“The issue over Berlin”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 49, Report by Dean Acheson, Washington, June 28, 1961.
The problem was that Ulbricht: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 97.
By the time Ulbricht marched in: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 98.
Timed to coincide with Khrushchev’s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLhYIqiJlEA; Neues Deutschland, June 16, 1961; DNSA, Summary of Walter Ulbricht’s Press Conference in East Berlin of June 15, Limited Official Use, Airgram, June 16, 1961, Berlin Crisis, BC02090.
It was Ulbricht’s first public mention: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 180.
At six o’clock that evening: Curtis Cate, The Ides of August: The Berlin Wall Crisis, 1961. New York: M. Evans, 1978, 64–65.
The term increasingly used: “Newsfronts: In Berlin ‘Torschlusspanik,’” Life, July 28, 1961, 25.
The Acheson relationship to Kennedy: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 108–109.
Acheson regarded his job: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 42, Record of Meeting of the Interdepartmental Coordinating Group on Berlin Contingency Planning, Washington, June 16, 1961; Robert Slusser, The Berlin Crisis of 1961: Soviet–American Relations and the Struggle for Power in the Kremlin, June–November 1961. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973, 29; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 138, 141.
Acheson’s hard line: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 42.
Though the men in the room: “Newsfronts: JFK’s Triple Play Against Khrushchev,” Life, July 28, 1961, 32–33; John C. Ausland and Colonel Hugh F. Richardson, “Crisis Management: Berlin, Cyprus, Laos,” Foreign Affairs, 44, no. 2 (January 1966), 291–303.
Acheson gave the group: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 141.
Before television cameras: Pravda, June 18, 1961, in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 13, no. 23 (1961), 15.
Khrushchev framed the Western refusal: Slusser, Berlin Crisis of 1961, 11–13, 18.
One after another, the Soviet Union’s: The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 13, no. 25 (1961), 4–6 (6); Slusser, Berlin Crisis of 1961, 14–17.
Even as Dean Acheson: Acheson Letter to Truman, June 24, 1961 (courtesy David Acheson); see also HSTL, Dean G. Acheson Papers, 1961, Box 161; Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 137–138; JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH.
Time magazine: “The People: The Summer of Discontent,” Time, 07/07/1961; Newsweek, 07/03/1961.
Kennedy complained to Salinger: JFKL, News Conference No. 13, Washington, D.C., June 28, 1961, 10:00 a.m., EDST; quoted in Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 188–189.
The first three paragraphs of Acheson’s: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 49, Report by Dean Acheson, Washington, June 28, 1961.
He said that the “real themes”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, 1961–1962, Doc. 52, Memo for the Record, Washington, undated, Discussion at NSC Meeting June 29, 1961.
The veteran opposed: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, 1961–1962, Doc. 52.
After the meeting, Schlesinger: John Patrick Diggins, The Liberal Persuasion: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and the Challenge of the American Past. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997, 29–31; Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Crisis of Confidence: Ideas, Power, and Violence in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969, 54, 60; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 384; JFKL, Abram Chayes OH, no. 4, July 9, 1964, 244–245, 248.
His ambassador to East Germany: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 453.
In a July 4 letter, Pervukhin: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 185; AVP-RF, Letter from Ambassador Pervukhin to Foreign Minister Gromyko sent to the Central Committee on 4 July 1961. Top secret file, Russian Foreign Ministry Archive, Fond: referentyra po GDR, Op. 6, Por 34, Pap. 46, Inv. 193/3, vol. 1, in Harrison,” Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, 55, 98–105, Appendix F.
Ulbricht had long since overcome: Yuli A. Kvitsinsky (Julij A. Kwizinskij), Vor dem Sturm: Erinnerungen eines Diplomaten, Berlin: Siedler, 1993, 175, 179.
Since Vienna, Khrushchev’s son: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, 453; Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 186, 216.
Though Ulbricht still demanded: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 505–508 (506).
Khrushchev complained that: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, 454.
She was Walter Ulbricht’s: Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, “Die schönste Frau der Welt—eine Deutsche!” Junge Welt, 07/20/1961; “Marlene Schmidt, Die Anti-Miss von 1961,” Der Spiegel, 4/30/2001.
At age twenty-four: “Marlene Schmidt, Die Anti-Miss von 1961,” Der Spiegel, 4/30/2001.
Time magazine couldn’t resist: “Universal Appeal,” Time, 7/28/1961.
Marlene’s triumph was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i9sllFNZqs.
Marlene, who was earning: Lee Rutherford, “Refugee Takes Universe Title,” Washington Post, 07/18/1961.
In the case of Marlene: “Die schönste Frau der Welt—eine Deutsche!” Junge Welt, 07/20/1961.
In 1962, she would: “Marlene Schmidt, Die Anti-Miss von 1961,” Der Spiegel, 4/30/2001.
13. “THE GREAT TESTING PLACE”
“The immediate threat”: JFKL, Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, President Kennedy, The White House, July 25, 1961: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03BerlinCrisis07251961.htm.
“Khrushchev is losing”: JFKL, Walt W. Rostow OH; Walt W. Rostow, The Diffusion of Power: An Essay in Recent History, New York: Macmillan, 1972, 231. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 394.
Mikhail Pervukhin, the Soviet Ambassador: Kvitsinsky, Vor dem Sturm, 179–180; Klaus Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer,” Der Spiegel, 08/06/2001, 71.
Years later, Khrushchev would take: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 508; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990, 169.
Khrushchev would tell the West German: Hans Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen eines Botschafters. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1967, 512, 526.
Khrushchev had agonized: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 454–455; Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen, 512, 527; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, 169.
Pervukhin told a satisfied Ulbricht: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 186; Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer,” 71; Kvitsinsky, Vor dem Sturm, 180–181.
The only way to close such a border: Kvitsinsky, Vor dem Sturm, 179–181; Central Analysis and Information Group of the Ministry for State Security (ZAIG), Protokol über die Besprechung am 07.07.1961, Top secret, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) 4899, 9; Uhl and Wagner, “Another Brick in the Wall: Reexamining Soviet and East German Policy During the 1961 Berlin Crisis: New Evidence, New Documents,” CWIHP Working Paper, published under “Storming On to Paris: The 1961 ‘Buria’ Exercise and the Planned Solution of the Berlin Crisis,” in Mastny, Holtsmark, and Wenger, War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War, 46–71; Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer,” 71.
The Soviets should not underestimate: SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/202/130, “Besondere Informationen an Genossen Walter Ulbricht,” Bd. 6, July 15, 1961; Patrick Major, Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, 110.
Having won the Pulitzer Prize: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 255–256; A. J. Langguth, Our Vietnam: The War 1954–1975. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000, 136–137.
Schlesinger was determined: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 383–384, 386–387.
When Kennedy first drafted: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 381; Chace, Acheson, 391; McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years. New York: Random House, 1988, 375–376.
On July 7, just after a lunch meeting: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Ber
lin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 57, JFKL, POF, Memo from the President’s Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President Kennedy; Under Secretary of State Bowles sent Rusk a similar memo on July 7, expressing concern about trend of U.S. thinking on Berlin; see Department of State, Central Files, 762.00/7-761.
Schlesinger had calculated: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 386.
“The Acheson premise”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 57.
At the same time, Kennedy was also hearing: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 388; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 160.
Henry Kissinger spent only a day: Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005, 110–113; W. R. Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010, 35–38.
Kissinger would complain: Henry Kissinger, White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979, 13–14.
So Kissinger put his warning: JFKL, Henry Kissinger, Memorandum for the President, Subject: Berlin, July 7, 1961, 1–2.
In a separate note to Schlesinger: W. R. Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 38; Jeremy Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, 175–176.
President Kennedy was displeased: “Kennedy Confers on Berlin Issues,” New York Times, 07/09/1961; “Kennedy to Meet 3 Aides on Berlin,” New York Times, 07/08/1961; Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 192.
It was fine to drop the ball: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 390.
The news from the Soviet Union: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Communism—Peace and Happiness for the Peoples, vol. 1, January-September 1961. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1963, 288–309, Speech at a Reception Given by the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. and the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. for Graduates of Military Academies, July 8, 1961; “Khrushchev Halts Troop Reduction; Raises Arms Fund,” “Excerpts From Khrushchev’s Address on Arms Policy,” New York Times, 07/09/1961.
Kennedy was livid: Newsweek, 07/03/1961.
Khrushchev had responded to the Newsweek: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 244; “West Is Drafting Reply to Soviet on German Issues,” New York Times, 06/30/1961, 07/01/1961, 07/05/1961, 07/14/1961; “British Envoy Tells Khrushchev Soviet Policy on Berlin Is Illegal,” New York Herald Tribune, 07/06/1961; “Matter of Fact: Khrushchev as Hitler,” Washington Post, 07/12/1961; Martin McCauley, ed., Khrushchev and Khrushchevism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987, 222.
When Rusk explained: Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 192; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 153–154.
The president then turned on: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 112.
Martin Hillenbrand, head: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 246–248; New York Times, 07/09/1961, 07/14/1961; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 752; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 153–154.
“I want the damn thing”: Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 192.
Kennedy soaked in a hot bath: Evelyn Lincoln, My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy. New York: D. McKay, 1965, 232–233, 278.
“Finally, I would like to close”: Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, July 25, 1961: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03BerlinCrisis07251961.htm.
Kennedy said to his secretary: Lincoln, My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy, 233–234.
On July 13 in the Cabinet Room: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 66, Memo of Discussion in the National Security Council, Washington, July 13, 1961, prepared by Bundy on July 24, 1961; Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 144.
Bundy had left: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 66n3, memo drafted by Bundy on military choices in Berlin planning outlining four alternatives.
The president listened: JFKL, NSF, NSC Meetings, Top Secret, prepared by Bundy on July 24, 1961, Memo of Discussion in the National Security Council; in FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 66.
Acheson had grown: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 182.
At the second key NSC: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 77, Memo of Minutes of the National Security Council Meeting, Washington, July 19, 1961, prepared by Bundy on July 25, 1961.
Ambassador Thompson wasn’t in the room: Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy. New York: HarperCollins, 1965, 589.
Kennedy told the NSC: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 180; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 257.
Just the previous day at lunch: Cate, The Ides of August, 108–111; author interview with James O’Donnell.
“For West Berlin, lying exposed”: JFKL, Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, President Kennedy, The White House, July 25, 1961: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03BerlinCrisis07251961.htm.
O’Donnell suggested an easy: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 118.
“There was an ‘Oh, my God!”: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 118; author’s interview with Karl Mautner.
The emphasis on West Berlin: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 264; New York Times, 08/03/1961; Der Tagesspiegel, 08/02/1961; Neues Deutschland, 08/02/1961; JFKL, Bundy–JFK, August 4, 1961; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 201–203.
Fulbright’s interpretation of the treaty: Ann Tusa, The Last Division: A History of Berlin, 1945–1989. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997, 257; Washington Post, 07/31/1961; New York Times, 08/03/1961.
Early in August, Kennedy: JFKL, Walt W. Rostow OH; Rostow, Diffusion of Power, 231; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 265; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 394; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 201.
On a sweltering Moscow morning: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 192–194; SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, DY, 30/3682; Uhl and Wagner, “Another Brick in the Wall,” CWIHP Working Paper, published under “Storming On to Paris,” in Mastny, Holtsmark, and Wenger, War Plans and Plliances in the Cold War, 46–71; Aleksandr Fursenko, “Kak Byla Postroena Berlinskaia Stena,” in Istoricheskie Zapiski, no. 4 (2001), 78–79.
The two men had been closely: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 377, 379–380.
“When would it be best”: Fursenko, “Kak Byla Postroena Berlinskaia Stena,” 78.
Noting that the thirteenth: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 506.
“In those homes”: Fursenko, “Kak Byla Postroena Berlinskaia Stena,” 79.
“When the border is closed”: RGANI, Khrushchev–Ulbricht, August 1, 1961, Document No. 521557, 113–146. Document and citation graciously provided by Dr. Matthias Uhl.
He even spoke nostalgically: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 502; Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev’s Secret Speech on the Berlin Crisis, August 1961,” CWIHP-B, No. 3, Fall 1993, 58–61; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 50. The conference of first secretaries of Central Committee of Communist and Workers Parties of socialist countries for exchange of views on the questions related to preparation and conclusion of German peace treaty, 3–5 August 1961 [Transcripts of the meeting were found in the miscellaneous documents of the International Department of the Central Committee, TsKhSD], 11, 142–144, 156–157.
Wismach left East Berlin: Bundesministerium für Gesamtdeutsche Fragen, ed., Die Flucht aus der Sowjetzone und die Sperrmassnahmen des kommunistischen Regimes vom 13. August 1961 in Berlin. Bonn/Berlin, 7. September 1961, vol. 2, Doc. No. 95, 81–82; Archiv Deutschlandradio. Sendung: Die Zeit im Funk, Reporter: Hans-Rudolf Vilter, RIAS-Interview mit dem nach West-Berlin geflüchteten Kurt Wismach, der Walter Ulbricht während seiner Rede im Kabelwerk Oberspree am 10. August 1961 mehrfach unterbrach, 17. August 1961: http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Index/id/631935/item/34/page/0.
14. THE WALL: SETTING THE TRAP
“The GDR had to cope”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970, 454.
“In this period”: Bernd Eisenfeld and Roger E
ngelmann, 13.8.1961: Mauerbau—Fluchtbewegung und Machtsicherung. Bremen: Temmen, 2001, 48; Behörde der Bundesbeauftragten für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der Ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (BStU), MfS, ZA, ZAIG No. 4900, Aus dem Protokoll über die Dienstbesprechung im MfS am 11. August 1961, Bl.3–6.
With only three weeks: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 187–188; Uhl and Wagner, “Another Brick in the Wall,” CWIHP Working Paper, published under “Storming On to Paris,” in Mastny, Holtsmark, and Wenger, War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War, 46–71; SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/202–65; Klaus Froh and Rüdiger Wenzke, eds., Die Generale und Admirale der NVA: Ein biographisches Handbuch. Berlin: Christoph Links, 2007, 198; Peter Wyden, Wall: The Inside Story of Divided Berlin. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989, 88.
Furious activity had filled: Cate, The Ides of August, 222.
Several hundred police: Wyden, Wall—The Inside Story of Divided Berlin, 134, 140.
From the moment that police: Eisenfeld, 13.8.1961, 49.
Ulbricht cleared the final language: William I. Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945–2002. New York: Doubleday, 2003, 218.
Without emotion, Ulbricht: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 380; AVP-RF, Pervukhin to Khrushchev, August 10, 1961, 3-64-745, p. 125; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 505.
Khrushchev received the news: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 454, 456–457.
At age sixty-three, Konev: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 382; Cate, The Ides of August, 178–182.
Near World War II’s end: Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. New York: Viking, 2002, 16.
Khrushchev had constructed the plan: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 458.
At age twenty-six, Adam Kellett-Long: Christopher Hilton, The Wall: The People’s Story. Stroud, England: Sutton, 2001, 25; Cate, The Ides of August, 236–238.
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