Kennedy: The Classic Biography (107 page)

10
“I didn’t get here by taking that kind of stuff from anybody,” he had warned one former friend who said he would raise new health issues if not given his way on a personal matter.

11
An eloquent quotation from David Lloyd George, on the contribution of small countries, he diplomatically attributed only to “one of the great orators of the English language”; but a reference to the Atlantic as a “bowl of bitter tears” was attributed by name to James Joyce, whose books had once been denounced in Dublin.

CHAPTER XXI
THE BERLIN CRISIS

I
N A 1959 INTERVIEW
Candidate Kennedy predicted that Berlin in time was certain to be a harsh “test of nerve and will.” He could not then have known that his own will and nerve would be so harshly tested so soon in that beleaguered city.

Military and diplomatic agreements near the close of the Second World War left Berlin one hundred miles within the East German territory controlled by Soviet troops, with no specific guarantees of Western access, and with a four-power administration of the city itself. In 1948, a series of Soviet actions had split the city into Soviet-occupied East Berlin and Western-occupied West Berlin. For ten years East Berlin and East Germany were increasingly cut off from their Western counterparts. Then, in 1958, Khrushchev demanded a German peace treaty, permanently legitimatizing the division and ending all Allied occupation rights inside East German territory. That demand, and the explosion of the Paris Summit Conference of 1960, made it clear that Berlin and Germany would top the Soviet Chairman’s agenda for discussions with Eisenhower’s successor.

Kennedy’s own foreign policy interests in the Senate had concentrated more upon Asia, defense and Eastern Europe. To gain new preparation and perspective, he commissioned early in 1961 a special report on Berlin from former Secretary of State Dean Acheson. In an interim report in April, Acheson warned that a crisis was likely in 1961, that the Allies were divided and the neutrals unhelpful, that the West was unprepared to counter effectively any Soviet interruption of access, and that West Berlin’s importance might require us to use all-out force to maintain the three basic American objectives: (1) the freedom of the people of West Berlin to choose their own system; (2) the presence of Western troops so long as the people required and desired them; and (3) unimpeded access from the West to the city across the East German
Autobahn
, air lanes and canals.

Khrushchev had once talked of April, 1961, as his latest deadline on Berlin, and he vowed on January 6 to “eradicate this splinter from the heart of Europe.” But the decision to meet with Kennedy at Vienna in June deferred all action until that time. The President, in his pre-Vienna studies and in his talks with Adenauer in Washington and De Gaulle in Paris, recognized more clearly than ever that West Berlin was the touchstone of American honor and resolve, and that Khrushchev was certain to use it to test Allied unity and resistance.

Inasmuch as all three of the basic American objectives stated by Acheson were peacefully if uncomfortably part of the status quo, and the Vienna meeting was not a negotiating session, Kennedy intended no new Berlin proposals at Vienna. But he was not surprised when, at the close of their first day’s talks, Khrushchev mentioned almost casually the need to discuss Berlin on the second: The main problem is a peace treaty, he said. If the United States refuses to sign it, the Soviet Union will do so and nothing will stop it. On that harsh note they went to dinner, and on that harsh note Khrushchev introduced the subject the following day. A formal ending to the Second World War was already overdue, he said. Only a treaty or separate treaties recognizing the permanent existence of two Germanys could be signed. Aware that neither the West Germans nor any Western Ally could sign such a treaty, he said the Soviets would sign one with East Germany alone if, along with the aggressive, revenge-seeking West Germans, the Americans stood aloof. Then the state of war would cease and all commitments stemming from Germany’s surrender would become invalid, including occupation rights and access to Berlin and the corridors. West Berlin would be preserved as what he called a “free city,” but its links to the outside world would be turned over to the “sovereign” East Germans.

Such frankness was appreciated, replied Kennedy. Berlin was no Laos. It was a matter of the highest concern to the United States. Our national security was involved. If we accepted the loss of our rights in Berlin, no one would have any confidence in our commitments or pledges. Our leaving West Berlin would result in the United States becoming isolated. It would mean abandonment of the West Berliners and all hope for German reunification, abandonment of America’s obligations and America’s allies. Our commitments would be regarded as mere scraps of paper.

This was a significant answer, for it indicated Kennedy’s determination to make this not only a question of West Berlin’s rights—on which U.S., British, French and West German policies were not always in accord—but a question of direct Soviet-American confrontation over a shift in the balance of power. Khrushchev, however, was equally tough. He was very sorry, he said, but he had to assure Kennedy that no force in the world could prevent the U.S.S.R. from signing a peace treaty by the end of the year. No further delay was possible or necessary. The sovereignty of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) would have to be observed. Any violation of that sovereignty would be regarded by the U.S.S.R. as an act of open aggression against a peace-loving country with all the consequences ensuing therefrom. If East German borders—land, air or sea borders—were violated, they would be defended. If the United States wanted to start a war over Germany, let it be so; perhaps the U.S.S.R. should sign a peace treaty right away and get it over with. That is what the Pentagon had been wanting. But any madman who wants war, he said, should be put in a strait jacket.

Would such a treaty block access to Berlin? asked the President to make certain. It would. But the United States would not give up its rights, the President stressed again. Mr. K. should consider the responsibilities both of them had.

Why does America want to stay there? asked Khrushchev. President Eisenhower had agreed that the situation in Germany was abnormal, but wanted a delay because American prestige was involved. Now Kennedy wanted to become master to protect his position.

No, said Kennedy, we are not talking about my nation going to Moscow or the Soviet Union coming to New York. We are talking about the United States staying in Berlin, where it has been for fifteen years. He had not, he said firmly, assumed the office of the Presidency to accept arrangements totally inimical to American interests.

In an added private session after lunch, with only the interpreters present and the words of both men sharpening steadily, Khrushchev insisted that he, too, could not shirk his responsibility as prime minister, that the U.S. position was based not on legal rights but on a desire to humiliate the U.S.S.R.—and this he could not accept.

There is a difference, said the President, between the Soviets’ merely signing a treaty and their turning Western rights over to the East Germans to be terminated. Denying the West its contractual rights would be a belligerent act. A face-saving interim agreement might be reached to cover the next six months, answered Khrushchev, but the U.S.S.R. could no longer delay. Any continued Western presence inside East Germany after a treaty had ended the war would be illegal, humiliating and a violation of East Germany’s borders—and those borders would be defended. Force would be met by force. The U.S. should prepare itself for that and the Soviet Union would do the same. If the United States wanted war, that was its problem. The U.S.S.R. would have no choice other than to accept the challenge. The calamities of a war would be shared equally. The decision to sign a peace treaty in December (unless there was an interim six months’ agreement) was firm and irrevocable.

“If that is true,” observed the President, “it will be a cold winter.” But it was an even hotter summer. The official Soviet
aide-mémoire
handed him at the close of the talks, which restated the same arguments and proposals in more formal and less belligerent language, confused the question of deadlines. It referred only to a six months’ period in which the two German sides could discuss differences, and otherwise omitted the “end of the year” references used by Khrushchev. But the Soviet Chairman, in his first speech on Vienna, again stressed his intention of “freeing” West Berlin from its “occupation regime…this year.” East German boss Ulbricht announced that the treaty would soon enable him to close West Berlin’s refugee centers, radio station and Tempelhof Airport. It was widely predicted on both sides of the Iron Curtain that Khrushchev would call a German peace conference following the Communist Party Congress in October. That left Kennedy and the West with very little time.

The President’s first and most basic decision was that the preservation of Western rights in West Berlin was an objective for which the United States was required to incur any cost, including the risk of nuclear war. It was reported by some that he was obsessed by the fear that he might be ordering his country’s semiextinction. He was, in fact, calmly convinced that an unflinching stand for West Berlin’s freedom would, in the long run, lessen the prospects for a nuclear war, while yielding on West Berlin would only weaken the future credibility of our defenses. Asked at a July news conference about a report that the Soviet Ambassador, departing Washington for a new post, had sneered that “when the chips are down, the United States won’t fight for Berlin,” Kennedy replied matter-of-factly: “We intend to honor our commitments.”

His second basic decision was to take complete charge of the operation. For months he saturated himself in the problem. He reviewed and revised the military contingency plans, the conventional force build-up, the diplomatic and propaganda initiatives, the Budget changes and the plans for economic warfare. He considered the effect each move would have on Berlin morale, Allied unity, Soviet intransigence and his own legislative and foreign aid program. He talked to Allied leaders, to Gromyko and to the Germans; he kept track of all the cables; he read transcripts of all the conferences; and he complained (with limited success) about the pace at the Department of State, about leaks from Allied clearances and about the lack of new diplomatic suggestions.

His most frustrating experience—and one which to him demonstrated the need for more expeditious management within the Department of State as well as the difficulties and delays of seeking agreed Allied positions—arose from his desire to send a prompt and freshly worded reply to the Soviet
aide-mémoire.
That reply was to be the first full official statement of the Western position on West Berlin since his assumption of office. He awaited the State Department’s draft. Weeks went by. The simultaneous Soviet
aide-mémoire
on nuclear testing was answered, but this country remained officially silent on West Berlin. Finally, a month having lapsed, the President asked for the latest proposed draft of the reply to review at Hyannis Port over the Fourth of July weekend. He found, to his dismay, not a clear, concise response which all Americans, Germans and Russians could understand, but a compilation of stale, tedious and negative phrases, none of them new. The whole document could have been drafted in one-quarter as much time and with one-tenth as many words. He asked me to produce that afternoon a shorter, simpler version. Then he learned that the latter could not be substituted for the formal note without starting all over again with inter-Allied and interdepartmental clearances. But he used it anyway as a Presidential statement in “explanation” of the official text. Even then, two more weeks elapsed before that official note was ready on July 18.

By July 18 he was ready with his more detailed decisions on this nation’s over-all response. Khrushchev had repeatedly emphasized at Vienna that, if there were military action over Berlin, it would have to be initiated by the United States. Obviously he did not believe that Kennedy would start a nuclear war over traffic controls on the
Autobahn.
For West Berlin, entirely surrounded by East German territory, was peculiarly vulnerable to seizure or strangulation by Communist troops. If Western access routes were to be blocked upon the signing of a treaty—by an East German sentry, a squadron, a battalion or more—years of over-reliance on massive nuclear retaliation had left the West unable to counter the Communist forces with its own nonnuclear power. That left few alternatives other than nuclear war or practically nothing—or, as the President put it, “holocaust or humiliation.”

Upon Kennedy’s return from Vienna, he had intensively reviewed the Berlin military contingency plans prepared by NATO and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the event of blocked access, under these plans, a series of military “probes” down the
Autobahn
would be attempted. But with the West lacking both the intention and the capacity to wage a conventional war on the ground, these probes were too small to indicate a serious intent and would surely be quickly contained by the Soviets or even by the East Germans alone. Then the plans called for nuclear weapons. In short, said the President, “We go immediately from a rather small military action to one where nuclear weapons are exchanged, which of course means…we are also destroying this country.” Little time or opportunity would be allowed for either side to pause, talk, reconsider or judge the other’s intentions. If we can’t remove the fuse from the bomb of global catastrophe, said one Berlin planning paper, at least we can lengthen it.

Kennedy regarded the existing strategy as a weak and dangerous position. The imbalance of ground forces which the two sides could readily deploy in the area was an excessive temptation to Khrushchev to cut off access to West Berlin so gradually that we would never respond with a nuclear attack. “If Mr. Khrushchev believes that all we have is the atomic bomb,” he said, “he is going to feel that we are…somewhat unlikely to use it.”