Berlin 1961 Part 24

During a break in the ongoing Moscow Party Congress, General Konev presented Khrushchev with evidence that the Americans were preparing for war. Though Konev remained by t.i.tle the Soviet commander in Germany, Khrushchev considered much of his job to be as liaison, and the general was in Moscow as a party delegate.

Khrushchev would later recall that Konev brought him intelligence on exactly what day and hour the West would begin hostilities in Berlin. aThey were preparing bulldozers to break down our border installations. The bulldozers would be followed by tanks and wave after wave of jeeps with infantry men.a Khrushchev believed that the action had been timed to coincide with the first days of his Party Congress.

Though there is no reason to doubt that Khrushchev got word of Clayas unauthorized tank maneuvers, he could blame the timing of what followed more on his bothersome ally, Walter Ulbricht. Upset by Khrushchevas decision in Moscow to abandon the East German peace treaty, Ulbricht decided again to take matters into his own hands in East Berlin. This time, however, he would face an America willing to push back.

The stage was set for the first and last direct U.S.a"Soviet military confrontation.

18.

SHOWDOWN AT CHECKPOINT CHARLIE.

I do not believe that you sent me here to live in a vacuum and I know that I can be of no real service if it is deemed wise to be extremely cautious in Berlin. I may add, too, that I did not come here to add to your problems and that I am gladly expendable.

General Lucius Clay to President Kennedy, October 18, 1961 In the nature of things, we had long since decided that entry into Berlin is not a vital interest which would warrant determined recourse to force to protect and sustain. Having for this reason acquiesced in the building of the wall we must recognize frankly among ourselves that we thus went a long way in accepting the fact that the Soviets could, in the case of East Berlin, as they have done previously in other areas under their effective physical control, isolate their unwilling subjects.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk to General Clay, October 26, 1961 DAHLEM DISTRICT, WEST BERLIN.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1961.

The evening that would trigger the yearas decisive crisis began innocently.

E. Allan Lightner Jr., Americaas top diplomat in West Berlin, hurried his wife, Dorothy, so that they would not be late for a performance of an experimental Czech theater company across town in East Berlin. She had read about the show in a local paper, and it seemed an inviting diversion after two months and nine days of unrelenting pressure after the Berlin border closure.

It was crisp autumn weather in West Berlinas smart Dahlem district, where the Lightners lived in a s.p.a.cious villa that had been confiscated from a ranking n.a.z.i after the war. Their neighbors were preparing for winter. Some had used the day to rake their lawns clean of brown and yellow leaves shed from beech and oak trees. Others were removing their heavy down comforters from storage to air them out across clotheslines and on balconies.

Though Lightner had failed to antic.i.p.ate the Wall, it had done his career no harm. No posting had a higher profile than one on the Cold Waras fault line. Like many State Department wives of the time, Dorothy embraced her husbandas career and its privileges; staff considered her pushy and overly demanding of their services. The Lightners had always savored their outings in the Soviet zone, where the socialist worldas top artists performed. However, since August 13, their visits had taken on greater symbolic value. East Berliners who recognized Lightner would often thank him just for showing up.

Lightner knew there was a slim chance their journey across town would be more eventful than usual. That week, the so-called East German Peopleas Police, the Volkspolizei, or Vopos for short, had begun spot checking doc.u.ments of Allied civilians. The move was not only in violation of the four-power procedures but it also contradicted Soviet instructions, most recently from Soviet Defense Minister Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, that the East Germans should change nothing at the border without Soviet sanction.

Ulbricht had apparently approved the move from his position in Moscow, where he was fuming over the content of Khrushchevas speech to the Party Congress. Though Kennedy had considered the Soviet leaderas address to be belligerent, Ulbricht had focused instead on Khrushchevas decision to extend his year-end deadline for a war-ending peace treaty. In Ulbrichtas view, Khrushchev was back to his old habit of dithering over Berlin at East German expense. Ulbrichtas own speech three days later had called the treaty a atask of the utmost urgency.a Ulbricht needed the treaty to consolidate his August triumph by further expanding his control of East Berlin while isolating and demoralizing West Berlin.

Yet words had never been enough with Khrushchev, so Ulbricht would unilaterally expand border inspections, figuring the West would complain but not resist after having accepted the far greater indignity of the border closure. In doing so, however, the East German leader was underestimating the determination of the newest U.S. factor on the ground: General Lucius Clay.

Together, Ulbricht and Clay would initiate a superpower confrontation that their masters in Moscow and Was.h.i.+ngton had neither wanted nor antic.i.p.ateda"though both adversaries would suspect the showdown was by the other sideas design.

Encouraged by Clay, that week Lightner had instructed his U.S. Mission to resist the new East German procedures. He had prohibited his staff from submitting to the checks, and his own secretary had turned back her car just a day earlier rather than show her papers. Lightner and Clay were livid that British Prime Minister Macmillan had accepted the new controls without a peep of protest, which they considered another dose of British appeas.e.m.e.nt. Londonas orders to local commanders were clear: after ceding the wall, this wasnat a battle worth fighting.

Clay disagreed. If Was.h.i.+ngton permitted the East Germans to interfere further with what had been Allied rights since 1945, Clay was convinced the U.S. would undermine already fragile West Berlin morale and erode what remained of Allied legal standing. Given his preparatory conversations in Was.h.i.+ngton, he also remained confident that Kennedy was more determined than his advisers to hold the line in Berlin. For the moment, however, his enemies had been pus.h.i.+ng back because they sensed Clay lacked the influence with Kennedy that he had won with Truman.

So for Clay, the situation presented a triple opportunity. First, he could demonstrate renewed U.S. resolve in Berlin. Second, he could restore the self-confidence of both U.S. troops and West Berliners. Finally, he could demonstrate to his opponents in Moscow and Was.h.i.+ngton that he had President Kennedyas backing.

There was only one problem: Clay himself was uncertain where his wavering president stood.

Unlike Clay, Lightner did not consider himself a Cold Warrior, but thatas what he was. The fifty-three-year-old Princetonian derided as aparlor pinksa his fellow Ivy League intellectuals who wrote and spoke naively about athe great Russian experimenta of communism. He grumbled to Dorothy that a couple of months in the Soviet Union would change their tune fast enough. Experience had shaped those views. Lightner had been posted as a young man to Stalinas Russia, until 1941, when head evacuated wartime Moscow with the emba.s.syas doc.u.ments. After that, he had worked with anticommunist exiles in Scandinavia, shared bomb shelters in London with intrepid Brits, and had a hand in sculpting the postwar agreements that he was sorry had ceded so much of Europe to Soviet control.

Lightner told friends that if Clay had been present on August 13, the U.S. military would have broken through the earlier barriers, and the East Germans would not have risked war to replace them. He bought into Clayas argument that the U.S could not afford to retreat further, but he worried that Clay would not be able to overcome a far more bureaucratic U.S. structure in Berlin than the one he had faced in 1948. Lightner bridled at his own confusing, double reporting linea"as the number two to both General Watson in Berlin and Amba.s.sador Dowling in Bonn.

As that nightas script would have it, East German police stopped Lightneras Volkswagen sedan as it snaked through the first of the checkpointas three low red-and-white zigzag concrete barriersa"two jutting out from the curbside to the left and another reaching in from the right. Following procedure, Lightner refused to show his papers to the East Germans and insisted on seeing a Soviet representative. Most often, the East German police would then wave American diplomats through. Under the new orders, however, the East German officer refused to let Lightner pa.s.s. Given it was Sunday, he said he could not reach a Soviet representative and then repeated his demand that Lightner show his papers or turn back.

Again Lightner refused, and was now egged on by Dorothy, who lectured the East German on four-power rights from the pa.s.senger side of their car. For the next forty-five minutes, tempers flared, voices rose, and arguments raged, but still no Soviet official appeared. So Lightner concluded it was time to escalate. After sending an alert through to Clay from his special car phone, Lightner prepared to muscle through. Though he knew the Vopos had shoot-to-kill orders for countrymen trying to escape, he thought it was a safe risk that they would not shoot an American diplomat trying to enter. That would be an act of war.

aLook,a Lightner said to the policeman by his window, aIam sorry, but Iam going to a.s.sert my Allied right for us to enter any sector of Berlin.a He gunned his engine.

aGet out of the way! Weare coming through!a Lightner jerked his car forward, forcing a couple of Vopos to leap aside. However, the vehicle could negotiate the tight, concrete maze only in slow motion. So an expanded group of Vopos on foot caught up to the car and stopped him again. This time they surrounded his vehicle.

One shouted angrily: aYou can wait here until morning for a Russian to show up! If he shows up even then!a In the background, Clay had begun moving the military pieces. He had ordered forward a platoon from the 2nd Battle Group to make its way the ten miles to Checkpoint Charlie from McNair Barracks in Lichterfelde with two armored personnel carriers, closely trailed by four M48 tanks mounted with bulldozers. To direct the operation, Clay and the Berlin military commander, General Watson, had retreated to the emergency operations center, known as athe bunker,a established for just such an event in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the U.S. consulate on the Clayallee. Though built initially in 1936 as a subheadquarters for the Third Reichas Luftwaffe, the building had served as Clayas nerve center during the Berlin Airlift and it would do so again now.

As the drama unfolded, U.S. provost marshal Lieutenant Colonel Robert Sabolyk monitored the scene at Checkpoint Charlie through binoculars from his white wooden military police shack a hundred yards away from the confrontation. With orders to keep matters under control until reinforcements arrived, the former collegiate boxer jumped into his staff car and sped forward around the first barrier, then steered wide around the second, screeching to a halt directly in front of Lightneras Volkswagen. He nearly amputated the black-booted legs of several Vopos, who jumped back and screamed in protest.

About then, four American tanks rumbled up to the thick white-painted borderline that designated the West Berlin limits. Another MP ran from the command shack to Dorothy Lightneras door and politely suggested she leave the immobilized VW. She refused to budge from her husbandas side.

So the MP retreated to the shack, only to return several minutes later. aIam sorry, but General Clay orders Mrs. Lightner to get out,a he said.

He added in a whisper to her husband, so as not to be overheard by the Vopos: aWe have a project in which we donat want Mrs. Lightner to be involved.a Once the MP had cleared her from the scene, two infantry squads of four men each unsheathed the bayonets of their M14 rifles and took up positions on either side of Friedrichstra.s.se. With the gun barrels of four U.S. tanks pointing directly at them, the Vopos pulled back. Lightner s.h.i.+fted into first gear and drove his VW slowly forward, flanked by the two U.S. Army squads. Having pa.s.sed the last barrier and thus successfully penetrated communist territory, the platoon leader asked Lightner whether they should stop there.

aNo,a the diplomat said.

It was the first time in postwar Berlin that a fully armed infantry unit from U.S. occupying forces had marched into the Soviet sector. To further establish the continued right of Allied free pa.s.sage, Lightner drove two blocks into East Berlin to the next intersection, then turned the car around and started backa"all the time escorted by his armed guard. With U.S. cannons trained on them, East German police held their positions.

Safely back on American ground, Lightner prepared to drive through a second time to make his point. By this time, word of the confrontation had spread across Berlin. Reporters and photographers had gathered to track each move. With his heart beating through his chest, Albert Hemsing jumped into Lightneras pa.s.senger seat. The German-born forty-year-old public information officer had worked for the Marshall Planas film unit in Paris after the war, making movies to support the European reconstruction effort. But head never been in this sort of action adventure. Vopos would later insist his breath smelled of alcohol.

When East German police blocked Lightneras path again, he waved out his window for the armed units to rejoin him. They escorted him through once more, and the East Germans again stood aside. In the meantime, the U.S. Missionas political adviser, Howard Trivers, had telephoned Soviet headquarters to request that a Russian officer come to Checkpoint Charlie and set matters straight.

By the time Lightneras VW returned from its second round-trip, a Soviet representative had arrived. Following talks with the Vopos and the Americans, the Soviet apologized that the East Germans had failed to recognize Lightneras seniority. So Lightner drove through a third time, on this occasion trailed by a second civilian car. The Vopos stood aside again, and it seemed that the U.S. victory was complete.

The two U.S. vehicles then engaged in something of a victory lap, driving up Friedrichstra.s.se to Unter den Linden, East Berlinas broad central boulevard, then turning left at the Brandenburg Gate, and then turning left again back to Friedrichstra.s.se. At about 10:00 p.m., a more senior Soviet official arrived, the deputy political adviser Colonel Lazarev. He apologized for the East German behavior, blaming it on the lack of facsimiles of Allied license plates from which they could judge which vehicles were to be checked. However, at the same time he angrily protested the U.S. aarmed incursiona into the Soviet zone.

Lightner and his wife had missed their theater date, but Clay congratulated them on their performance. The next morning Clay crowed to the press that the afiction is now destroyeda that it was the East Germans who were responsible for preventing Allied access to East Berlin.

His victory, however, would be a brief one. The same morning, the East German government published an official decree that it would henceforth require all foreignersa"except Allied military men in uniforma"to show ID before entering ademocratica Berlin. The East German news agency ADN condemned the Sunday-evening incident as a aborder provocationa prompted, it said, by an unknown civilian (Lightner) with an unknown woman (Dorothy), later to be joined by a drunk (Hemsing).

Once East German radio had the names of the Americans involved, it beamed a broadcast in English aimed at U.S. soldiers: aIt will be a long time before Minister Lightner takes his girlfriend out and tries to shack up with her in East Berlin over the weekend.a Back in Was.h.i.+ngton, Kennedy was annoyed. The president was trying to launch negotiations with the Soviets, not provoke a new confrontation. aWe didnat send [Lightner] there to go to the opera in East Berlin,a he said, getting the event wrong and overlooking the fact that Lightner had acted according to the guidelines of his own personal representative.

At the same time, Kennedy was dealing with another problem. Just four days earlier Clay had tabled an offer to resign if he wasnat allowed to be more effective. The president could prevent a political earthquake only by providing Clay more freedom to maneuver.

U.S. MILITARY HEADQUARTERS, WEST BERLIN.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1961.

Mounting frustration had prompted General Clay to include an offer to resign in the first personal letter he had written to President Kennedy since his return to Berlin.

National Security Advisor Bundy had warned Kennedy when he chose Clay that he was risking aanother MacArthura"Truman affair,a recalling the politically damaging decision by President Truman to fire General MacArthur after the general had publicly disagreed with the presidentas Korean War policy. MacArthur had wanted to bomb China at the time, and Bundy reckoned there was every chance Clay would want to be more aggressive in Berlin than Kennedy, at a time when his administration was considering making major Berlin concessions to Khrushchev.

Though in his letter Clay offered to step down more quietly than MacArthur had done, he must have known that the reasons for his departure from Berlin would almost certainly leak and then only further inflame Kennedyas critics and more deeply dishearten Berliners.

Clay began by apologizing to the president for his letteras length, 1,791 words, and for the fact that he hadnat written earlier. He explained to Kennedy that he considered the many other incidents he had confronted since his arrival in Berlin not to have been worthy of presidential attention.

Above all, he wrote the president, awe must retain the confidence of West Berliners. Otherwise, the flight of capital and responsible citizens could destroy our position here, and the indicated loss of confidence in us would spread throughout the world.a While the Berliner cared little about French or British behavior, Clay argued, aif we fail, he is dismayed.a Clay held no punches. He indirectly criticized the presidentas handling of the August 13 border closure, which he believed could have been contested with little risk. aI do not believe we should have gone to war to stop the creation of the Wall,a he said, but he added, aAt a minimum, we could have moved back and forth across selected places on the border with unarmed military trucks and this limited action might well have prevented the Wall.a However, Clay was quick to blame not Kennedy but rather his Berlin underlings. aI was amazed to find that no specific action to this end was recommended here,a he said. He criticized what he considered a risk-averse culture that had evolved among his Berlin ranks. aIt takes only a few disapprovals to discourage independent thinking and positive recommendations,a he said. He worried that Kennedy lacked access to more independent viewpoints like his own because even aas able a Commander as [NATO Supreme Commander Lauris] Norstada was influenced by Allied reluctance.

Clay then came to the point: the aurgent need to stop the trespa.s.sing on our rightsa by East German forces awhile Soviet forces have been far in the background.a He did not like the fact that the European Command was atossing aside lightlya his recommendations that the U.S. must answer minor incidents. He wanted the president to give him more personal authority to address such tests of American will as the East German border checks, because their sum total was more serious than Kennedyas foreign policy advisers realized.

The general wrote with the self-a.s.surance of a man who knew he had shaped history through the same sort of direct communication with a previous president. aIf we are to react properly and promptly,a he said, athe local commander must have the authority in an emergency to act immediately with my advice and consent within the full range of the authority you have delegated to our Military Command in Europe.a Clay wanted the president to free General Watson, the local Berlin commander, of the constraints being placed upon him by General Clarke in Heidelberg and General Norstad in Paris. While he acknowledged that the U.S. could not alter the Berlin situation militarily, he said, aWe can lose Berlin if we are unwilling to take some risk in using forcea. We could easily be backed into war by failing to make it clearly evident on the ground that we have reached the danger point.a Clay defended the actions he had taken thus far, which he knew Kennedyas advisers had opposed, particularly in freeing the Steinstcken refugees and running military patrols on the Autobahn. He insisted, aThese few simple actions on our part have eased tension here and restored confidence in West Berlin.a He told the president it had to be a priority of the U.S. to defend its right of free pa.s.sage across Checkpoint Charlie, not for its own sake but because West Berliners were watching. For that reason, Clay said, he was apus.h.i.+ng as many vehicles as possible through each day.a Though the president had not asked him to do so, Clay then laid out a military contingency plan for Kennedy should the Soviets push back, much as he had done for Truman after the Soviet embargo: aIf we are stopped on the highway [to Berlin], we must probe quickly and, I would think, from Berlin with light military strength to find out the depth of the intent [of the enemy]. If our probe is stopped by superior force and compelled to withdraw, we should resort to an immediate airlift concurrently and publicly apply economic sanction and blockade in an attempt to force Soviet action. If these steps are taken concurrently there will be no panic in West Berlin and we will gain the time for you to make the ultimate decision with calm and objective judgment.a When Clay mentioned athe ultimate decision,a Kennedy would know he was speaking of nuclear conflict. Clay wrote coolly, aIf our probe results in the destruction and capture of the force involved, it is of course evident that the Soviet government wants war.a Clay closed by promising to write shorter correspondence in the future. He wrote of how honored he was to serve as Kennedyas point man in Berlin, but added, aI realize no one knows quite what this means.a He warned Kennedy that aany failure to act positively and determinedly with me here in this capacity will be a.s.sumed to have your direct approvala. I do not believe that you sent me here to live in a vacuum and I know that I can be of no real service if it is deemed wise to be extremely cautious in Berlina (italics added).

What followed was the generalas resignation offer. In his military career, Clay had gained something of a reputation for his occasional threats to step down, and in almost all of those cases it had achieved his purpose. Clay had found that a resignation offer was sometimes the only way to get his superiorsa attention.

Clay weighed each word carefully, expressing the loyalty of a soldier to his commander in chief, but questioning how he could continue to serve effectively under the existing circ.u.mstances. aI may add, too, that I did not come here to add to your problems and that I am gladly expendable. I do want you to know that I would never permit myself to be made into a controversial figure in these critical times and that if you decide, or if I find that I must report to you, that I serve no useful purpose here, I would withdraw only in a manner which would meet with your approval and would not add to the problem here.a With that, he signed off: With high respect, Faithfully yours, Lucius D. Clay, General, Retired, U.S. Army.

PARIS.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1961.

At Kennedyas instruction, the U.S. amba.s.sador to Paris, General James M. Gavin, had arranged a meeting with President Charles de Gaulle to respond to the French leaderas letter that Kennedy had read with considerable irritation just two days earlier.

At a time when Kennedy badly wanted a common Allied front behind his desire to engage Moscow in new Berlin talks, de Gaulle had become his most troublesome ally and was egging on West German Chancellor Adenauer as well. De Gaulle had refused to join even the preliminary discussions among the Americans, British, and West Germans regarding the possibility of new negotiations with the Sovietsa"and no amount of cajoling or wooing seemed to move him.

De Gaulle had disapproved of the Ruska"Gromyko talks that had taken place so soon after the border closure because they gave the impression that the U.S. had accepted Berlinas permanently divided state and was willing to discuss with Moscow a recognition of that status. He worried further that Kennedy was even willing to discuss with the Soviets the future of West Germanyas alliance members.h.i.+p. The French leader saw no circ.u.mstances under which talks with Khrushchev could result in anything but further concessions that would negatively alter the political balance in Europe and acreate a psychological demoralization, difficult to contain, in the countries that belong to our alliance, particularly in Germany, and could encourage the Soviets to undertake a further advance.a In his letter, de Gaulle had discarded all of the fatherly warmth he had shown during Kennedyas Paris visit ahead of Vienna. His language was clear and tough: aI must say, Mr. President, that today more than ever, I believe the policy to be pursued should be as follows: to refuse to consider changing the status quo of Berlin and the present situation in Germany, and consequently [to refuse] to negotiate concerning them, so long as the Soviet Union does not refrain from acting unilaterally and so long as it does not cease to threaten.a As harsh as it was, de Gaulleas letter had merely built upon a confrontational tone he had established with Kennedy immediately following August 13. As early as two weeks after that, Kennedy had asked for de Gaulleas help in influencing Third World opinion against communism. He also had said he wanted French a.s.sistance in his efforts to reach out to Moscow for new negotiations on Berlin.

De Gaulle rejected Kennedyas plea for help in the Third World, arguing that underdeveloped countries lacked the Westas burden of responsibility, and afor the most part have already made up their minds, and you know in what way.a De Gaulle was all the more clear in his opposition to new talks with the Soviets due to athe threats that they are hurling at us and the actual acts that they are committing in violation of agreements.a The French president warned Kennedy that any negotiations so closely following the August border closure would be understood by the Soviets as anotice of our surrendera and thus would be a grave blow to NATO. Khrushchev, he wrote, would only use the talks to apply greater pressures to Berliners.

Despite two months of U.S. diplomatic efforts since then to win over de Gaulle, including Kennedyas personal correspondence, the French leader had only hardened his position. On October 14, Kennedy had informed de Gaulle that he had achieved a abreakthrougha with Moscow in that Khrushchev had agreed to negotiate directly with the Allies over Berlin and not require them to deal with East Germany. Kennedy had said that he hoped to organize a mid-November meeting of Allied foreign ministers to prepare for new Berlin negotiations with Moscow. Kennedy had a.s.sured de Gaulle, aWe have no intention of withdrawing from Berlin nor do we intend to give our rights away in any negotiations.a He argued, however, that the Allies should make every diplomatic effort possible before Berlin moved ato the stage of great and dramatic crisis.a Kennedy said what he wanted was Allied clarity of purpose and military preparation abefore the ultimate confrontation.a De Gaulle scoffed at Kennedyas notion that Khrushchev had made a concession regarding East Germany. He dismissed Kennedyas fear of war, saying Khrushchev adoes not give the impression that the Kremlin is really prepared to hurl the thunderbolt. A wild beast that is going to spring does so without waiting that long.a With that as prelude, Amba.s.sador Gavin knew that he was in for a difficult meeting. Kennedy had chosen Gavin for the Paris job in part because his military record made him one of the few men available whom de Gaulle respected. He had been the youngest major general to command a division in World War II, and his men called him aJumping Jima for his willingness despite his rank to join combat drops with his paratroopers. Nevertheless, de Gaulle spoke to him with characteristic condescension.

De Gaulle told Gavin that although he would do nothing to prevent the U.S. from holding a November meeting of the Allies, Kennedy would have to do so without French partic.i.p.ation.

Gavin asked whether de Gaulle didnat think it would be better to partic.i.p.ate and make clear in a common Allied front aour intent to engage in hostilitiesa if the Soviets pursued their current course.

De Gaulle told Gavin he believed the Soviets had only two options, and neither of them required negotiations. Either the Soviets did not want to wage a general and nuclear war, as de Gaulle believed was the casea"thus there was no hurry to talk to thema"or they did want to go to war, in which circ.u.mstance the Allies should refuse talks because they then awould be negotiating under direct threat.a aOne cannot make working arrangements with people who are threatening them,a de Gaulle told Gavin. Driving home his point, de Gaulle said the Allies could not negotiate with the Soviets awhen they have threatened us with the atomic bomb, built the wall in Berlin, threatened to sign a treaty with East Germany with no promise to guarantee access to Berlin, and indulged in saber-rattling in general.a His recipe: aIf they apply force, we will do the same and see what happens. Any other stand would be very costly for not only Germany but for all alike.a As had been the case with his predecessors in the White House, Kennedy was losing his patience with de Gaulle, who was all too willing to risk American lives over Berlin. Kennedyas frustrations were mounting as he wrestled with the incalculable Soviets, uncooperative allies, and a retired general in Berlin who was playing by his own rules and now even trying to interfere in diplomacy.

U.S. MILITARY HEADQUARTERS, WEST BERLIN.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1961.

Emboldened by the success of his military escorts, Clay decided it was time to provide Was.h.i.+ngton with advice about how it could couple a negotiating initiative with military muscle-flexing. He wrote down his thoughts in a cable to Secretary of State Rusk, one of his key opponents in Was.h.i.+ngton.

Clay said he agreed with Ruskas view that the matter of showing identification papers at East German border points was not by itself a matter of amajor import,a but nevertheless he insisted that the U.S. had to push back. aI do not believe,a he told Rusk, repeating the message he had sent to the president, athat we can afford to have any remaining right taken away from us prior to and without negotiation as we would then enter into negotiations with only those rights left which we are committed to maintain by force if necessary.a Therefore he aurgently recommendeda that Rusk summon the Russian amba.s.sador and advise him that the U.S. rejected the new East German border regime and would refuse to join any talks with the Russians on Berlin until the East Germans reversed their decree. He argued that this would improve the American position in Berlin, test Khrushchevas goodwill for negotiations, and more closely align the U.S. approach on Berlin talks with the harder-line views of the French and the West Germans.

Clay made the case to Rusk that using the border dispute for diplomatic leverage right away was a more promising track than the continuation of his armed escorts, for he realized they would ultimately run up against vast Soviet conventional superiority. Clay thus announced that he would stop his probes at Checkpoint Charlie after only one dayas execution so that Rusk could pursue the diplomatic path that Clay believed he had made possible.

aWe will avoid a test at Friedrichstra.s.se today awaiting your consideration of this recommendation,a he said, then added, aWe must probe not later than tomorrow.a OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1961.

The White House staff considered West German Amba.s.sador Wilhelm Grewe to be the most unpleasant member of the foreign diplomatic corps. Humorless and condescending, Grewe had been so open about his disdain for Kennedyas so-called New Frontiersmen that Adenauer himself had reproached him.

Given Amba.s.sador Gavinas failure to move de Gaulle the day before, Kennedy did not look forward to his morning meeting with Grewe in the Oval Office. He was irritated by increasing leaks to the U.S. and European media about French and German opposition to his desire for a new round of Berlin negotiations, and he wanted them to stop.

Amba.s.sador Grewe dispensed with small talk and spoke of the chancelloras concern about Kennedyas lack of commitment to West Berlin and to German unification more generally. Grewe had the dry, prosecutorial bearing that came with being one of his countryas leading international lawyers. He had negotiated the end of the Allied occupation of West Germany and had been instrumental in creating the so-called Hallstein Doctrine, the tough policy which dictated that West Germany would not establish or maintain diplomatic relations with any country that recognized East Germany.

Grewe said Adenauer was prepared to go to war to defend Berlinas freedom. To prepare for that, he said, the chancellor was increasing his military budget and building up forces even as he built his new coalition government. However, Grewe said that Adenauer worried about Kennedyas plan for a conventional buildup in Europe. He aconsidered that such operations would only be convincing if we were prepared to follow them with a preemptive nuclear strike if that became necessary.a The German fear, Grewe said, was that a greater Allied reliance on conventional forces could create a situation where a lack of clearly defined or believable nuclear deterrent encouraged Soviet forces to across the border and occupy considerable areasa of West Germany, a potential he compared to the Chinese situation in 1947 when communist troops took the mainland. aThe decision to use nuclear weapons,a said Grewe, amust be made clear to the Soviets as well as the fact that the Soviet Union itself would be a target.a Kennedy did not betray his growing impatience with Allied lectures about what sorts of risks he should take with American lives over Berlin. He lied to Grewe that he was eager to meet with Adenauer, a meeting that was planned for mid-November, and that he hoped they could get on the same page regarding policy toward the Soviets. The president said he adeploreda press reports suggesting the two sides were at odds over opening talks with Moscow. He wanted to probe Khrushchevas more flexible ideas about what might const.i.tute a free West Berlin. aI personally would feel much better if we did this before we got to the nuclear stage,a he told Grewe.

Kennedy complained to Grewe that de Gaulle aapparently felt that every move toward the Soviets was a manifestation of weakness.a Grewe knew Adenauer had the same concerns. Like de Gaulle, Adenauer was deeply displeased by the Ruska"Gromyko talks. Beyond that, Grewe said Adenauer worried that the U.S. was abandoning its traditional support of German unification through its de facto recognition of East Germany, by encouraging closer contacts between the two Germanys, and by abandoning its support for the ultimate goal of German unity through free elections.

Impatient with the same old complaints, Kennedy responded that the U.S. and West Germany ashould be looking for new approachesa to the Soviets. Kennedy told Grewe that he saw no prospect of unification in the foreseeable future and did not believe the Allies should stand pat on the West Berlin situation. He was looking for ways to improve the cityas current status, and for that he wanted Adenaueras help.

Reflecting Adenaueras own contempt for Kennedyas belief in anew approaches,a Grewe echoed de Gaulleas view that there was no practical possibility of achieving any improvement with the Soviets, as Moscowas approach for the moment was to seek further concessions that the West must resist. He detailed for Kennedy the cost thus far to Germans and Adenauer of the presidentas acquiescence to the border closure.

Before August 13, Grewe said, Berlin had enjoyed a daily average of 500,000 border crossings of families, friends, and workers, which closely linked the two cities and their peoples. These had been reduced to about 500, he said. Because of Adenaueras areserved and moderatea response to the Berlin Wallas construction, Grewe told Kennedy that the chancellor had lost his majority and had nearly lost the elections a little more than a month earlier.

Kennedy reminded Grewe that the alternative to talks with the Soviets on Berlin was athe real prospect of a military engagement.a The U.S. would not give Berlin away, he said, but on the other hand he wanted to be sure awhen we come to the end of the roada that no one wondered whether force might have been avoided through more effort at talks. Kennedy impatiently told Grewe that instead of just shooting down U.S. ideas, Germany should provide aproposals of its own which it would regard as acceptable.a Stung, Grewe said that the West Germans were also looking for ways to change the Berlin situation for the better but did not believe for the moment that such an outcome could be achieved. He dismissed as unattainable the notion he had heard from some Kennedy administration sources of Berlin hosting the UN headquarters. At best, he said, such a far-fetched idea could be an opening gambit in negotiations.

After a perfunctory handshake, Grewe returned to the emba.s.sy to send home another grim cable to Adenauer.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.