Berlin 1961 (41 page)

Ulbricht’s face was passive, and his cold eyes remained unchanged. He answered without emotion: “I understand your question as implying that there are people in West Germany who would like to see us mobilize the construction workers of the capital of the GDR for the purpose of building a wall.” He paused, looked down on the short, plump Frau Doherr from the rostrum, and then continued. “I am not aware of any such intention. The construction workers of our capital are for the most part busy building apartment houses, and their working capacities are fully employed to that end. Nobody intends to put up a wall.”

It was Ulbricht’s first public mention ever of a “wall,” though the reporter had not mentioned such a barrier herself. He had shown his hand, yet none of the media would pick up on it in their reports that would follow. It sounded to them like more of Ulbricht’s usual obfuscation.

At six o’clock that evening, East Germans could watch Khrushchev’s own report about the Vienna Summit’s outcome on state television. The Soviet leader bluntly declared: “A peace treaty with Germany cannot be postponed any longer.” By design, the edited replay of Ulbricht’s press conference followed the Soviet leader’s statement at eight p.m.

The chilling effect was immediate. Despite increased monitoring of borders by security officers, the following day would bring the biggest one-day outflow of refugees of the year: a record 4,770, which would have amounted to 1.74 million people on an annualized basis from a population of just 17 million. The term increasingly used to describe the flight,
Torschlusspanik
—the fear of the door’s closing before you can pass through it—described the panicked mood that was spreading like a rash across East Germany after Ulbricht’s speech.

Some commentators at the time believed the rapid increase in refugees showed that Ulbricht had miscalculated the potential impact of the press conference. More likely, it was all part of the East German’s endgame. For all of Khrushchev’s increased public expressions of determination regarding Berlin, Ulbricht knew the Soviet leader had not entirely thought through his next step after Vienna.

Yet each of Ulbricht’s moves was carefully calibrated. By making matters worse for himself over the short term, he would make Khrushchev digest ever more deeply the unacceptable cost of further inaction.

Ulbricht was determined not to lose the post-Vienna momentum.

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
FRIDAY, JUNE
16, 1961

Given his well-known criticism of Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs performance, Dean Acheson was flattered and a little surprised that Kennedy was turning to him again for advice. The president’s questions to him were as simple as they were difficult to answer: How did he counter Khrushchev after his Vienna ultimatum? How seriously should the president take the Soviet leader’s Berlin threat—and what should he do about it?

The Acheson relationship to Kennedy had become an increasingly complex one. The two men had grown acquainted with each other in the late 1950s, when then Senator Kennedy had occasionally driven his Georgetown neighbor home from meetings on Capitol Hill. What the young Kennedy didn’t know was how much Acheson detested Kennedy’s father, not only for his support for an American foreign policy of isolationism, but also for the dishonest way in which Acheson believed he had come about his riches. Acheson believed it was those ill-gotten gains that had then bought the White House for his son.

For President Kennedy, however, Acheson provided perhaps his best option for clear answers to urgent questions. Acheson regarded his job that day as cutting through the mush of administration decision-making represented by the “Interdepartmental Coordinating Group on Berlin Contingency Planning,” better known as the Berlin Task Force. Acheson assured the men in the room that his purpose “was not to interfere with any present operation but rather to stimulate further thought and activity.”

He said the task force had to take Khrushchev’s threats in Vienna at face value, and thus their Berlin contingency planning was no longer a theoretical exercise. Decisions had to be made, he said. The cost of inaction was enormous, as was the danger of failing to reverse Khrushchev’s growing perception of American weakness. The issue of Berlin involved “deeply the prestige of the United States and perhaps its very survival.”

Because he didn’t believe a political solution was available, he said the question was now whether they had the political will to make difficult decisions, “regardless of the opinions of our allies.” Khrushchev was “now willing to do what he [has] not been willing to do before,” said Acheson, “undoubtedly due to the feeling that the U.S. [will] not oppose him with nuclear weapons.”

If the U.S. was unwilling to do that, Acheson continued, it could not oppose Russian advances. Acheson was little interested in hearing the views of others in the room. He was there to convert them to his own thinking. He believed that the Kennedy administration was entering the worst of all worlds. The more Khrushchev doubted the U.S. willingness to use nuclear weapons, the more he might test Kennedy to the point that the president would have no other choice but to use them. “Nuclear weapons should not be looked upon as the last and largest weapon to be used,” he said, “but as the first step in a new policy in protecting the United States from the failure of a policy of deterrence.”

Acheson’s hard line had won him many enemies in the Democratic Party and among the senior officials gathered in the room. He told them that inaction now regarding Berlin would have a ripple effect far beyond the city that would endanger U.S. interests around the world. “Berlin is vital to the power position of the U.S.,” he said. “Withdrawal would destroy our power position.” Thus, they had “to act so as neither to invite a series of defeats nor precipitate ourselves into the ultimate catastrophe.”

With apologies to the Joint Chiefs and the secretary of defense, who he conceded would in the end decide the military issues, Acheson then outlined what he would propose to President Kennedy. Acheson wanted a more intensive training of U.S. reserves than their usual summer routine so that they would be in battle-ready condition. He wanted the U.S. to fly “STRAC units”—Strategic Army Corps operations—to Europe, and, after their exercises, leave part of them behind to increase Allied strength near the front. He envisioned crash programs for Polaris and other missile systems and submarines to improve nuclear capability. He wanted the U.S. to resume nuclear testing and, in violation of Kennedy’s promise to Khrushchev, also restart the sort of reconnaissance flights that had triggered the capture of the U-2 and RB-47 airmen and the breakdown of U.S.–Soviet relations. He wanted aircraft carriers deployed in positions that better helped defend Berlin.

The men in the room were stunned. Acheson was proposing nothing less than a full military mobilization that would place the United States on a war footing. If Acheson reflected Kennedy’s thinking in any way, they were witnessing a historic turning point in the confrontation with Moscow over Berlin.

Acheson continued in a similar vein. He wanted a substantial increase in the military budget and a proclamation of a national emergency so that Americans got the point, supported by congressional resolutions. All this would, of course, require preparing the American people and Congress psychologically. For that, Acheson suggested a large program of air raid shelter construction as a means of galvanizing the population.

He wanted a general alert of the Strategic Air Command and a movement of troops to Europe. If none of this had any impact on the Soviets, he wanted a garrison airlift for Berlin and a continued testing of checkpoints through increased ground traffic to ensure access remained open. That might be followed “by a military movement indicating the eventual use of tactical nuclear weapons and then strategic nuclear weapons.”

Acheson anticipated Allied protests, particularly from the British. “It would be important to bring our allies along,” he said, “but we should be prepared to go without them unless the Germans buckled.” Acheson was convinced his friend Adenauer would support his plan, and that was most crucial, as it would be German troops and interests that would be most at stake. “We should be prepared to go to the bitter end if the Germans go along with us,” he said.

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.