Part 20 (1/2)

Brandt, who until then had responded with restraint, lashed back. aThe old gentleman really cannot grasp whatas going on anymore.a He advised Adenauer to seek aein friedliches Lebensabendaa”a peaceful retirement. Brandt calculated that his best strategy was to announce that he was abandoning electioneering altogether. aFor me all that matters is the struggle for Berlin,a he said, announcing that he would reduce his election work to one day each week and otherwise focus on aGermanyas destiny.a Brandt realized that perhaps the most important factor with voters was how he handled the Americans. On the day of his rally, West Germanyas most-read newspaper, Bild-Zeitung, with its circulation of 3.7 million, covered the entire top half of its front page with a headline that captured the public mood: THE EAST ACTSa”AND THE WEST? THE WEST DOES NOTHING.

The editors had placed large photographs of the three Allied leaders under the story with derisive cutlines: aPresident Kennedy remains silent / Macmillan goes hunting / And Adenauer insults Brandt.a In an accompanying front-page editorial, Bild said: We entered the Western alliance because we believed this would be the best solution for Germany as well as for the West. The majority of Germans, the overwhelming majority, is still convinced of this. But this conviction is not strengthened if some of our partners, at a moment when the German cause is in great danger, coolly declare: aAllied rights have not been touched.a The German cause is in the greatest danger. Three days already and so far nothing has happened apart from a paper protest by the Allied commandants.

We are disillusioned!

The more sober Berlin broadsheet Der Tagesspiegel captured the spirit of the day in a giant four-panel cartoon that was so popular it was being pa.s.sed from person to person around Berlin.

The primary character in each panel, labeled THE WEST, is portrayed as an aging, bald American man in a dark suit and a bow tie and with a raised, lecturing finger.

In the first frame, the West winces from Stalinas blows to his head with a club labeled GERMANYaS VISION. He says only, a[Hit me] Once more and Iall take out my big stick.a The second panel shows the West with two b.u.mps, the new one marked HUNGARY. The third frame has a diminutive Ulbricht bas.h.i.+ng the West with a club stamped CLOSING OF THE INTERCITY BORDER. The final panel shows a bruised and beaten West, standing by himself pathetically above the caption UND SO WEITERa”aAnd so on.a After wiping the sweat from his brow, Brandt told the 250,000 Berliners standing before him that through the border closure the Soviets had agiven their pet dog Ulbricht a little extra leasha with his aregime of injustice.a Brandt captured the frustration of the crowd, saying, aWe cannot help our fellow citizens in the sector and our countrymen in the Zone bear this burden, and that is for us the bitterest pill to swallow! We can only help them bear it in showing them that we will rise to stand with them in this desperate hour!a The crowd exploded with relief that Brandt had finally expressed their dismay.

Brandt drew parallels between the Ulbricht dictators.h.i.+p and the Third Reich. He called the border closure aa new version of the occupation of the Rhineland by Hitler. Only today the man is named Ulbricht.a He had to shout above the crowdas deafening cheers in a raspy voice made hoa.r.s.e from the campaign trail and his chain-smoking.

Brandt paused before the most sensitive part of the speech, during which he directly addressed the U.S. and Kennedy. He began by defending the Americans, to the displeasure of many of his listeners. aWithout them,a he said, athe tanks would have rolled on.a The crowd only began to applaud when he voiced their own disappointment with Kennedy.

a[But] Berlin expects more than words,a he said. aIt expects political action.a The crowd erupted in cheers when he told them that he had written to President Kennedy with that opinion. aI told him our views in all frankness,a he said to roars of approval. Brandt saw in their eyes the political appeal of an attack on the Americans even as they knew how powerless they were to take on the Soviets alone.

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

WEDNESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 16, 1961.

President Kennedy was enraged.

He considered the letter from Mayor Brandt, which rested atop his morning correspondence, to be insulting and impertinent. Even given Berlinas situation, it overstepped the sort of language any city mayor should use with the American president. With each line that he read, Kennedy grew more certain that the letteras primary purpose was to serve Brandtas electoral campaign.

Brandt called the border closure an encroachment that was athe most serious in the postwar history of this city since the blockade.a In a surprisingly direct rebuke of the Kennedy administration, he wrote, aWhile in the past Allied Commandants have even protested against parades by the so-called National Peopleas Army in East Berlin, this time, after military occupation of the East Sector by the Peopleas Army, they have limited themselves to delayed and not very vigorous steps.a He charged that the Allies had thus endorsed the aillegal sovereignty of the East Berlin government.a Brandt protested, aWe now have a state of accomplished extortion.a He told Kennedy that although this had not weakened West Berlinersa will to resist, ait has tended to arouse doubts as to the determination of the three powers and their ability to react.a He conceded Kennedyas argument that existing four-power guarantees applied only to West Berlin and its people, the presence of troops there, and their access routes. aHowever,a he stressed, athis is a matter of a deep wound in the life of the German people.a Brandt warned Kennedy that Berlin could become alike a ghettoa and lose aits function as a refuge of freedom and a symbol of hope for unification. Worse,a he said, ainstead of flight to Berlin, we might then experience the beginning of flight from Berlina as its citizens lost confidence in the cityas future.

Brandtas letter then set out a series of proposals, again ignoring the fact that he was only a city mayor or that this was a level of bilateral exchange that belonged more properly to the chancellor. He called upon Kennedy to introduce a new, three-power status for West Berlin that would exclude the Soviets but include the French and British. He wanted Kennedy to bring the Berlin question before the United Nations, as the Soviet Union ahas violated the Declaration of Human Rights in most flagrant manner.a Finally, he said, aIt would be welcomed if the American garrison were to be demonstratively strengthened.a Brandt closed with the line aI consider the situation serious enough, Mr. President, to write to you in all frankness as is possible only between friends who trust each other completely.a Then he signed it aYour w.i.l.l.y Brandt.a Kennedy fumed. The letter was political dynamite. Already stung by charges that he had demonstrated weakness in Cuba, Laos, and Vienna, Kennedy considered it salt on an open wound. The final line, in which Brandt referred to his relations.h.i.+p of trust with the president, irked Kennedy most.

aTrust?a Kennedy spat as he angrily waved the letter at his press secretary, Pierre Salinger. aI donat trust this man at all. Heas in the middle of a campaign against old Adenauer and wants to drag me in. Where does he get off calling me a friend?a The State Department and the White House were furious that Brandt had revealed the existence of the letter at a rally before Kennedy had even received ita”driving home its electoral purpose. Administration officials briefed the press in that fas.h.i.+on, setting off a storm of negative U.S. media comment. The Daily News called Brandtas letter arude and presumptuous.a The Was.h.i.+ngton Evening Staras commentator William S. White condemned Brandt as a amere mayora trying to atake over the foreign policy, not only of his own country, but of all the West by addressing personal notes to the President of the United Statesa. It is easy for demagogues to whip up excited crowds, as Mr. Brandt is doing, to pour scorn on the West for inaction.a Brandt would later take credit for his letter s.h.i.+fting Kennedy to a more active defense of Berlin, yet perhaps more decisive was the journalist Marguerite Higgins, to whom Kennedy had shown the letter with disgust while sitting in his rocking chair in the Oval Office. The well-known U.S. war reporter, who had covered both World War II and the Korean conflict, was at age forty-one a personal friend of the president. aMr. President, I must tell you quite openly,a she said, athat in Berlin the suspicion is growing that you want to sell out the West Berliners.a Kennedy came to accept that he had to take some action quickly to rea.s.sure Berliners, Americans, and Soviets alike that he remained ready to stand up to the Kremlin. Two days after receiving the Brandt letter, Kennedy wrote back to the mayor that he planned to dispatch to Berlin both Vice President Johnson and General Lucius Clay, the hero of the Berlin Airlift in 1948 and a friend of Marguerite Higgins.

He would take Brandtas advice that he send more troops to Berlin, but his letter would make clear it wasnat a lowly mayor who had prompted the decision. aOn careful consideration,a he wrote to Brandt, aI myself have decided that the best immediate response is a significant reinforcement of the Western garrisons.a He said that what was important wasnat the number of troops, which would be small, but that the reinforcements would be seen as the U.S. response to Moscowas demand that Allied soldiers leave Berlin altogether. aWe believe that even a modest reinforcement will underline our rejection of this concept,a he said.

However, Kennedy rejected Brandtas other suggestions. He said the mayoras notion of three-power status for West Berlin would weaken the four-power basis for an Allied protest of the border closing. He would also not pursue Brandtas idea of an appeal to the United Nations, as it was aunlikely to be fruitful.a aGrave as the matter is,a he wrote, athere are, as you say, no steps available to us which can force a significant material change in this present situation. Since it represents a resounding confession of failure and of political weakness, this brutal border closing evidently represents a basic Soviet decision which only war could reverse. Neither you nor we, nor any of our Allies, have ever supposed that we should go to war on this point.a Kennedyas logic was that the Soviet action was atoo serious for inadequate responses.a By that measure, any action short of war seemed inadequate to him, and thus he objected to all the remedies he had heard thus far, including amost of the suggestions in your own letter.a Tossing the mayor a bone that would cost Kennedy nothing, he supported Brandtas notion of aan appropriate plebiscite demonstrating the continuing conviction of West Berlin that its destiny is freedom in connection with the West.a Kennedy didnat like rewarding Brandt for pulling him into his messy, petty German politics. On the other hand, he had his own domestic political reasons for a demonstration of strength. If anyone understood how deeply intertwined Americaas domestic and foreign policies were, it was Kennedy.

Brandt read Kennedyas response with disappointment, believing the U.S. president had athrown us in the frying pan.a American reporters were writing with the confidence of the well-briefed that the border closure had shocked and depressed Kennedy. But the truth was quite different.

Among those who were closest to him, Kennedy did not hide his relief. He considered the border closure a potentially positive turning point that could help lead to the end of the Berlin Crisis that had been hanging over him like a Damoclean nuclear sword. He thought the fact that West Berlin had remained untouched ill.u.s.trated the limits of Khrushchevas ambitionsa”and the relative caution with which he would execute them.

aWhy would Khrushchev put up a wall if he really intended to seize West Berlin?a Kennedy said to his friend and aide Kenny OaDonnell. aThere wouldnat be any need of a wall if he planned to occupy the whole city. This is his way out of his predicament. Itas not a very nice solution, but a wall is a h.e.l.l of a lot better than a war.a The communist move also allowed Kennedy to score public opinion points for the U.S. across the world. The communist enemy had been forced to build a barrier around its people to lock them in. Nothing could have been more d.a.m.ning. One couldnat buy a better argument in favor of the free world, even if the cost was the freedom of East Berliners, and, more broadly, Eastern Europeans.

Kennedy thought of himself as a pragmatic man, and the Eastern Europeans were beyond any reasonable hope of liberation anyway.

Kennedy had little sympathy for the East Germans, and told journalist James aScottya Reston that the U.S. had given them ample time to break out of their jail, as the Berlin border had been open from the establishment of the Soviet zone after World War II to August 13, 1961.

In the first days after the Wall went up, a similar Kennedy remark reached an alarmed West German amba.s.sador, Wilhelm Grewe, and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer: aAfter all, the East Germans have had more than fifteen years to reflect on whether they wanted to stay in East Germany or go to the West.a Grewe watched and worried as this callous statement further poisoned the already toxic atmosphere with Adenauer.

aAlso,a Grewe would later recall of Kennedy, aI got the feeling that sometimes he was not absolutely sure himself whether it was appropriate to preserve a completely pa.s.sive att.i.tude at that time, or whether he should have tried a more active policy to prevent the erection of the wall.a Kennedy expressed his self-doubt with the sort of question he posed to Grewe: aWell, do you feel we should have handled this business otherwise?a The matter would occupy the president more with each dayas distance from August 13 and the greater realization that the border closure was not making relations with Khrushchev any easier.

THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW.

MID-AUGUST, 1961.

Khrushchev congratulated himself on having outmaneuvered the U.S., the British, and the French without military conflict, political backlash, or even the most modest of economic sanctions.

His son Sergei saw him initially sigh with relief after August 13, and then grow more delighted over time as he reflected upon his achievement. Had Khrushchev not acted at all, the Soviet bloc might have begun to unravel with the implosion of its westernmost outpost. With refugees bleeding out of Berlin, his enemies would have sought his head on a platter at the Party Congress, egged on by Mao.

Khrushchev also reflected later on how awar could have broken outa if he had miscalculated. He had read Kennedyas signals perfectly, which had provided a road map for his action. The only interest Kennedy had professed was in preserving West Berlinas status and access to the city, which Khrushchev had been careful not to touch. He had been confident that Kennedy would do nothing to help liberate East Germans or contest whatever the Soviets chose to do within their own zone.

Khrushchev believed he had achieved even more than he could have expected from a peace treaty. In a treaty, Kennedy would have forced him to accept language recognizing the need for German unification over time through free elections. Now he had every reason to hope that the Western commitment to the city would continue to erode, along with the morale of West Berliners, who might decide to abandon their city in droves, doubting that the Allies would continue to defend their freedoms and connection to West Germany.

Khrushchev concluded beyond any doubt that the Vienna talks had arepresented a defeata for Kennedy. The Kremlin had decided to act and athere was nothing he could doa”short of military actiona”to stop us. Kennedy was intelligent enough to know that a military clash would be senseless. Therefore the United States and its Western Allies had no choice but to swallow a bitter pill as we began to take certain unilateral steps.a In a nod to his countryas national sport, Khrushchev spoke of himself as a skilled chess player. When the U.S. ratcheted up military pressure in Berlin, he moved in Marshal Konev. aTo use the language of chess,a he said, athe Americans had advanced a p.a.w.n, so we protected our position by moving a knight.a Khrushchev enjoyed this turn of phrase, because he was also employing a play on words, as the Russian word for a knight in chess is kon, or horse, which was the root of Konevas surname. The p.a.w.n referred to Kennedyas later decision to bring Clay to Berlin.

What he was telling Kennedy, he said, was that aif you insist on holding up the s.h.i.+eld of war against us and thwarting us in our intentions, then weare ready to meet you on your own terms.a In Vienna, Khrushchev recalled, the president had argued that under the Potsdam Agreement there was only one Germany, which a peace treaty would have to recognize. Yet now he had brought about a de facto Western recognition of two Germanys in as dramatic a manner as he could have imagined.

But Khrushchev was not done yet. Throughout August, encouraged by Kennedyas inaction, the Soviet leader reinforced East German troop positions and took other actions to hammer home his victory and solidify his position ahead of his Party Congress. He launched Soviet military maneuvers on August 16 that for the first time included nuclear-tipped battlefield missiles in tactical exercises that simulated a potential war over Berlin access. So that the Kennedy administration would not miss his point, for the first time since 1936 the Soviets invited Western military attachs to observe their ground exercises.

The tactical maneuver involved a mobilized battalion of the sort operating around the Berlin Autobahn. The Soviet guide for the attachs told them the rockets were equipped with nuclear warheads. The Soviets even simulated a nuclear cloud over a hypothetical enemy position in the village of Kubinka, west of Moscow.

More dramatic yet, at the end of August, Khrushchev announced that he would break his three-year self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing. Then, two days later, the Soviet Union began new atmospheric blasts that were heard around the world from Semipalatinsk in Central Asia.

af.u.c.ked again,a President Kennedy groaned when he received the news after an afternoon nap.

On August 30, the president met with his military advisers to discuss a potential response. In a gloomy mood, his brother Bobby worried that the Russians afeel strongly that if they can break our will in Berlin that we will never be good for anything else and they will have won the battle in 1961a. Their plan is obviously not to be most popular but to be the most fearsome and terrorize the world into submission.a Bobby recalled what Chip Bohlen had said at the outset of 1961: aThis was the year that the Russians were going to come the closest to nuclear war. I donat think there is any question but that that is true.a After the meeting, when President Kennedy asked for his brotheras further thoughts, Bobby said, aI want to get off.a The president didnat understand him at first.

aGet off what?a aGet off the planet,a Bobby said.

Bobby joked he was going to discard adviser Paul Corbinas suggestion that he run against his brother in the 1964 elections. He didnat want the job.

WEST BERLIN.

WEEKEND OF AUGUST 18a”20, 1961.

It was not the first time Vice President Johnson had been displeased about an a.s.signment from the president. The mission Kennedy wanted him to accept was to lead a morale-building trip to West Berlin with General Lucius Clay. Coming just five days after the border closure, Johnson immediately saw that what the mission lacked in substance it made up for in danger.

Just a few months earlier, Kennedy had made Johnson Chancellor Adenaueras hand-holder at the LBJ ranch during the botched Bay of Pigs invasion. So when Kennedy phoned during his dinner on August 17 to make the Berlin request, Johnson had responded, aIs that necessary?a aYes, itas necessary,a Kennedy had insisted. It would send the wrong message for the president himself to rush so quickly to Berlin. He had to send a message to the world that the U.S. would not abandon West Berlin, but at the same time he didnat want to provoke a Soviet response. Kennedy could not publicly express his genuine relief that the communists had closed the border, but at the same time he didnat want to express false outrage too loudly.