If the Soviets had to contend with the Chinese in marshaling their forces for the Cold War, the United States had a similar if ultimately less serious problem with France. French unwillingness to harness itself with the other members of NATO against the common threat was more than a case of national egotism. It deprived NATO of strategic depth in Europe and ran competing policies, more appropriate to the petty nation-state mentality of the era of Louis XIV than the epic struggle against an Evil Empire. French policy of defense “in all directions” was a slap in the face against Allies who had bled so profusely on French soil in two world wars. The French attitude seemed to be epitomized by de Gaulle’s order to remove all Allied troops and facilities from France. Charged by President Johnson with briefing de Gaulle on the plan to evacuate French bases, Secretary of State Dean Rusk asked the French president if he wanted the United States to remove the bodies of its war dead as well from their cemeteries. For once de Gaulle was left speechless and simply showed Rusk the door. He was not as reticent during a state visit to Canada in 1968 when he exclaimed to a crowd in Quebec City: “Vive Quebec Libre”—“Long live Free Quebec.” It was a gross provocation of a friendly NATO ally whose armies had lost 80,000 dead on French battlefields. The support for Quebec’s secession was an unprecedented attack on the territorial integrity of a friendly country.5
Such were the battlefields of the Cold War. They flared across the planet in hot wars that often risked the involvement of the United States and the Soviet Union. Where the great hosts of these two powers faced each other in their might, across the European Iron Curtain, was the coldest, most inert theater of all. Yet, the Cold War was like no other war, or like no other long-term confrontation of great powers, in its potential for sudden instability. Always there was the possibility for miscalculation. Despite this very real danger, the world survived the Cold War through a combination of sheer luck and sometimes inspired leadership.
This book, by a team of British, Canadian, and American military historians, explores the alternatives to such a fortunate outcome. History does not run along a well-worn groove. It is a continuously shifting synthesis of chance, design, character, accident, and luck both good and bad. History is a constantly shifting array of decision nodes—the ultimate game of choice and chance based on strategy and guessing in the dark. Here in the dark recesses of bypassed decisions lurk different worlds, different outcomes of a war more nuanced and complicated than any in mankind’s long pact with strife.
Clarifications
The ten chapters in this book do not form a continuous thread or single plot line. Rather they are the stories woven by ten authors each charged with examining a different period or episode of the Cold War in light of the very real potential for different outcomes. Each is self-contained within its own alternate reality.
Our historical accounts of this alternate reality naturally need their own explanatory references, which appear in the footnotes at the end of each chapter. The use of these “alternate reality” notes, of course, poses a risk to the unwary reader who may make strenuous efforts to acquire a new and fascinating source. To avoid an epidemic of frustrating and futile searches, the “alternate notes” are indicated with an asterisk (*) before the number. All works appearing in the bibliographies included separately in each chapter are, however, “real”.
Also, to assist the reader, the names of Western military units are given in roman type and Soviet and client state units are given in italics (with the exception of those names that are invariably italicized such as those of ships—these are italicized for all nations). In Chapter 6 Soviet forces are italicized and Chinese forces are in roman type.
The Chapters
The chapters are presented in chronological order. Thus the story of the Berlin Blockade—“First Blood: Berlin, 1948,” by Michael Hathaway leads off with the first snarling spilling of Soviet and American blood in the skies over the former capital of the Reich. It was the first confrontation of the war and the last serious confrontation in Europe, despite the crisis over Berlin in 1962. The action shifts halfway around the world to James Arnold’s “The Pusan Disaster, 1950” in which the Soviet gamble to engage on the periphery of Western power pays off.
The book lingers in Asia where, in Paddy Griffith’s “Vietnam: The War That Nobody Noticed,” the United States backs the advice of the British counter-insurgency expert, Sir Robert Thompson, to deliver an altogether different ending to the war that in reality consumed almost 60,000 US and well over a million Vietnamese lives.
The next three chapters take place in 1967–68, probably one of the most dangerous periods of the entire Cold War. They concentrate on events in the Middle East, North America, and East Asia. Chapter 4 is located in the Middle East and the 1967 War. John Burtt’s “To the Brink” brings out the layered miscalculations that led to the festering misery we now see in Israel and Palestine but shows how events could have spun even more disastrously out of control. Chapter 5: “Another Savage War of Peace: Quebec, 1968” by Sean Maloney, Canada’s foremost military historian, paints the picture of Canadian civil war based upon serious outside subversion and support of the separatists in Quebec. Forrest Lindsey draws the horrors of war over mastery of the international communist movement in “A Fraternal War: The Sino–Soviet Disaster” in Chapter 6, when the nuclear genie is uncorked and spreads the dust of his deadly wishes across the planet.
The 1970s open with Kevin Kiley’s depiction of a successful American invasion of North Vietnam in 1970. This chapter forms the perfect bookend to Paddy Griffith’s chapter and represents the ultimate escalation of the war. Chapter 8, Wade Dudley’s “Fire and Ice: Sixth Fleet versus Fifth Eskadra” lays out the events that led to the unprecedented advance to DEFCON 3 during the 1973 War, the highest state of war alert ever ordered by a President of the United States, and then goes a chilling step further. Chapter 9 by David Isby: “Afghanistan: The Soviet Victory,” is a masterpiece of political and foreign policy analysis of how the impotence of the Carter administration could have led to a major war on the Indian subcontinent.
Finally, Chapter 10 attempts something altogether different in the alternate history genre—to use a lighter touch, that of humor, to describe the defeat of the Soviet Theater Strategic Operation (TSO) against NATO in 1987. This story points out the missed opportunities for the strategy of the indirect approach employing the subtle human factors in war as the two massive mechanized, high-tech hosts of the Warsaw Pact and NATO faced each other in Europe.
Peter G. Tsouras
Alexandria, Virginia
2003
Notes
1. Glavnii vrag (“the main enemy”) became the common synonym for the Unites States in Soviet usage.
2. Those banners, magnificently embroidered in gold and silver thread on black, red, gold, blue, and green cloth, are still exhibited in the Armed Forces Museum in Moscow, under glass on the floor level to give the same impression of their moment of humiliation as they fell upon the steps of Lenin’s Tomb.
3. M. Djilas, Conversations With Stalin (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1962), p. 106.
4. Soviet rules of conduct in that war required their pilots to wear Chinese uniforms and speak in basic Chinese during flight operations, though that unworkable nonsense was observed more in the breach than in fact.
5. Thus the English speaking world can understand how the Royal Navy was able to retain a weekly toast in use until only recently. “Damn the French.”
1
FIRST BLOOD
Berlin, 1948
Michael R. Hathaway
Frankfurt-Berlin Air Corridor: 1100, October 18, 1948
“Bogies, 12 o’clock low!” Lieutenant Russell Brown, USAF, watched the Soviet Yak-9s roll in from 20,000 feet, then make a diving head-on pass at the C-54 Skymaster. He was flying combat air patrol, leading the three other F-80s of Blue flight at 30,000 feet over the transport stream in the Frankfurt–Berlin air corridor.
Lieutenant Charlie “Boots”
McCoy’s Texas drawl came through Brown’s headset. “Looks like Ivan’s in the mood to…” McCoy never finished his sentence. Bright sparks appeared on the C-54, then its left wing exploded into flames and snapped off, throwing the plane into a dive.
The Yaks split. The lead element, the one that fired on the C-54, pulled up and to the left of the descending F-80s. The trail element continued diving past the falling, spinning C-54, then started to pull up to the right.
Brown and McCoy, his wingman, went after the lead element, rolling left and diving. The F-80s were coming out of the sun. Before the Yaks realized they were there, Brown got off a 45 degree deflection shot at a closing velocity of around 900 knots. He knew it was not a high-percentage shot, but took it anyway, and so did McCoy.
The two Yaks were cold meat. They were watching the C-54 go in—there were no parachutes—and were not paying attention. Brown got the lead and McCoy got the wingman. Brown saw the engine of the leader burp a ball of flame as he shot past. McCoy saw the canopy come off the wingman. They zoomed back up. Over the radio, Blue 3 called: “Bandits 4 o’clock low, running for it.” Blue 3 was Lieutenant Ralph Gibson, Brown’s second element leader. He had been keeping track of the other Yaks, who had seen Brown and McCoy bounce their buddies and were now diving for the deck and running for the edge of the corridor.
Brown rolled inverted and started to go down after them, when he heard the call from the GCI (Ground Controlled Intercept) Fighter Controler: “Blue flight—break off! Break off!”
“Home Plate—they’ve splashed a C-54!”
GCI came back: “Break off, that’s an order!”
Reluctantly, Brown pulled up and continued around to the right, climbing back to 30,000 feet, and led Blue flight on to Berlin.
An hour later, Brown, McCoy, and the rest of Blue flight stood at attention in front of the desk of Colonel Royal N. Baker, commander of the 36th Fighter Group. Brown finished his report: “Those Yaks are supposed to be tough from behind, sir, but they’re not so tough from ahead.” He paused, then added: “We could have knocked down more.”
Colonel Baker looked hard at the lieutenant. “It’s a good thing you didn’t, that wasn’t just my order, it was General LeMay’s. And I have another order for you—from even higher up. Everything you just told me is secret. In fact, it’s beyond secret,” he continued. “Neither you nor Lieutenant McCoy can claim a kill. No press release, no stories at the Club—not a word, not to anyone, maybe not ever. Do you read me?”
Brown and the rest of Blue flight knew there was only one answer to that question, and it was a smart “Yes, Sir!” Softening, Baker continued: “Don’t worry, the Air Force knows what you did, and that’s going to have to be enough. Dismissed!”1
With that, a disappointed yet relieved Lieutenant Brown and his Blue flight officers saluted and left his Group Commander’s office, silenced by an official order that would remain in force until the end of the Cold War.2
It may have been bad luck or it may have been plain stupidity, but the action of that Yak pilot on a bright October day in 1948, caused a ripple effect that went thousands of miles beyond Berlin. A spark had been tossed into the powder magazine that was occupied Germany. The undeclared Cold War had just gone hot.
Berlin 1945–48
The Allied Control Council (ACC) had been established by the European Advisory Committee during World War II to be in charge of the occupation of Germany. Originally, the USSR, the USA, and Britain were to have been members, but France was added at the Potsdam Summit. Each occupying power was to designate an ACC member and, at the outset, these were the commanders of the respective Allied forces.3 For the US, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower was quickly succeeded by General Joseph T. McNarney, who was in turn succeeded by Lieutenant General Lucius Clay in March, 1947. But in fact, Clay acted as Military Governor of the US Zone from the outset, and was officially head of the Office of Military Government for Germany (US) (known as OMGUS) before becoming Commander of US Forces Europe and titular Military Governor.4
The blockade of Berlin actually began on March 27, 1948, when Marshal Vassily Danilovich Sokolovsky, the Soviet Military Governor and Commander of Soviet Forces in Germany, issued an order imposing new traffic regulations. This was the first step in the Soviet plan to force the USA, Britain, and France to abandon Berlin.5
On March 31, General Clay sent a telegram to General Omar Bradley, who had succeeded General Eisenhower as US Army Chief of Staff. In this telegram, Clay told Bradley about the new Soviet restrictions on rail travel to and from Berlin that would go into force in 24 hours and would affect both military and civilian personnel and freight. He advised that he intended to order US soldiers guarding the trains to open fire on any Soviet personnel attempting to board the trains without permission. Washington responded with approval of Clay’s stance, but also with an order not to open fire unless fired upon.6
The Soviets stopped trains at the zonal border crossing point at Marienborn. The French allowed the Soviets to board their train, check documents, and arrest and remove 67 German passengers, after which the French train was allowed to proceed to Berlin. The British did not allow the Soviets aboard, and their train was not allowed to proceed. The US had three trains stopped. Clay cancelled American rail services to Berlin following this border confrontation, not desiring a daily repetition of these disruptions.7
What later became known as the “baby lift” began on a very small scale in response to the effective termination of the official rail service from the British and American Zones of Occupation to Berlin (civilian rail traffic was still permitted at this stage, and a Soviet train continued to run across the interzonal boundary). Both the British and the Americans began flying priority passengers and freight into Berlin.8
In fact, the Soviet approach to the blockade followed a two-steps-forward, one-back tactic. After the initial confrontation, train traffic was allowed to resume, but barge traffic was impeded. Road traffic was continued, but two British and American way stations along the route to Berlin were closed, and civilian trucks were sometimes refused passage because they did not have the correct permits. Official allied road transport was not interfered with.9
But signs of worse to come were visible. On April 5, a Soviet Yak fighter buzzed a civilian British Viking airliner about two miles from touchdown at Gatow airport, and had a midair collision with it, killing all aboard both aircraft. Clay and his British counterpart, Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Robertson, immediately ordered fighter protection for allied aircraft in the three air corridors from the western zones of occupation to Berlin. Robertson sought an urgent meeting with Sokolovsky. After some delay, they met. The marshal claimed the British airliner had caused the crash by “ramming” the Soviet fighter. But aside from this ridiculous assertion, the Soviet assurance that the incident had been unintentional was taken at face value. Clay and Robertson accordingly cancelled the first order for fighter cover for the transports.10
In London, a conference of Western powers was under way to make decisions on Germany and the defense of the west. On June 1, the representatives reached agreement on the introduction of a new currency in the western zones of Germany. The Reichsmark had continued in circulation after the war, but was of decreasing value. The Soviets had been printing unknown quantities of it in a Leipzig plant and using this money to purchase goods. Inflation was gaining strength and the availability of goods and services in return for payment in Reichsmarks was rapidly declining. Cigarettes had become the standard currency of exchange.11
Just as important as currency reform, the London conference had instructed the Allied military governors to call upon the heads of the German states located in the western zones to convene a constituent assembly by September 1 to begin drafting a constitution for a federal state in the territories under Allied occupation.12
The combination of economic and political reform in the western zones of occupation was the trigger for the final two steps forward in the Soviet Berlin
operation. On June 24, the Soviets closed all road, rail, and water access to the western sectors of Berlin to both civilian and official Allied traffic. This is generally accepted as the formal beginning of the Berlin blockade. The Soviets asserted “technical difficulties” as the cause for the interruption of rail traffic, and gave no explanations for their other moves.13
Clay was determined. He and his State Department advisor, Ambassador Robert Murphy, advocated immediate dispatch of an armed convoy from the American Zone to Berlin.14 Washington’s response to that idea was frosty.
In contrast to Teddy Roosevelt’s foreign policy dictum that the United States should “talk softly but carry a big stick,” following the post-World War II demobilization (described by some as more of a “rout”) the United States was perilously weak. General Omar Bradley, who had taken over as Army Chief of Staff on February 7, stated that: “the Army of 1948 couldn’t fight its way out of a paper bag.”15
In Germany, the forces directly available to General Clay were also quite weak, in comparison to Soviet forces. In Berlin itself, Clay had the 3rd Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment, the 16th Constabulary Squadron (Sep), and the 759th Military Police Battalion, totaling 4,677 personnel. (“Constabulary” units were light infantry assigned to police duties.)
Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War Page 2
