Part 6 (1/2)

It was only the inescapable flight route through Moscow that alerted the Soviet leaders.h.i.+p to the mission. Yuri Andropov, then the Politburo member responsible for Socialist Party relations, asked to be briefed on the trip during the delegationas airport layover. Matern insisted the missionas purpose was purely economic, and Ulbricht knew Khrushchev could not object at a time when East Germanyas needs were growing and the Kremlin was complaining about the cost of satisfying them.

But everything about the tripas timing and ch.o.r.eography was political. In China, the group was received by Vice Premier Chen Yi, Maoas confidant and a legendary communist commander during the Sino-j.a.panese War and marshal of the Peopleas Liberation Army. He told Matern that China regarded its Taiwan problem and Ulbrichtas East German problem as having avery much in common.a They both involved areas of aimperialist occupationa of integral pieces of communist countries.

In a direct challenge to Khrushchev, the East Germans and the Chinese agreed to a.s.sist each other in their efforts to recover these territories. The Chinese view was that Taiwan was the eastern front and Berlin the western front of a global ideological strugglea”and Khrushchev was faltering in both places as world communist leader. Beyond that, Chen promised that China would help get the Americans out of Berlin because the situation there affected all other fronts in the global communist struggle.

Chen reminded the East Germans that communist China had sh.e.l.led the Taiwanese islands of Quemoy and Matsu in 1955, causing a crisis during which Eisenhoweras Joint Chiefs had considered a nuclear response. This happened, he said, not because China had wanted to increase international tensions, but rather because Beijing had needed ato show the USA and the whole world that we have not come to terms with the current [Taiwan] status. We as well had to remove the impression that the USA is so powerful that no one dares to do something and one must come to terms with all of its humiliations.a His suggestion was that the same determination was now necessary regarding Berlin.

The warmth of the East Germana”Chinese exchange was in sharp contrast to the Sinoa”Soviet chill that had set in. Ulbricht knew from his November meeting with Khrushchev in Moscow how compet.i.tive the Soviet leader felt toward Mao, and he had already played that card to successfully increase Moscowas economic support. Khrushchev had declared at the time that he would provide East Germany with the sort of economic a.s.sistance Mao could not, creating joint enterprises with the East Germans on Soviet territorya”something the Soviets had done with no other ally. aWe arenat China,a he declared to Ulbricht. aWe are not afraid of giving the Germans a boosta. The needs of the GDR are our needs.a Three months later, the Chinese were becoming an ever greater problem for Khrushchev, despite the apparent truce he had negotiated with them at the November gathering of Communist Parties in Moscow. While the East Germans were in Beijing seeking economic a.s.sistance, China was in Tirana encouraging xenophobic Albanian leader Enver Hoxha to break with the Soviet Union. During the Fourth Congress of the Albanian Communist Party, from February 13 to 21, Albanian communists had torn down public portraits of Khrushchev and replaced them with those of Mao, Stalin, and Hoxha. Never had a Soviet leader suffered such humiliation in his own realm.

Ulbrichtas course of greater diplomatic pressures on Khrushchev had its risks.

The far more powerful Khrushchev might have decided it was finally time to replace Ulbricht with a more submissive and obedient East German leader. He might have decided the China mission had crossed some impermissible line. However, Ulbricht had gambled correctly that Khrushchev had no good alternatives.

THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW.

MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 1961.

Khrushchevas response landed on Ulbrichtas desk twelve days after the East German leader had written to him and, by coincidence, on the day of John F. Kennedyas State of the Union speech. Given the impertinence of Ulbrichtas demands, Khrushchevas letter was surprisingly submissive.

The Soviet leader reported to Ulbricht that the Central Committee ahas discussed your letter carefullya and that Moscowas leaders agreed with much of it. The fact that Khrushchev had shared it with party bosses showed that he recognized the gravity of Ulbrichtas criticisms and the urgency of his requests. That said, Khrushchev again asked Ulbricht to contain his mounting impatience.

aCurrently, we are beginning to initiate a detailed discussion of these questions with Kennedy,a he wrote. aThe probe which we carried out shows that we need a little time until Kennedy stakes out his position on the German question more clearly and until it is clear whether the USA government wants to achieve a mutually acceptable resolution.a The Soviet leader conceded that the extreme measures Ulbricht had suggested in his letter aunder the circ.u.mstancesa would prove necessary. aIf we do not succeed in coming to an understanding with Kennedy, we will, as agreed, choose together with you the time for their implementation.a Ulbricht had achieved less than he had sought, but more than he might have considered probable. Khrushchev again would ratchet up economic a.s.sistance. The Soviet leader would also convene a Warsaw Pact meeting on Berlin. Of all Ulbrichtas demands, Khrushchev refused to agree only to the East Germana”Soviet summit.

Khrushchev had accepted Ulbrichtas diagnosis of the problem, and he had not rejected the steps Ulbricht had suggested toward a cure. Ulbricht could be satisfied that he had penetrated and influenced Soviet Communist Party thinking on Berlin at the highest levels.

Khrushchev was still buying time to work the new American president. However, Ulbricht had put all the pieces in place to move forward decisively at the moment Khrushchevas efforts to negotiate a Berlin deal with Kennedy failed. And the East German leader was certain they would.

In the meantime, Ulbricht would put his team to work on contingencies.

THE WHITE HOUSE, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1961.

The clouds were already gathering around the U.S.a”West German relations.h.i.+p when Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo walked into the Oval Office with his satchel full of Adenaueras concerns.

For several years, Americans had been warming to the West Germans, impressed by their embrace of U.S.-style freedoms. Now, however, public opinion was turning more negative again, fed by media reports about the impending trial in Israel of n.a.z.i war criminal Adolf Eichmann, and publicity around William L. s.h.i.+reras best-selling book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, with all its sordid new details about the not-so-distant German past.

The West German foreign office had warned Adenauer at the beginning of the year: aThere are still some resentments and suspicions which lie dormant under the surface, but which are ready to break out under certain stimuli.a In exasperation at the s.h.i.+fting mood, West German amba.s.sador Wilhelm Grewe told a group of U.S. journalists at a conference of the Atlantik-Brcke, an inst.i.tution created to bring the two countries closer, that they had ato choose whether they consider us as allies or a hopeless nation of troublemakers.a Kennedyas briefing papers for the Brentano meeting warned the president that his visitor was coming to express Adenaueras concern that his administration might sell out West German interests in Berlin in exchange for a deal with the Soviets. aThe Germans are acutely aware that vital aspects of their destiny are in hands other than their own,a said the position paper, signed by Secretary of State Dean Rusk. It advised Kennedy to both rea.s.sure Brentano of continued U.S. commitment to West Berlinas defense and share with him as much of the presidentas thinking as possible about the possibility of Berlin negotiations with Moscow.

Given past experience, however, U.S. officials distrusted their West German partnersa ability to keep a secret. American intelligence services a.s.sumed that their West German counterparts were infiltrated and thus unreliable. aWhile frankness is desirable particularly in view of the chronic German sense of insecurity,a the Rusk memo said, athe German government does not have a good record for retaining confidences.a Detractors said that Brentanoa”a fifty-seven-year-old bachelor whose life was his job and its trappingsa”was little more than the genteel, cultured instrument of the strong-willed Adenauer, and the foreign minister did little to alter this impression. Adenauer was determined to run his own foreign policy, and no independent actor could remain long in Brentanoas job. Where Brentano and Adenauer did differ was their att.i.tude regarding Germanyas European calling. While Brentano was of a younger generation that considered Europe as Germanyas natural destiny, Adenauer regarded European integration more as a means of suppressing German nationalism.

Kennedy opened what would be a stiff meeting with Brentano by speaking from a script about athe appreciation of the U.S. government for the cooperation and friends.h.i.+p of the German government during the past years.a He very much wanted to arrange a meeting soon with Adenauer, he said, and hoped athat all mutual problems would be worked out satisfactorily.a Adenaueras political opponent w.i.l.l.y Brandt had already manipulated matters so that he would arrive in Was.h.i.+ngton ahead of Adenauer in March for a personal meeting with Kennedy, a breach of the usual protocol that put the head of an Allied government before any city mayor. Rusk had supported the Brandt visit to keep afreshly before the world our determination to support West Berlin at all costs.a He wanted the Adenauer meeting to follow as closely thereafter as possible to avoid giving the impression that Kennedy favored Brandt in upcoming German elections, which of course he did.

Kennedy rea.s.sured Brentano that his failure to mention Berlin by name in the inaugural address or in his State of the Union, a matter that had become such an issue in the German press, adid not by any means signify a lessening of United States interest in the Berlin question.a He said he had merely wanted to avoid provoking the Soviets at a time of relative calm in the city. Kennedy told the foreign minister that he expected Moscow to renew pressure on Berlin in the coming months, and he wanted Brentanoas suggestions about how one could best counter athe subtle pressuresa Moscow was likely to exert.

Brentano said Berlinas absence from Kennedyas speeches was of such little concern that it had not even been in talking points Adenauer had given him. He agreed there was no reason yet to raise the Berlin question, but added, aWe would have to deal with it sooner or later.a Brentano frowned, declaring, aThe leaders of the Soviet Zone cannot tolerate the symbol of a free Berlin in the midst of their Red Zone.a He told Kennedy that East German leaders awill do all in their power to stimulate the Soviet Union to action with regard to Berlin.a On the positive side, Brentano estimated that 90 percent of the East Berlin population opposed the East German regime, which he called the regionas second-harshest communist system after that of Czechoslovakia. His message was that the people in both Germanys heavily favored its Western version and therefore would over time support unification.

Kennedy probed deeper. He worried the Soviets would unilaterally sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and then cut short West Berlinas freedom, maintaining the status quo for only a brief period in order to mollify the West.

Brentano agreed such a course was probable, so Kennedy asked what the NATO allies should do about it.

Brentano described to Kennedy his chancelloras apolicy of strengtha approach, and said the Soviets would ahesitate to take drastic steps with regard to Berlin as long as they know that the Western Allies will not tolerate any such steps.a As long as Kennedy remained firm, he said, the Soviets amay continue to threaten but will not take any actual steps for some time to come.a However, Brentano agreed that recent U.S. setbacks in the Congo, Laos, and Latin America all increased the chance that the Soviets would test Kennedy over Berlin.

As if to prove Brentanoas point, Khrushchev simultaneously escalated pressures on Adenauer in Bonn.

FEDERAL CHANCELLERY, BONN.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1961.

Amba.s.sador Andrei Smirnovas urgent requests for meetings with Adenauer were seldom good news.

It was invariably Smirnov, Khrushchevas envoy in Bonn, who was the vehicle for the Soviet leaderas bullying. So the West German chancellor was already apprehensive upon receiving Smirnovas demand for an immediate meeting, considering that its timing coincided with his foreign ministeras visit to the White House.

More often than not, Smirnov was a charming and courteous diplomat who delivered the fiercest communication with a calm demeanor and outside the public spotlight. A rare exception had come the previous October, when he had exploded in rage at the comments of Adenaueras number two, Ludwig Erhard, to a visiting delegation of two hundred African leaders from twenty-four countries, many of them newly independent. aColonialism has been overcome,a Erhard had said, abut worse than colonialism is imperialism of the Communist totalitarian pattern.a Before storming out of the hall, Smirnov rose from the audience and shouted, aYou talk about freedom, but Germany killed twenty million people in our country!a It was a rare public display of the enduring Russian resentment toward Germans.

This time Smirnovas task was a more familiar one. He was presenting Adenauer with a nine-point, 2,862-word aide-mmoire from Khrushchev that would provide the most compelling evidence yet during the Kennedy administration that Khrushchev had again turned confrontational on Berlin. Soviet intelligence reports tracked Adenaueras doubts regarding Kennedyas reliability, and Khrushchev was wagering that Adenauer might be more susceptible to Soviet entreaties than he had been under the more dependable Truman or Eisenhower.

aAn entirely abnormal situation has emerged in West Berlin, which is being abused for subversive activities against the German Democratic Republic, the USSR and other socialist states,a the Khrushchev doc.u.ment said in clear, undiplomatic language. aThis cannot be allowed to go on. Either one continues down the path of an increasingly dangerous worsening of relations between countries and military conflict, or one concludes a peace treaty.a The aide-mmoire, written in the tone of a personal letter from Khrushchev to Adenauer, called Berlin the most important issue in Sovieta”German relations. It criticized what it called ever louder and more emphatic popular support in West Germany for revising postwar agreements that had ceded a third of the Third Reichas territory to the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. aIf Germany now has different borders than it had before the war, it has only itself to blame,a the letter said, reminding Adenauer that his country had invaded its neighbors and killed amillions upon millions.a Though the aide-mmoire had been delivered by the Soviet amba.s.sador to Adenauer, its tough message was intended just as much for Kennedy. In unmistakable fas.h.i.+on, the Soviet leader was declaring that he had lost all patience with Western dithering. First, he complained, the U.S. had asked the Soviets to wait for Berlin talks until after its elections, then Moscow was told to wait until Kennedy could settle into his job, and now Moscow was being asked to wait again until after West German elections.

aIf one gives in to these tendencies,a Khrushchev wrote, ait could go on forever.a The letter closed with Khrushchevas characteristic c.o.c.ktail of seduction and threats. He appealed to Adenauer to use aall his personal influence and his great experience as a statesmana to secure European peace and security. If matters turned more confrontational, however, the letter reminded Adenauer that the current correlation of military forces provided the Soviet Union and its friends with all the force they required to defend themselves.

The letter scoffed at West Germanyas appeal for disarmament at a time when Adenauer was quickly building up his military forces and seeking nuclear weapons while trying to transform NATO into the fourth nuclear power. It scolded Adenauer over talk that his partyas coming election campaign would focus on anticommunism. aIf that is really the case,a the letter said, ayouamust be aware of the consequences.a The Kennedy administration was not yet a month old, but Khrushchev had already s.h.i.+fted course on Berlin. If Kennedy was unwilling to negotiate an acceptable deal with him, Khrushchev was determined to find other ways to get what he wanted.

PART II.

THE GATHERING STORM.

7.

SPRINGTIME FOR KHRUSHCHEV.

West Berlin is a bone in the throat of Sovieta”American relationsa. If Adenauer wants to fight, West Berlin would be a good place to begin conflict.

Premier Khrushchev to U.S. Amba.s.sador Llewellyn E. Thompson Jr., March 9, 1961 It seems more likely than not that the USSR will move toward a crisis on Berlin this year. All sources of action are dangerous and unpromising. Inaction is even worse. We are faced with a Hobsonas choice. If a crisis is provoked, a bold and dangerous course may be the safest.

Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, memo on Berlin for President Kennedy, April 3, 1961 NOVOSIBIRSK, SIBERIA.