Part 7 (1/2)
The best minds in the U.S. intelligence community reinforced that view. The United States Intelligence Boardas Special Subcommittee on the Berlin Situation, the spy worldas authoritative group on the issue, said Khrushchev was aunlikely to increase tensions over Berlin at this time.a They said Moscow would increase its pressures only if Khrushchev thought by doing so he could force Kennedy into high-level talks. Their bottom line: if Kennedy demonstrated that increased Soviet threats wouldnat impress him, Khrushchev would not escalate in Berlin.
So once again the president decided Berlin was an issue that could wait. Two other matters had also begun to shape his thinking. First, Dean Acheson was about to deliver to the president his first report on Berlin policy, and it would provide the hawkish antidote to Thompsonas softer line.
Kennedy was also growing increasingly distracted by a matter closer to home. His top spies were putting the final pieces in place for an invasion of Cuba by exiles trained and equipped by the CIA.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.
MONDAY, APRIL 3, 1961.
Achesonas paper, the first major Kennedy administration reflection on Berlin policy, landed on Secretary of State Dean Ruskas desk the day before British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton. Characteristically, President Trumanas secretary of state had timed its delivery for maximum impact, laying down a hard line at the front end of a parade of Allied visitors.
Achesonas central argument was that Kennedy had to show a willingness to fight for Berlin if he wished to avoid Soviet domination of Europe and, after that, Asia and Africa. Wielding words like weapons, Acheson wrote that if the U.S. aaccepted a Communist takeover of Berlina”under whatever face-saving and delaying devicea”the power status in Europe would be starkly revealed and Germany, and probably France, Italy and Benelux would make the indicated adjustments. The United Kingdom would hope that something would turn up. It wouldnat.a Acheson knew Kennedy well enough to be confident that the president both trusted his judgment and shared his suspicions of the Soviets. While searching for a secretary of state during the transition, Kennedy had sought the advice of his Georgetown neighbor Acheson. With a gaggle of photographers outside his home, the president-elect told Acheson he ahad spent so much time in the past few years knowing people who could help him become president that he found he knew very few people who could help him be president.a Acheson then helped dissuade Kennedy from considering Senator William Fulbright, who he said awas not as solid and serious a man as you need for this position. Iave always thought that he had some of the qualities of a dilettante.a He instead steered Kennedy to the man eventually chosen, Dean Rusk, who during the Truman years had capably helped Acheson fight appeas.e.m.e.nt and resist communism in Asia as his a.s.sistant secretary of state for Far Eastern Affairs. Concerning other Cabinet and amba.s.sadorial roles, Acheson blessed some names and torpedoed others, playing the Was.h.i.+ngton blood sport he so savored. He also turned down Kennedyas offer to become amba.s.sador to NATO, saying he preferred maintaining his free agency and lawyerly income without aall these statutes operating on me.a That said, Acheson was pleased to be reestablis.h.i.+ng his influence in government through a leading role in thinking through two of Americaas highest priorities: NATOas future and the related matters of nuclear weapons use and Berlinas defense. Achesonas place in history was already sealed because of his leading role in creating the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Marshall Plan. He had been the primary designer of NATOa”altering Americaas aversion to entangling alliancesa”and with George Marshall had conceived the Truman Doctrine of 1947 that set Americaas course as aleader of the free world,a whose mission globally would be to fight communism and support democracy. Still, being invited back into the mix by Kennedy was a pleasing confirmation for Acheson that his capabilities remained both relevant and required.
Even at almost age sixty-eight, Acheson still cut a captivating figure. As impeccably dressed as he was informed, he liked to tell friends that he lacked the self-doubt that so afflicted his opponents. With his bowler hat, wicked grin, steel-blue eyes, and upturned mustache, he would have been noticeable enough. However, he stood out all the more due to his long-legged, slender, six-foot frame. Quick-witted and intolerant of fools, Acheson had brought to his new Berlin study the determination to outmaneuver and outmatch the Soviets that had so distinguished his career. It was that hard line that had formed such a curious bond between Acheson and President Trumana”the Yale-educated, martini-drinking son of an Episcopal rector and the plain-speaking Midwestern politician without a college degree.
Shortly after Kennedyas election, Acheson had scolded Truman playfully in a letter that addressed the former presidentas concerns about Kennedyas Catholicism. aDo you really care about Jackas being Catholic?a he had asked Truman, who dismissively called Kennedy athe young man.a Acheson told Truman he had never cared that de Gaulle and Adenauer were Catholic. aFurthermore,a Acheson said with knowing understatement, aI donat think heas a very good Catholic.a Since Kennedy had hired him in February, Acheson had intensively reviewed all the options for Berlin contingencies. He agreed with Thompson that a showdown was likely during the calendar year, but thatas where their agreement ended. He counseled the president to show greater strength and abandon any hope of a negotiated solution that could improve upon the status quo. aAll sources of action are dangerous and unpromising,a Acheson said. aInaction is even worse. We are faced with a Hobsonas choice. If a crisis is provoked, a bold and dangerous course may be the safest.a Eisenhower had rejected Achesonas advice, which at the time had been offered from outside government, that he respond more robustly to Moscowas repet.i.tive tests of Americaas commitment to Europe and Berlin with a conspicuous military buildup. Acheson hoped to get more traction with Kennedy. He had already won over Rusk and Bundy, and he could count as allies the two other most influential administration officials on Berlin matters, the Pentagonas Paul Nitze and the State Departmentas Foy Kohler.
Most controversially, Acheson argued in his memo that the threat of general nuclear war might no longer be sufficient to deter Khrushchev in Berlina”if it ever had been. Acheson argued that Khrushchevas reluctance to act thus far had been based more on his desire to avoid a breakdown in relations with the West than on a conviction that the U.S. would risk atomic war to defend Berlin. Thus Acheson was prescribing for Kennedy a significant conventional buildup in Europe while at the same time counseling him to persuade the Allies, and in particular the West Germans, ato agree in advance to fight for Berlin.a Acheson listed for Kennedy what he had concluded were Khrushchevas five primary objectives regarding Berlin: To stabilize the East German regime and prepare for its eventual international recognition.
To legalize Germanyas eastern frontiers.
To neutralize West Berlin as a first step and prepare for its eventual takeover by the German Democratic Republic.
To weaken if not break up the NATO Alliance.
To discredit the United States or at least seriously damage its prestige.
Agreeing with Adenauer, Acheson was convinced the Berlin problem had no solution short of unification, and that unification could not be achieved until far into the future and through a consistent demonstration of Western strength. Therefore, no agreement with Moscow on Berlin was currently available to Kennedy that would not make the West more vulnerable, so talks had no purpose.
Berlin was athe key to power status in Europe,a Acheson argued, and thus a willingness to defend it was central to keeping the Kremlin in check elsewhere. Whatever course Kennedy took, Acheson counseled the president to achoose quickly what const.i.tutes grounds for fighting on Berlina and get Americaas allies to agree to those criteria.
Achesonas bottom line for Kennedy: aWe must content ourselves for the time being with maintaining the status quo in Berlin. We could not expect Khrushchev to accept lessa”we ourselves should not accept less.a His groundbreaking paper then concentrated on the most appropriate military meansa”within U.S. capabilitya”to deter Khrushchev. The threat of nuclear attack had long been the U.S.as ace in the hole, but Achesonas heresy was to argue that it was not a real capability because it was aperfectly obviousa to the Russians that Was.h.i.+ngton would not risk the lives of millions of Americans over Berlin. Acheson noted that some military leaders advocated as an alternative the alimited use of nuclear meansa”that is, to drop one bomb somewhere.a He dismissed that idea as quickly as he had raised it: aIf you drop one bomb, that wasnat a threat to drop that bomba”that was a dropa”and once it happened, it either indicated that you were going on to drop more, or you invited the other side to drop one back.a That struck Acheson as airresponsible and not a wise step adapted to the problem of Berlin.a So Acheson tabled a proposal for Kennedy designed to make Western determination unmistakable. He wanted the president to substantially increase conventional forces in Germany so that the Soviets would see more clearly the U.S. commitment to Berlinas defensea”a course that could not have been more in contrast to Thompsonas notion of a seven-year moratorium during which the two Germanys negotiated their differences. Through this buildup, he said, awe would have made too vast a commitment to back down in any waya”and if there was any backing down, they would have to do it.a Acheson conceded that reducing Americaas reliance on nuclear deterrence had its risks, but added that ait was the only way of showing that we meant business without doing something very foolish.a His proposal was not to increase forces in Berlin, where they would be trapped and be of little use, but to bring in three or more divisions elsewhere in Germany. He would ratchet up U.S. reserves by as many as six divisions and provide more transport for all those new soldiers to descend on Berlin in an emergency.
Defense Secretary McNamara embraced Achesonas paper. Kennedy took it seriously enough to use it as the basis to order a new Pentagon examination on how to break any new Berlin blockade. Acheson knew, however, that an important const.i.tuency would oppose his views: Americaas allies. The French and Germans would argue against any dilution of a nuclear deterrent that they believed was all that ensured long-term U.S. commitment to their defense. And the British wanted a greater emphasis on negotiations with the Soviets, a course Acheson opposed. As the Allies couldnat even agree among themselves about how best to defend Berlin, Achesonas advice to Kennedy was to decide his course unilaterally and present it to the Allies as a fait accompli.
In advance of the Macmillan meeting, Bundy rushed to Kennedy what he called his friend Achesonas afirst-ratea paper. He advised Kennedy that he must make sure that his British visitors, known for being asofta on Berlin, understood that he was determined to stand firm. Rusk echoed Acheson in saying Berlin talks had failed in the past and there was no reason to think they had any greater chance now to succeed.
Almost overnight, Acheson had taken the initiative on Berlin, filling a vacuum in the administration. Drawing upon that, National Security Advisor Bundy counseled Kennedy to politely consider any schemes London amay dream up, but in return we should press hard to get a commitment of British firmness at the moment of truth.a OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1961.
British Prime Minister Macmillan was taken aback when Kennedy nodded toward Acheson and asked him to explain why, regarding the Soviets and Berlin, he believed a confrontation was likelier than reaching an acceptable compromise solution. The president was surrounded by his top national security team as well as U.S. Amba.s.sador to London David Bruce. Among others, Macmillan had brought along Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Yet they all turned toward Acheson, and one of the worldas most colorful diplomatic showmen launched a performance that unsettled the British.
Kennedy did not say whether he shared Achesonas hard-line views, although Macmillan had to presume that he did. Acheson prefaced the discussion with the disclaimer that he had not reached final conclusions in his Berlin study, but he then vigorously laid out precisely what he had decided. Kennedy listened without comment.
Macmillan and Acheson were almost the same age, and Achesonas attire, upper-cla.s.s mannerisms, and Anglo-Canadian background would have suggested a cultural compatibility in any other setting. But the two men could not have differed more in their diagnosis of how to deal with the Soviets. Macmillan had lost none of his enthusiasm for just the sort of high-level Moscow talks that Acheson had consistently said would have little value, all the way back to an executive session of the Foreign Relations Committee in 1947 when Acheson said, aI think it is a mistake to believe that you can, at any time, sit down with the Russians and solve questions.a Acheson listed what he called his asemi-premisesa: There was no satisfactory solution to the Berlin problem aside from a resolution more broadly of Germanyas division. And it did not seem such a solution was anywhere near.
It was likely the Soviets would force the Berlin issue within the calendar year.
There was no negotiable solution Acheson could imagine that could put the West in a more favorable position regarding Berlin than it had at the moment.
Thus, he said, awe must face the issue and prepare now for eventualities. Berlin is of the greatest importance. That is why the Soviets press the issue. If the West flunks, Germany will become unhooked from the alliance.a The president did not interrupt Achesonas presentation, and because of that neither did anyone else. Acheson said negotiations and other nonmilitary remedies, which everyone in the room knew were the British preference, were insufficient. There must be a military response, Acheson said, but what should it be, and under what circ.u.mstances?
Macmillan and Lord Home contained their dismay. They had just been in Paris, where theyad heard de Gaullea”who was already trying to lure Adenauer into a Gaullist view of Europe that permanently excluded the Britisha”also vehemently oppose Berlin talks with the Soviets. The British didnat want Kennedy on the same page.
At age sixty-seven, Macmillan had grown increasingly convinced that most of Londonas aspirations in the world depended on its ability to influence Was.h.i.+ngton. That in turn relied on how he would interact with Americaas new president. A keen student of history, Macmillan had come to realize that Americans represented athe new Roman Empire and we Britons, like the Greeks of old, must teach them now to make it goa. We can at most aspire to civilize and occasionally to influence them.a But how did he get Kennedyas consent to play Rome to Macmillanas Greece?
After Prime Minister Anthony Edenas political collapse following the Suez Crisis, his successor Macmillan had wagered much on rebuilding a aspecial relations.h.i.+pa with the U.S. through his friends.h.i.+p with President Eisenhower, first forged during World War II. Macmillan had played a crucial role as an ahonest brokera in convincing President Eisenhower to engage with Khrushchev on Berlinas future through summitry, and he had considered the Paris Summitas collapse to be a personal defeat. He had begged Khrushchev unsuccessfully not to abandon the talks.
It was in this context that Macmillan had been gathering as many data points as he could find on Kennedy so that he could better design an approach to a man who was twenty-four years his junior. Macmillan had worried to columnist friend Henry Brandon that he would never be able to replicate the unique connection he had had with Eisenhower, a man of the same generation with whom he had shared waras cruel experiences. aAnd now there is this c.o.c.ky young Irishman,a he had said.
Eisenhoweras amba.s.sador to London, John Hay aJocka Whitney, had warned Macmillan that Kennedy was aobstinate, sensitive, ruthless and highly s.e.xed.a However, their behavioral differences would surface only many months later, when Kennedy shocked the monogamous, puritanical Scot with the impertinent question, aI wonder how it is with you, Harold? If I donat have a woman for three days, I get a terrible headachea.a What concerned Macmillan more than the age and character differences he had with Kennedy was the possibility that the president might be overly influenced by his anticommunist, isolationist father. Perhaps the most disliked U.S. amba.s.sador ever to the Court of St. Jamesas, Joseph Kennedy had warned President Roosevelt not to overdo U.S. backing for Britain against Hitler and be aleft holding the bag in a war in which the Allies expect to be beaten.a So Macmillan was relieved when his research turned up that Kennedyas hero was the interventionist Churchilla”a point they had in common.
To further influence Kennedyas thinking, during the transition Macmillan had written the president-elect a letter that proposed a aGrand Designa for the future. While Macmillan had formed his bond with Eisenhower based on their common memories of war, he had determined on the day of Kennedyas election that he would base his approach to the new president on intellect. So he set out to sell himself aas a man who, although of advancing years, has young and fresh thoughts.a Written with a publisheras deft touch, Macmillan appealed to Kennedyas vanity by quoting from the presidentas earlier writings before sketching out a dangerous era ahead in which the afree worldaa”the United States, Britain, and Europea”could only vanquish the growing appeal of communism through the steady expansion of economic well-being and common purpose. Thus, he regarded closer transatlantic coordination to create joint monetary and economic policies as being more critical than political and military alliances.
Since he had written that letter, Macmillan had not gained much traction for his aGrand Designa in preparatory visits to allies. De Gaulle in Paris sympathized with Macmillanas views but stubbornly opposed his desire to bring Britain into the European Common Market. When they met in London, the British prime minister found even less support from Adenauer. Macmillan concluded that the flouris.h.i.+ng West Germany had grown too arich and selfisha to understand his proposal. Ahead of Macmillanas White House meeting, Kennedy discovered he had misplaced his copy of the aGrand Design.a It took a White House search to unearth it in the nursery of Caroline, his three-year-old daughter.
Despite Macmillanas initial concerns, he and Kennedy had already begun to form a closer bond ahead of their Was.h.i.+ngton meeting than the British prime minister had antic.i.p.ated, a product of shared wit, breeding, and brainsa”and Macmillanas intentional efforts. They were also related by marriage: Kennedyas sister Kathleen had married Macmillanas nephew. Like Kennedy, Harold Macmillan had known wealth from birth and enjoyed its license for independent thinking and eccentricity. The prime minister was elegant and tall, at six feet, and had a toothy British smile under a guardsmanas mustache. He wore his hand-cut suits as casually as his intellect. Macmillan liked Kennedyas emphasis on bravery in his book Profiles in Courage, as he had himself been wounded three times during World War I. While waiting for rescue at the Battle of the Somme with a bullet in his pelvis, he had read Aeschylus in the original Greek.
To the prime ministeras relief, he and Kennedy had hit it off ten days earlier when the president had issued him a last-minute invitation to Key West, Florida, to exchange ideas on how to address an unfolding crisis in Laos. Kennedy had listened sympathetically to Macmillanas advice that he should stay clear of military intervention in Laos, and the prime minister was encouraged to see the president manage the generals around hima”instead of being managed by them. Macmillan had been taken by Kennedyas agreat charmaand a light touch. Since so many Americans are so ponderous, this is a welcome change.a Yet that positive beginning in Key West only made Macmillan and Lord Home all the more concerned about Kennedyas apparent militancy toward the Soviets as expressed and encouraged by Acheson.
When thinking about how to defend Berlin, Acheson said the Brits should focus on the three military alternatives: air, ground, and nuclear. Given that the nuclear option was areckless and would not be believed,a Acheson talked mostly about the other two. He dismissed an air response, as Soviet aground-to-air missiles have been brought to a point where aircraft cannot survive. Thus there could be no test of will in the air. The Russians would just shoot down the planes with their rockets.a Acheson was driving home his view that the U.S. and its allies really had only one possible credible response to a Berlin showdown, and that was a conventional ground offensive to ashow the Russians that it was not worthwhile to stop a really stout Western effort.a To pull that off, Acheson said, would require a significant military buildup. Acheson crisply listed the possible military countermeasures to a Berlin blockade of one sort or another, including the dispatching of a division down the Autobahn to reopen access to Berlin with force. If blocked, said Acheson, then the West would know where it stood and could rearm and rally allies as it did during the Korean War.
Kennedy told Macmillan, whose body language of lifted eyebrows and sideways glances revealed his skepticism, that he had not yet fully considered Achesonas views. That said, he agreed with his new adviser that Berlin contingency planning was not yet aserious enough,a given the growing likelihood of some sort of confrontation.
Macmillan focused his opposition on Achesonas proposed response to a Berlin blockade, of sending a division up the Autobahn, as it awould be a very vulnerable body if moving on a narrow front.a It inevitably would have to spread beyond the Autobahn if trouble started, he said, and that would raise a host of difficulties. When pressed by Kennedy, however, he agreed with Achesonas view that the Berlin Airlift could not be repeated because of improved Soviet antiaircraft capability.
U.S. and British officials then hashed out what new military planning and training would be required to allow more intensive preparation for Berlin contingencies. Secretary Rusk welcomed Britisha”U.S. bilateral planning but suggested that the West Germans, with their expanded military capability and willingness to help defend Berlin, should be brought in arapidly.a Lord Home frowned his dissent. The British distrusted the Germans far more than did the Americans, convinced that Adenaueras intelligence service and other government structures were riddled with spies. Though Lord Home was happy enough to discuss Germanyas future with the Americans, he was not ready to do the same with the Germans.
Home wanted to s.h.i.+ft the Americans from their focus on military contingencies to consideration of potential openings for Berlin talks with the Kremlin. He argued that Khrushchev had made only one public commitment that limited his room for maneuver, and that was to end Berlinas occupation status. Lord Home believed Khrushchev acould get off this hooka if the Allies signed a treaty that would leave the status quo in place for a period of ten years or so, but that over time this would alter Berlinas status.
aKhrushchev is not on a hook,a Acheson shot back, aand thus does not have to be taken off one.a Acheson had no patience for what he considered British spinelessness toward Moscow. He sharply reminded Home that Khrushchev ais not legalistic. Khrushchev is pus.h.i.+ng to divide the Allies. He is not going to make any treaty that would help us. Our position is good as it is and we should stick by it.a Acheson worried that even consideration of signing a treaty with East Germany, which would serve only Soviet interests, awill undermine the German spirit.a The tension between Home and Acheson infused the room.
After an awkward silence, Rusk agreed with Acheson that any talk about accepting such a treaty would be astarting down a slippery slope.a He said the U.S. had to make clear it was in Berlin as a result of war, and not aby the grace of Khrushchev.a The U.S., Rusk insisted to the British, was a great power that would not be driven out of Berlin.
Home warned his American friends of the public opinion consequences in the West if Khrushchev openly proposed what might seem a reasonable change in Berlinas legal status and the West failed to put forward any alternative approach. Western presence had to be put on a new legal basis, he argued, as the current aright of conquesta justification for Berlin occupation was awearing thin.a Perhaps, Acheson fired back again at Home, ait is our power that is wearing thin.a Much the same group reconvened the next morning, although mercifully for the British, Acheson was absent on a mission. However, his spirit remained in the room. President Kennedy wanted to know from his U.S. and British experts why Khrushchev had not acted on Berlin thus far. What made him hold off?