Part 10 (1/2)

Kennedy sent cables to his closest allies informing them of the upcoming meeting, knowing particularly the Germans and the French would be skeptical of his plan. To the distrustful Adenauer, he wrote, aI would a.s.sume you would share my view that since I have not previously met Khrushchev, such an encounter would be useful in the present international situation. If the meeting in fact takes place, I would expect to inform you of the content of these discussions with Khrushchev, which I antic.i.p.ate will be quite general in character.a Preparations went into high gear for what everyone knew would be a historic meetinga”the first such summit of the television age. Despite Kennedyas efforts to avoid the Berlin issue, his foreign policy team was coming to accept that it would define the presidentas first year in office far more than Cuba, Laos, a nuclear test ban, or any other issue.

On May 17, State Department Policy Planning staff member Henry Owen captured the growing consensus of the administration. aOf all the problems the administration faces, Berlin seems to me the most pregnant with disaster.a He suggested putting more money into the fiscal year 1963 budget for conventional arms and the defense of Europe, ato enhance our capability to deal witha”and thus perhaps detera”a Berlin Crisis.a Two days later, on May 19, the Kennedy administration officially announced what the press had been reporting from leaks for several days: The president would meet with Khrushchev in Vienna on June 3 and 4 after seeing de Gaulle in Paris.

Western European and U.S. commentators worried that a weakened president was heading to Vienna at a disadvantage. The intellectual weekly Die Zeit compared Kennedy to a traveling salesman whose business had fallen on bad times and who was hoping to improve his prospects by negotiating directly with the compet.i.tion. In its review of European opinion, the Wall Street Journal said Kennedy was projecting the astrong impressionaof a faltering America desperately trying to regain leaders.h.i.+p of the West in the Cold War.a The influential Swiss daily Neue Zrcher Zeitung despaired that the summit was being badly prepared by the Americans, and that Kennedy had abandoned his prerequisite that the Kremlin demonstrate a changed att.i.tude before any such meeting take place.

Although Vienna was technically neutral ground, European diplomats still considered Austria to be far closer to the Russian sphere of influence than the alternative of Stockholm. aThus there is an impression of Kennedy going to see Khrushchev at a place as well as a time of Khrushchevas choosing,a said the Neue Zrcher Zeitung. It saw a damaged U.S. president arus.h.i.+ng about to patch up his alliances and coming meekly to Austria to meet the powerful Russian leader face-to-face.a EAST BERLIN.

FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1961.

Sensing the wind s.h.i.+ft in his favor, East German leader Walter Ulbricht moved with greater confidence in Berlin. The Soviet amba.s.sador in East Germany, Mikhail Pervukhin, complained to Foreign Minister Gromyko that Ulbricht, without Kremlin approval, was ratcheting up pressure on West Berlin through heightened ident.i.ty controls of civilians.

aOur friends,a said the amba.s.sador, employing the term used by Moscow for its East German allies, awould now like to establish such control on the sectoral border between Democratic West Berlin which would allow them to, as they say, close athe door to the West,a reduce the exodus of the population from the Republic, and weaken the influence of economic conspiracy against the GDR, which is carried out directly from West Berlin.a He reported that Ulbricht wanted to slam shut the Berlin sectoral border, in contradiction to Soviet policy.

Khrushchev worried Ulbricht might go so far that he would prompt the Americans to cancel the Vienna Summit, so he asked Pervukhin to restrain his increasingly impatient and insolent East German client.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

SUNDAY, MAY 21, 1961.

President Kennedy began to fear he was walking into a trap.

Two weeks ahead of the summit, Robert Kennedy again reached out to Bolshakov, this time on a Sunday when their meeting would be less noticed. The attorney general invited the Soviet spy to Hickory Hill, his brick country house in McLean, Virginia, for a two-hour conversation.

Bolshakov laid out the Soviet position, having memorized with great skill five pages of detailed briefing notes before his meeting. His recall was remarkable, and his informal manner masked the fact that his conduit role was still unfamiliar terrain.

Bobby made clear he was speaking for the president. He told Bolshakov to call him only from a pay phone when making contact, and to name himself only to his secretary and his press spokesman Ed Guthman. On occasions when Bolshakov didnat want to risk telephoning himself, Holeman did so for him, saying to Guthman, aMy guy wants to see your guy.a Bobby told Bolshakov that only his brother knew of their meetingsa”and that he approved of them.

By contrast, Bolshakovas role was now becoming known to a larger circle of Soviet officials. The GRU relayed all Bolshakovas reports to Anatoly Dobrynin, the foreign ministry official who headed the group of Soviet advisers for the Vienna talks. One of Bolshakovas Moscow bosses wrote with astonishment about the May 21 meeting with Bobby Kennedy, aThe situation when a member of the U.S. government meets with our man, and secretly, is without precedent.a Moscow was sending directions to its emba.s.sy and its intelligence operatives on how to ensure that the meetings were kept secret from the U.S. press and the FBI.

Bobby told Bolshakov he had been disappointed that Khrushchev had not had more to say in his letter to the president about the possibility of a nuclear test ban treaty. He offered a concession to Bolshakov: Was.h.i.+ngton would accept the troika of inspectors that the Kremlin wanteda”representing the Soviet, Western, and nonaligned worlda”but Russia could have no veto over what could be inspected.

Bolshakov encouraged Bobby to think he had been given more leeway to negotiate than actually was the case. He said the Soviets would accept fifteen unmanned detection stations on Soviet soil, which came closer to what had become the American demand of nineteen.

Seeking a further bond with Khrushchev, Bobby said he and his brother agreed in principle with the Soviets on what they regarded as the historic German problem and sympathized with their fear of German revanchists. He said the president shared Soviet opposition to the notion of a nuclear Germany trying to recover its eastern territories. aMy brother fought them as enemies,a Bobby told Bolshakov. The two sides only disagreed on the remedies, he said.

Bolshakov and Bobby Kennedy continued their meetings as close to a week before the Vienna Summit. Perhaps for that reason it took only a day for Moscow to respond to President Kennedyas request that the two leaders include more tte--ttes at the summit, attended only by interpreters.

However, it would not be until two days after the final Bolshakov meeting before the Vienna Summit that Khrushchev would send the clearest message of all regarding how determined he was to negotiate Berlinas future.

For that, he would use the official channel of Amba.s.sador Thompson in Moscow. He wanted no one to mistake his intention to force the issue.

PALACE OF SPORTS, MOSCOW.

TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1961.

By coincidence, Khrushchev would make clear that he intended to bring the Berlin matter to a head in the same sports field house where he had launched the Berlin Crisis two and a half years earlier before an audience of Polish communists.

Within minutes of Amba.s.sador Thompsonas arrival with his wife in Khrushchevas box at a guest performance of the American Ice Capades, the Soviet leader complained that he had seen enough ice shows to last a lifetime. So he escorted the Thompsons to a private room for dinner, explaining that his invitation to them had all along been an excuse to discuss Vienna.

Thompson did not take notes, but he would have no trouble afterward recalling the conversation in a cable to Was.h.i.+ngton. Against the background sound of American music, skates sc.r.a.ping on ice, and the crowdas applause, Khrushchev delivered an unmistakable message. Without a new agreement on Berlin, he told Thompson, he would take unilateral action by fall or winter to give control of the city to the East Germans and end all Allied occupation rights.

Khrushchev dismissed Kennedyas focus on nuclear disarmament, which he said would be impossible as long as the Berlin problem existed. If the U.S. used force to interfere with Soviet aims in Berlin, he said, then it would be met with force. If the U.S. wanted war, it would get war. Thompson had seen this saber-rattling side of Khrushchev before, but coming just days ahead of the Vienna meeting it was more unsettling.

Khrushchev shrugged, however, saying that he did not expect conflict. aOnly a madman would want war and Western leaders were not mad, although Hitler had been,a he said. Khrushchev pounded the table and talked of the horrors of war, which he knew so well. He could not believe Kennedy would bring on such a catastrophe because of Berlin.

Thompson countered that it was Khrushchev, not Kennedy, who was creating the danger by threatening to alter the Berlin situation.

Though that might be true, Khrushchev said, if hostilities were to break out, it would be the Americans and not the Soviets who would have to cross the frontier of Eastern Germany to defend Berlin and thus begin the war.

Time and again during their dinner, Khrushchev said that it had been sixteen years since the Great War had been won, and that it was time to put an end to Berlinas occupation. Khrushchev reminded Thompson that in his original 1958 Berlin ultimatum he had demanded satisfaction within six months. aThirty months have now pa.s.sed,a he said, fuming at Thompsonas suggestion that matters could be left as they currently stood in Berlin. The U.S. was trying to damage Soviet prestige, and this could not be allowed to continue, Khrushchev said.

Thompson conceded that the U.S. could not stop Khrushchev from signing a peace treaty with East Germany, but the important question was whether the Soviet leader would use that moment to interfere with the U.S. right-of-access to Berlin. While Khrushchev was floating a trial balloon for the Vienna Summit of a tougher approach on Berlin, Thompson as well was testing what was likely to be Kennedyas response.

Thompson also said U.S. prestige everywhere in the world was at stake in its commitments to Berliners. Moreover, Was.h.i.+ngton feared that if it gave in to Soviet pressure and sacrificed Berlin, West Germany and Western Europe would be the next to fall. aThe psychological effect would be disastrous to our position,a he told Khrushchev.

Khrushchev scoffed at Thompsonas words, repeating what had become his frequent refrain: Berlin was really of little importance to either America or the Soviet Union, so why should they get so worked up about changing the cityas status?

If Berlin were of such little significance, retorted Thompson, he doubted that Khrushchev would take such an enormous risk to gain the upper hand in the city.

Khrushchev then put forward the proposal that he planned to present in Vienna: Nothing would prevent the U.S. from continuing to have troops in the afree citya of West Berlin. All that would change was that Was.h.i.+ngton in the future would have to negotiate those rights with East Germany, he said.

Thompson probed, asking what elements of the problem troubled Khrushchev most, suggesting it might be the refugee problem. Khrushchev brushed aside that notion and said simply, aBerlin is a festering sore which has to be eliminated.a Khrushchev told Thompson that German reunification was impossible and that in fact no one really wanted it, including de Gaulle, Macmillan, and Adenauer. He said de Gaulle had told him not only that Germany should remain divided, but that it would be even better if it were divided into three parts.

The soft-spoken Thompson saw no option but to return Khrushchevas threat or be misinterpreted as giving him the green light on Berlin. aWell, if you use force,a said Thompson, aif you want to cut off our access and connections by force, then we will use force against force.a Khrushchev responded calmly and with a smile. Thompson had misunderstood him, he said. The mercurial Soviet said he didnat plan to use force. He would simply sign the treaty and put an end to the rights the United States had won as athe conditions of capitulation.a Thompsonas later cable to Was.h.i.+ngton on his ice rink face-off reflected little of the importance of what he had just heard. For Khrushchev, it had been a dress rehearsal for what would follow. Thompson, however, played down Khrushchevas bl.u.s.ter. He wrote that the Soviet leader was outlining in detail for the first time how a permanent division of the city might take place without violating American rights. Thompson repeated his conviction that Khrushchev would not force the Berlin issue until after his October Party Congress. In Vienna, Thompson reckoned, Khrushchev would aslide over the Berlin problem in a sweetness-and-light atmosphere.a Thompson nevertheless suggested that Kennedy in Vienna offer Khrushchev a Berlin formula that would enable both sides to save face, as the problem would likely come to a head later in the year. Otherwise, he wrote, awar would hang in the balance.a On the same day, Kennedy was getting a different reading from Berlin. The head of the U.S. Mission there, diplomat E. Allan Lightner Jr., said Moscow could alive with Berlin status quo for some time,a and that Khrushchev had no timetable for action. Thus, argued Lightner, Kennedy could deter Khrushchev in Vienna by sending a sharp message that the U.S. was determined to defend the cityas freedom, and that athe Soviets should keep their hands off Berlin.a Lightner wanted to ensure that Kennedy knew the consequences of showing weakness in Vienna. aAny indication the President is willing to discuss interim solutions, compromises, or a modus vivendi,a he said, awould reduce the impact of warning Khrushchev of the dire consequences of his miscalculating our resolve.a WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1961.

Like an author seeing the first unsatisfying drafts of his presidency, Kennedy opted to deliver a second State of the Union speech on May 25a”aa Special Address to the Nation on Urgent National Needsaa”just twelve weeks after the first. It reflected his recognition that before Vienna and after the Bay of Pigs, he needed to set the stage by sending Khrushchev an unmistakable message of resolve.

Bobby Kennedy had used one of his Bolshakov meetings to forewarn Khrushchev that although the presidentas rhetoric in the speech would be harsh, this didnat lessen his brotheras desire to cooperate. However, the Bolshakov channel was not a sufficient means to convey a message of strength that was intended as much for a domestic audience as for Khrushchev.

Standing before a joint session of Congress and a national television audience, Kennedy explained that American presidents had on occasion during aextraordinary timesa provided a second State of the Union during a single year. These were such times, he said. As the United States was responsible for freedomas cause in the world, he declared that he was going to unveil aa freedom doctrine.a The presidentas forty-eight-minute midday speech was interrupted by applause seventeen times. He stressed the need to maintain a healthy American economy, and he celebrated the end of the recession and beginning of recovery. He spoke of the worldas southern hemisphere as the alands of the rising peoplesaa”Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Mideasta”where the adversaries of freedom had to be countered on athe worldas great battleground.a Kennedy called for a defense spending increase of some $700 million to expand and modernize the military, to overtake the Soviets in the arms race, and to reorganize civil defense with a threefold increase in money for fallout shelters. He wanted to enlist 15,000 more Marines and put a greater focus on fighting guerrilla wars in the Third World by expanding the supply of howitzers, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and battle-ready reserve units. Most important, he declared that the United States by the end of the decade would put a man on the moon and return him to Earth. It was a race he was determined to win against the Soviets, who had put the first satellite and man into s.p.a.ce.