Part 20 (2/2)

Johnson grew all the more reluctant to make the trip when he learned that part of his mission would be to receive a battle group of 1,500 soldiers in West Berlin, troops who would storm up the Autobahn from Helmstedt, West Germany, to reinforce the 12,000 Allied troops who were already there. Though their paltry numbers might do little to defend Berliners, LBJ knew their arrival would be fraught with risk.

aWhy me?a he asked Kennedyas aide Kenny OaDonnell. aThereall be a lot of shooting and Iall be in the middle of it.a After some coaxing, the vice president took on the mission with a more willing Clay.

During their overnight flight on August 18 on an Air Force Boeing 707, Clay regaled Johnson with stories of his own Berlin heroics back in 1948. He told Johnson he had converted President Truman to that operation, which Clay had begun single-handedly. What he had learned, Clay told Johnson, was that the only way to deal with the Soviets was to stand up to them.

He would tear down the Wall if he were president, he told Johnson. He believed the Korean War might have been avoided if the U.S. had shown the Soviets it was willing to be more aggressive even earlier in Berlin, when Truman had at first refused to allow Clay to bring an armored column down the Autobahn to demonstrate American commitment.

Nothing could have demonstrated just how eager West Berliners were for U.S. rea.s.surance than Johnson and Clayas joyous reception at Tempelhof Airport, once the stage for the Berlin Airlift. Here they were, a largely powerless vice president and a retired general who commanded no troops, but a police band played aThe Star-Spangled Banner,a seven U.S. tanks fired a salute, and 100,000 Berliners shouted their approval.

To keep Johnson on message, the White House had scripted every word he would speak publicly with the usual Kennedy poetry. aDivided, you have never been dismayed,a Johnson told Berliners. aThreatened, you have never faltered. Challenged, you have never weakened. Today, in a new crisis, your courage brings hope to all who cherish freedom and is a ma.s.sive and majestic barrier to the ambitions of tyrants.a Speaking to the West Berlin city Senate later in the day, Johnson said, aTo the survival and creative future of this city we Americans have pledged, in effect, what our ancestors pledged in forming the United States: aOur lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.a These are the final words of our Declaration of Independence.a His words electrified a city that had been drained of its energy since August 13. The crowd of 300,000 gathered on the square before City Hall were the same Berliners who had stood depressed and angry just three days earlier before Brandt. Now many of them wept for joy. Even Clay could not hold back tears.

As Johnson made his way from appointment to appointment, he turned from reluctant traveler to eager campaigner, often climbing out of his car to bathe in the glow of an adoring crowd. The intermittent rain could not dissuade him or tens of thousands of West Berliners, whose mood reminded New York Times correspondent Sydney Gruson of what he had witnessed during the triumphant liberation of Paris at the end of World War II.

aThe city was like a boxer who had thrown off a heavy punch and was gathering stamina for another rounda.a he wrote. aThe Vice President said nothing essentially new. That did not seem to matter. The West Berliners wanted the words said at this time in their city and, above all, they wanted his presence as a tangible expression of the link that sustains them.a Johnson elicited a huge roar from the crowd when he said the men of the 18th Infantry, 1st Battle Group, were already rolling up the Autobahn to reinforce West Berlinas garrison.

For Kennedy, the troop deployment was the first moment during the Berlin Crisis when he feared a violent exchange. Though the U.S. contingent was small, he had told White House special counsel Ted Sorensen that he saw the troops as aour hostage to that intenta of U.S. commitment to defend West Berlin.

Kennedy had postponed his usual weekend retreat to Hyannis Port in order to receive reports every twenty minutes during the night as the troops rolled toward Berlin. The Pentagon demanded to have every detail of the planned mission in advance, including each and every rest stop the soldiers would use to relieve themselves on the Autobahn as they drove through East German territory to West Berlin.

Kennedyas military advisers, Joint Chiefs chairman Lyman Lemnitzer and White House military aide Maxwell Taylor, had opposed sending the reinforcements. British Prime Minister Macmillan considered the gesture politically provocative and military anonsense.a General Bruce C. Clarke, the sixty-year-old commander of U.S. forces in Europe, who had helped swing World War IIas Battle of the Bulge in Americaas favor, also didnat like the looks of it.

The operationas commander, Colonel Glover S. Johns Jr., was a proud Texan himself, a former commandant of the Virginia Military Inst.i.tute and decorated World War II combat commander. Tall, blond, German-speaking, and with a flair for the theatrical, Johns knew his mission had no military value and posed considerable risk. Kennedy had handpicked him because he had heard this was a man who would not lose his cool commanding a small battle group of 1,500 through hostile terrain surrounded by at least a quarter of a million Soviet soldiers.

For all the details his superiors had demanded, none of them had said how Johns should respond if he was fired upon. Without any specific instructions about what weaponry to carry, he had decided himself what to put in the ammunition boxes of each vehicle. As was his habit, Johns also carried his own antique Colt pistol. If hostilities did start, Johns knew, awe were in for certain destruction.a If the Soviets didnat want them heading up the Autobahn, they would be like lambs heading for slaughter.

While Johns was working out his defense plan, Johnson was working on his footwear. Johnson looked down at Brandtas fas.h.i.+onable loafers and issued a challenge to the mayor while the two men toured Berlin in an open Mercedes convertible, standing and waving at crowds. aYouave been asking us for action instead of words,a he said. aIad like to see whether you can act, too.a He pointed to the shoes. aWhere do you get a pair like that?a he asked.

aI can get a pair like that for you right here in Berlin,a said Brandt, reckoning Berlinas defense was worth a pair of shoes for Americaas vice president.

Shortly after noon on Sat.u.r.day, August 19, the U.S. emba.s.sy in Bonn reached General Bruce Clarke in Heidelberg and informed him that Vice President Johnson would be leaving for home from Berlin at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, whether or not U.S. troop reinforcements had arrived in the city. Clarke protested angrily through his Berlin commander to Was.h.i.+ngton that Johns and his men could not risk so much if Johnson would not even stay in place to greet them.

National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy phoned Clarke on Sat.u.r.day night at 7:00 p.m. aGeneral, I understand youare chewing out everybody in sight because youare not happy with the vice president leaving before the troops get in.a aThat puts it mildly, Mr. Bundy,a replied Clarke. aThe men will go all-out to get there to be received by the vice president.a He couldnat imagine anything Johnson had to do in Was.h.i.+ngton that was more important athan to be receiving the troops with all the world watching.a Clarke knew nothing of Johnsonas concerns about the possible dangers.

aWhat time are you going to have all the men in Berlin?a asked Bundy.

Clarke shot back, aIf I could guarantee that, we wouldnat be having a crisis, would we? Who can say where we may get stopped?a Bundy replied, aGeneral, Iall see what we can do.a At 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 20a”6:30 a.m. in the White Housea”and just a week after the border was closed, the first sixty trucks carrying the American soldiers crossed into Berlin without incident. Khrushchev had stood by his commitment not to impede Allied access, aside from a three-hour delay at a checkpoint while Soviet troops head-counted the number of troops who were entering Berlin.

West Berliners greeted Johnsas men like conquering gladiators; thousands waited along bridges and roads. A few hundred Berliners stood with Vice President Johnson, who had opted to delay his departure, at the U.S. checkpoint at Dreilinden, where the Autobahn entered West Berlin. Flowers rained upon them from all directions, surprising and delighting the weary soldiers in their soiled vehicles and battle dress.

Colonel Johns had never seen anything like it, awith the possible exception of the liberation of France.a Johnsas men had been on the road for four days without relief, having been pulled from field maneuvers in West Germany since they were the only fully equipped battle group that was capable of getting to Berlin with such speed. Even as they cruised through a city of cheers, many slept off their exhaustion.

The Soviet response was muted. The Kremlin dismissed the reinforcement as being of ano military significance,a and said it merely put more men ain West Berlinas mousetrap.a An article in Pravda signed aObserveraa”which denoted a commentary reflecting Soviet government opiniona”said it was aa provocation that cannot be ignored.a Among the troops stationed in Berlin who watched the show, Military Police Lieutenant Vern Pike was displeased, but for another reason. Like most U.S. soldiers in Berlin, he thought Kennedy and Johnson could have simply pushed the Wall down before it was built without the Sovietsa doing much more than whimpering in retreat.

aJohnson was a joke, a total joke,a he said. aAll he wanted was to see the crowd.a As for the arriving battle group, Pike considered it aa rotten lousy outfita that was little fit for battle but acted arrogantly toward the troops who had been in place for so long. When the new arrivals came to stay in Roosevelt Barracks, they rubbed the long-resident soldiers the wrong way, claiming they had been sent to rescue them after their failure to stop the border closure.

aWe took offense to that,a said Pike, aas they were only going to be here for ninety days, then they would be rotated out. We didnat need saving, and we knew they were only in Berlin for symbolic reasons.a Worse, Johnsas unit was adrunk and disorderly, caught fighting, resisting arrest.a However, Berliners knew only that America had finally shown its colors. Seldom had so many so loudly celebrated so little rescue. Pike thought it was a measure of Berlinersa despair that they would so loudly cheer so modest a gesture.

Johnson stayed clear of East Berlin during his stay, wanting to avoid either provoking Moscow or inciting a crowd. But after General Clay quietly toured the amputated Soviet part of the city, Clay declared East Berlin to be aan armed campa with a population that looked atotally oppressed.a For all the historic moment, Johnson didnat lose sight of his missionas other purpose: shopping.

At 5:30 on Sunday morning, his State Department escort Lucian Heichler woke Johnsonas valet to get the vice presidentas shoe size so that Brandt could produce the shoes that he had wanted. Because Johnson had feet of two different sizes, which required him to wear handmade shoes, Brandtas people had a Leiser shoe-shop owner send twenty different pairs over to Johnson. From them, he picked two pairs that fit the bill.

On Sunday afternoon, a famous Berlin porcelain maker, the Knigliche Porzellan-Manufaktur, opened its showroom at Johnsonas request because he had admired the china at w.i.l.l.y Brandtas official City Hall dinner the night before. He had told the mayor he wanted a set for his new vice presidential residence, a mansion called athe Elmsa that he had purchased in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

They showed the vice president one set after another, but he protested that they were all too expensive for him. He wondered whether they had any aseconds.a With his American escort, Heichler, looking for a hole to crawl into, Deputy Mayor Franz Amrehn saved the day by announcing, aThe Senate and people of Berlin want to give you this as a present.a Replied Johnson, aOh, well, in that caseaa The vice president then picked the fanciest china he could find, thirty-six place settings in all, and then arranged for his office to send the vice presidential insignia to be painted on every plate, saucer, cup, and bowl.

Shopping aside, Johnson had been infected by Berlinas spirit. In a report marked SECRET, he wrote to Kennedy: I returned from Germany with new pride in Americaas leaders.h.i.+p but with an unprecedented awareness of the responsibility which rests upon this country. The world expects so much from us, and we must measure up to the need, even while we seek more help from our allies. For if we fail or falter or default, all is lost, and freedom may never have a second chance.

With that, an order for thirty-six place settings of china, and two pairs of shoes, and having safely seen 1,500 more troops land in Berlin, Johnson returned home.

EAST BERLIN.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1961.

Ulbricht was too busy consolidating his victory to engage in self-congratulation.

His determination to change Berlinas status, which at the beginning of 1961 had neither Soviet approval nor means of execution, had been accomplished more successfully than he could have hoped. He had played a bad hand with enormous skill, and now he hoped to press his advantage.

On August 22, Ulbricht announced publicly that he would establish a no-manas-land that would stretch for a hundred meters on both sides of the Berlin Wall. East German authorities, without Soviet approval, declared they would shoot West Berliners if they strayed into the buffer zone that very soon would be known to them as athe death strip.a Swelling with confidence, the following day Ulbricht shrugged off objections from Soviet Amba.s.sador Pervukhin and also reduced crossing points that Westerners could use from seven to only one, Checkpoint Charlie at Friedrichstra.s.se.

Two days later, Pervukhin and Konev summoned Ulbricht to reprimand him for these unilateral measures. The Soviets, Pervukhin said, could not accept the concept of a no-manas-land running into West Berlin territory, which acould lead to a clash between the GDR police and the forces of the Western powers.a So Ulbricht reversed those orders, protesting to his Soviet counterparts that he had ano intention of interferinga in West Berlin affairs. It was an easy compromise to make, as he had won more rights over Berlin than he had dared imagine at the beginning of the year. However, he refused to back off his decision to reduce the Western crossing points to just one.

As would happen so often in 1961, the Soviets ceded the point to Ulbricht.

TEMPELHOF AIRPORT, WEST BERLIN.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1961.

Chancellor Adenauer finally surfaced in Berlin, but only ten days after the communists had shut down the Berlin border, and after Vice President Johnson and General Clay had safely left town. Only a few hundred people cheered Adenauer when he landed at Tempelhof Airport, and perhaps only another 2,000 awaited him when he arrived for a visit to the Marienfelde refugee camp.

Many West Berliners demonstratively turned away from him as he drove through the city. Others held signs that criticized how he had handled the crisis. One typical placard read SIE KOMMEN ZU SP”Ta”aYouave come too late.a Another said sarcastically, HURRAH, THE SAVIOR HAS COME. At Marienfelde and elsewhere, the signs suggested voters would punish him for his weak response to the border closure.

When he viewed the wall at spots along the border, the Ulbricht regime taunted him from the eastern side from a loudspeaker truck, comparing him to Adolf Hitler while pointing a high-pressure water hose in his direction. At another spot along the way, however, older East Germans wept and cheered as they waved white handkerchiefs by way of greeting.

<script>