Berlin 1961

by Frederick Kempe

  Even at almost age sixty-eight: Robert L. Beisner, Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, 7, 89–95.

  Shortly after Kennedy’s election: Acheson letters, 11/22/1960, from Democratic Party 1960 Campaign, Truman Correspondence (courtesy David Acheson). Also in David S. McLellan and David C. Acheson, eds., Among Friends: Personal Letters of Dean Acheson. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1980, 199.

  Acheson listed for Kennedy: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH.

  Acheson conceded that reducing: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 141.

  The French and Germans: Fred M. Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983 / Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991, 283, 338; Andreas Wenger, Living with Peril: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nuclear Weapons. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997, 201; Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 130–131.

  He advised Kennedy: JFKL, POF, Memo, Bundy to the President, March 27, 1961, “Bundy, McGeorge 2/69-4/61 Folder,” Box 62, Staff Memoranda; DDRS (Declassified Document Reference System), “Bundy to Kennedy, April 4, 1961,” 1986/2903; Nigel Fisher, Harold Macmillan: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982, 257; Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965, 380–382; Victor Lasky, JFK: The Man and the Myth. New York: Macmillan, 1963, 6–7; Alistair Horne, Harold Macmillan. vol. 2, 1957–1986. New York: Viking, 1989, 289–290.

  British Prime Minister Macmillan was taken aback: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 14, Memcon, The President’s Meetings with Prime Minister Macmillan, Washington, April 1961, “East–West Issues: Berlin,” April 5, 1961, 3:10 p.m.; Fisher, Harold Macmillan, 261.

  But the two men: Chace, Acheson, 174.

  A keen student of history: Anthony Sampson, Macmillan: A Study in Ambiguity. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Press, 1967, 65–66.

  Macmillan had worried to columnist: JFKL, Henry Brandon OH; Henry Brandon, Special Relationships: A Foreign Correspondent’s Memoirs from Roosevelt to Reagan. New York: Atheneum, 1988, 155.

  Eisenhower’s ambassador to London: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 282; Harold Macmillan Archives, Harold Macmillan, Diaries, 17 November 1960 (scheduled publication date: 04/03/2011).

  “I wonder how it is”: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 290.

  Perhaps the most disliked: Lord Longford, Kennedy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976, 79–81; Corey Ford, Donovan of OSS: The Untold Story of William J. Donovan. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970, 89.

  To further influence Kennedy’s: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 282; Harold Macmillan Archives, Letter of November 9, 1960; Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 1959–1961. London: Macmillan, 1972, 308.

  De Gaulle in Paris: Constantine A. Pagedas, Anglo-American Strategic Relations and the French Problem, 1960–1963: A Troubled Partnership. London: Frank Class, 2000, 124.

  When they met in London: Harold Macmillan Archives. Harold Macmillan, Diaries, February 23, 1961.

  Ahead of Macmillan’s White House: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 286, from interview with the economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

  To the prime minister’s relief: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 287–290, 295.

  Macmillan had been taken by: Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 352–353: diary entry for April 12, 1961.

  Yet that positive beginning: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 14, 15; Fisher, Harold Macmillan, 261.

  Acheson crisply listed: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 380.

  With the return of Acheson’s: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 15.

  A final internal: Rolf Steininger, Der Mauerbau: Die Westmächte und Adenauer in der Berlinkrise 1958–1963. Munich: Olzog, 2001, 184.

  In the brisk spring: New York Times, 04/09/1961; Washington Post, 04/09/1961.

  British officials surprised: Steininger, Der Mauerbau, 182–185, 183; New York Times, 04/09/1961; Washington Post, 04/10/1961; JFKL, POF, CO: United Kingdom Security, 3/27/69-4/61, Box 127a, Item 7a.

  8. AMATEUR HOUR

  “The European view”: Dean G. Acheson, Remarks at Foreign Service lunch, Washington, D.C. (transcribed June 29, 1961), S 3, B 51, F62, DGA-Yale. The speech was delivered sometime between June 13 and 25, 1961; retrieved from Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 127.

  “I don’t understand Kennedy”: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita S. Khrushchev: Krizisy i Rakety, vol. 1, 102–106.

  It was Washington’s first: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH, no. 1; Douglas Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953–1971. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994, 127.

  Truman’s former secretary: Chace, Acheson, 386–388; Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 127.

  Acheson said he would not: Richard J. Walton, Cold War and Counterrevolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy. New York: Viking, 1972, 44.

  The two men talked: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH; Walton, Cold War and Counterrevolution, 44.

  The eighty-five-year-old: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 57.

  Acheson spent much of the day: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH; New York Times, 04/10/1961; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 58–60.

  Beyond that, Adenauer: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 130–131.

  So Acheson instead focused: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 129.

  For the moment, Kennedy: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 97; Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 129; James Chace, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World. New York: Simon & Schuster, 199, 383–384.

  Instead, Kennedy would put: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/New+York+Times+Chronology/1961/May 10; David E. Murphy, Sergei A. Kondrashev, and George Bailey, Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War. London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997, 359.

  In short, Kennedy’s evolving: Murphy, Kondrashev, and Bailey, Battleground Berlin, 360.

  When Acheson was near victory: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 130; Chace, Acheson, 388.

  On the day of Adenauer’s flight: Norman Cousins, The Improbable Triumvirate: John F. Kennedy, Pope John, Nikita Khrushchev. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972, 83–87.

  Khrushchev would later explain: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 111; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 5.

  It was a measure: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 490; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 110–111.

  With the schedule for the space launch: Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Boston and Torento: Little, Brown, 526–527.

  Khrushchev had accelerated: Gerhard Kowalski, Die Gargarin-Story: Die Wahrheit über den Flug des ersten Kosmonauten der Welt. Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 1999, 55; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 113.

  Lippmann savored his access: Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, 419, 445; Barry D. Riccio, Walter Lippmann: Odyssey of a Liberal. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994, 46–47.

  During a lunch break: Washington Post, 04/19/1961.

  A German solution: Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, 527–528.

  Khrushchev laid out his Berlin: Walter Lippmann Papers. Soviet transcript of conversation between Khrushchev and Lippmann, 10 April 1961, New Haven, CT: Yale University, Sterling Memorial Library, Series VII, Box 239; Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, 3, 203; Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis (1958–1962),” CWIHP Working Paper No. 6, May 1993, 21–23; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 490–491.

  Khrushchev told Lippmann: Zubok, “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis (1958–1962),” CWIHP Working Paper No. 6, 22; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 111.

  Khrushchev said he was ready: Walter Lippmann Papers. Soviet transcript of conversation between Khrushchev and Lippmann, April 10, 1961, Yale University; Taubman, Khrushchev, 490–491; Deborah Welch Larson Anatomy of Mistrust: U.S.–Soviet Relations During the Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000, 287.

  Khrushchev had only one question: Pravda, April 13, 1961, 2; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev
and the Creation of a Superpower. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, 432; Taubman, Khrushchev, 490–491; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Krizisy i Rakety, vol. 2, 100–101.

  Yes, Korolyov declared: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfz5B2uERcE.

  Khrushchev exulted to: Taubman, Khrushchev, 491; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Krizisy i Rakety, vol. 2, 100–101; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 432–433.

  The Soviet leader ordered: Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006, 346. (At a Presidium meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev discussed the problem of collapsing balconies. See stenographic account, June 16, 1961, TsK KPSS); Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 433–434.

  From atop the Lenin: Taubman, Khrushchev, 492.

  Kennedy had told Brandt: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 10; JFKL, Memcon, Meeting Kennedy–Brandt at White House, Washington, March 13, 1961, 3–3:40 p.m., Subject: Germany and Berlin, National Security Files (NSF), Germany, Confidential, drafted by Foy Kohler and approved by the White House on March 23, 1961.

  Brandt joined the list: Ibid.; Briefing Paper for meeting, transmitted by Rusk to the President on March 10, 1961, in Department of State, Central Files, 762.00/3–1061; Memcon, Brandt–Rusk covering similar topics, March 14, 1961, in Department of State, Central Files, 762.0221/3-1461. For Brandt’s account of his conversation with the president and visit to Washington, see Willy Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsichten, Die Jahre 1960–1975. Hamburg: Hoffmann u. Campe, 1976, 17–18, 80–83.

  Brandt had used his forty minutes: Willy Brandt, Begegnungen mit Kennedy. Munich: Kindler, 1964, 49–45.

  Brandt was relieved: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, 03/14/1961.

  A month later, Kennedy’s conversations: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 17.

  Adenauer delivered an elderly man’s: New York Times, 2/17/1961.

  Kennedy said he was concerned: FRUS, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/kennedyjf/xiv/15854.htm 9. Memorandum of Conversation/1/Washington, March 10, 1961; Source: JFKL, NSF, Germany, Confidential, drafted by Kohler and approved by the White House on March 20; ibid., Doc. 10: Memcon, Washington, March 13, 1961, 3–3:40 p.m.; Bundesarchiv, Kabinettsprotokolle Online “1. Deutsche Maßnahmen zur Entlastung der US Zahlungsbilanz” retrieved from http://www.bundesarchiv.de.

  The communiqué: Williams, Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany, 490; FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 9, 10; Konrad Adenauer, Erinnerungen 1959–1963. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968, 91–97.

  The correspondent of the German magazine: Der Spiegel, 04/12/1961, 04/19/1961.

  At the end of the visit: Christian Science Monitor, 04/14/1961.

  Little noticed was Adenauer’s: Washington Post, 04/14/1961.

  Johnson’s central Texas: Christian Science Monitor, 04/17/1961.

  When Adenauer visited: Poppinga, “Das Wichtigste ist der Mut”: Konrad Adenauer, 297.

  With star German reporters: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 519.

  On their drive to the airport: Poppinga, “Das Wichtigste ist der Mut”: Konrad Adenauer, 297; Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 519–520.

  With Adenauer safely back: “The Presidency: Interlude,” Time, 04/28/1961; Sidey, JFK, 131; Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979, 269–270.

  Two days earlier, eight B-26 bombers: Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 184–185; Howard Jones, The Bay of Pigs. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, 76–77, 100–102; also see for chronology of events: National Security Archive, “The Bay of Pigs—40 Years After,” April 15–18, 1961: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/chron.html.

  Castro’s fighters sank: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. X, Cuba, 1961–1962, Doc. 109, 119; The National Security Archive, “The Bay of Pigs—40 Years After,” April 15–18, 1961.

  Most of the military brass: Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 76–77, 96;

  Most important at the meeting: JFKL, Richard M. Bissell OH; JFKL, POF, Bundy to JFK, February 25, 1961, Staff Memoranda, Box 62; Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, 237, 240; “Nation: When It’s in the News, It’s in Trouble” and “Cuba: The Massacre,” Time, 04/28/1961; Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 124–126; Harris Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980, 362.

  Now working for Kennedy: Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 139; Richard M. Bissell, Jonathan E. Lewis, and Frances T. Pudlo. Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996, 190.

  Kennedy had never questioned: Gus Russo, Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK. Baltimore: Bancroft Press, 1998, 13–15; Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 38, 76–78, 96, 100–102.

  Also, leaks had been: Russo, Live by the Sword, 16.

  The April 17 invasion: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 9.

  Khrushchev wasn’t buying Kennedy’s: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 9.

  Kennedy had responded: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 10.

  With that exchange: Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 189; Laurence Leamer, The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963. New York: HarperCollins, 2001, 501, 508.

  Just six days earlier: Thomas, The Very Best Men, 253; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 114; Leamer, The Kennedy Men: 1909–1963, 501, 508; “Nation: Bitter Week,” Time, 04/28/1961; Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980, 347–348.

  If the president: E. B. Potter, Admiral Arleigh A. Burke. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2005; Gordon M. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam. New York: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2008, 39; Sidey, JFK, 110; Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 270–271.

  Kennedy ended the three-hour: Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 271; https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/agency-andthe-hill/12-The%20Agency%20and%20the%20Hill_Part2-Chapter9.pdf: chapter 9, Oversight of Covert Action, 268.

  Acheson immediately grasped: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH; Chace, Acheson, 387.

  Speaking before diplomats: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 127.

  With a tone of dismay: Acheson Letter to Truman, May 3, 1961 (courtesy David Acheson), in David S. McLellan and David C. Acheson, eds., Among Friends: Personal Letters of Dean Acheson. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1980, 206–207.

  He had known in advance: Vladislav M. Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, 243.

  Though Kennedy had avoided: Taubman, Khrushchev, 492; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 121.

  “I don’t understand Kennedy”: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Krizisy i Rakety, 102–106.

  That said, Khrushchev was concerned: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 348–349.

  Paris’s Left Bank: Jörn Donner, Report from Berlin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961.

  Donner considered the difference: Donner, Report from Berlin, XI.

  Like West Berlin: Interview with Vern Pike, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2008.

  9. PERILOUS DIPLOMACY

  “The American government”: Archive of the Main Intelligence Administration of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU), “Kratkoye Soderzhanye: Besed G. Bolshakova s R. Kennedi (9 Maya 1961 goda-14 Dekabria 1962 roga)” [Summary: Meeting of G. Bolshakov with R. Kennedy, May 9, 1961–December 14, 1962].

  “Berlin is a festering sore”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 24, Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, Moscow, May 24, 1961.

&n
bsp; Wearing a white shirt: GRU, “Kratkoye Soderzhanye: Besed G. Bolshakova s. R. Kennedi.”

  Bolshakov was just one of two: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 65.

  Thompson put down the phone: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Docs. 65, 66.

  After a day of reflection: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 67.

  Special envoy Averell Harriman: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XXIV, 199–200, 209–210.

  Beyond that, Rusk told: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 67.

  It suited Bolshakov: Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy J. Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997, 119–123; interview with Frank Holeman, August 6, 1995, Washington, D.C.; Georgi Bolshakov, “Goryachaya Linaya” (Hot Line), Novoye Vremya, no. 4 (1989), 38–40; Pravda, Bolshakov Meetings; GRU, “Kratkoye Soderzhanye: Besed G. Bolshakova s. R. Kennedi.”

  What gave Bolshakov: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 119–113, citing GRU, Biography of Georgi Bolshakov; Dino Brugioni and Robert F. McCort, eds., Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Random House, 1991, 176–178; Zvezda, no. 7 (1997); Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975, 194; James W. Symington., The Stately Game. New York: Macmillan, 1971, 144–145.

  However, Bolshakov’s most important: Washington Times, September 27, 1996.

  Bolshakov had worked Holeman: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 111, citing interview with Frank Holeman, August 6, 1995.

  When Bolshakov returned: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 111; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 153–154; interview with Frank Holeman; Richard Nixon Papers, National Archives, Rose Mary Woods–Nixon, 12/18/1958.

  When Bolshakov replaced Gvozdev: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 109–112; Brugioni and McCort, Eyeball to Eyeball, 176–177; Foreign Broadcast Information Service, USSR, International Service, “Kennedy Sees Soviet Journalists,” Daily Report No. 12327, June 1961; Bolshakov, “Goryachaya Linaya,” 38–40.

  With Guthman’s blessing: Bolshakov, “Goryachaya Linaya,” 38–40.