burke had seen Kennedy’s reluctance to provide the military support required to succeed in Cuba, and he wasn’t about to put his neck on the line for Acheson’s Berlin scheme.

  Kennedy saw his administration separating into two camps. The first was becoming known as the Hard-Liners on Berlin and the other had been disparagingly labeled by the hawks in the room as the SLOBs, or the Soft-Liners on Berlin. The hard-liners included Acheson and Assistant Secretary of State Foy Kohler, the whole of the Germany desk at the State Department, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze, and more often than not, the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon and Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

  The soft-liners disliked the acronym that described them, which they saw as an attempt to discredit their greater willingness to find a negotiated Berlin solution, although they still supported a tough approach to the Soviets and some military buildup. They were a formidable group and were closer personally to Kennedy: Thompson, Kennedy Soviet affairs adviser Charles Bohlen, White House aide Arthur Schlesinger, White House consultant and Harvard professor Henry Kissinger, and special counsel Ted Sorensen. They also included Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy.

  Acheson, however, had a weapon they could not match: a fully developed proposal that was specific and comprehensive down to the last soldier to be deployed. The SLOBs had provided no alternative.

  After the meeting, Schlesinger organized an Acheson counterinsurgency. The forty-three-year-old historian had already served three times on Adlai Stevenson’s presidential campaign staff before aligning himself with Kennedy. He believed men of ideas had to collaborate with men of power to achieve noble purposes. He could recite cases from history, when Western intellectuals of their time—Turgot, Voltaire, Struensee, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson—had “assumed collaboration with power as the natural order of things.” Schlesinger turned to the State Department’s legal adviser Abram Chayes to begin work on a plan that was intended to provide a thinking man’s alternative to Acheson.

  Acheson warned his longtime friend Chayes that he’d already looked at softer options and they wouldn’t fly. “Abe, you’ll see. You try, but you w
ill find it just won’t write.”

  PITSUNDA

  EARLY JULY 1961

  From his Black Sea retreat, a frustrated Khrushchev demanded to see a better map of Berlin.

  His ambassador to East Germany, Mikhail Pervukhin, had sent him a map that lacked sufficient detail to determine whether Ulbricht was right that it was possible to effectively divide the city. Khrushchev could see that in some parts of Berlin, sectors were divided by a line running down the center of a street. In other places, it seemed the border ran through buildings and canals. Khrushchev worried as he studied more closely that “one sidewalk was in one sector, the other in a different one. Cross the street and you have already crossed the border.”

  In a July 4 letter, Pervukhin had reported to Foreign Minister Gromyko that shutting down the city’s border would be a logistical nightmare, as some 250,000 Berliners crossed the line each day by train, by car, and on foot. “This would necessitate building structures for the whole expanse of the border within the city and adding a large number of police posts,” he stated. That said, he conceded that closing the border “in one way or the other” might be required given “the exacerbation of the political situation.” Pervukhin worried about the negative reaction of the West to any such move, including a possible economic embargo.

  Ulbricht had long since overcome any such doubts, and by the end of June had developed with his top security man in the Politburo, Erich Honecker, detailed plans about how the border could be closed. He brought the Soviet ambassador and Yuli Kvitsinsky, a young and rising diplomat, who acted as translator, to his home outside East Berlin on the Döllnsee to drive home his most compelling point. The situation in the GDR was growing visibly worse, he told Pervukhin, adding, “Soon it would lead to an explosion.” He told Pervukhin to tell Khrushchev that his country’s collapse was “inevitable” if the Soviets didn’t act.