Kennedy

by Ted Sorensen

  To jaw, jaw, however, Kennedy had to overcome stout resistance within his own administration and within the Western Alliance; and it must be said that he never fully succeeded with either. Our diplomatic posture improved far more slowly than our military posture. The “old German hands” in the State Department were not—as some charged—loyal only to the old Dulles-Adenauer line. But in contrast to those experts on Soviet affairs who thought that at least one of Khrushchev’s chief aims was security in Eastern Europe and that new Western proposals should be put forward, they basically believed that the real Soviet aim in this situation was to destroy the Western Alliance; that any willingness to negotiate on anything other than obviously unattainable proposals was a sign of weakness; that there was nothing to negotiate about since the Soviets had no legitimate interests in Central Europe that we could concede and the West wanted no changes that the Soviets could accept; and that any revision in the old, oft-rejected “Western Peace Plan” would be regarded by the West Germans as a sellout. Thus the department was slow to respond to the President’s request for new proposals and slow to reflect his views in talking with its Allied counterparts.

  In West Germany two fears prevailed: fear that the Allies would not stand firm and fear that they would. Welcoming concessions when war threatened, said our embassy in Bonn, the West Germans would later grumble that the West could have done better. The Adenauer government —described as “deeply neurotic” by one of its American admirers, and suspicious that the new contingency plans were a weakening of nuclear resolve—had not brought the German people face to face with the realistic choices. It was a hotbed of rumors, none of them true, that the West knew of the Wall in advance, for example, or had concluded a secret pact at German expense.

  In France, General De Gaulle supported Adenauer with variations on the same theme. Unlike the German Chancellor, he saw no practical purpose in talking about reunifying the two Germanys or recovering from Poland the disputed territory east of the Oder-Neisse line. But he was convinced that Khrushchev was bluffing, that there was no real crisis, that an early showdown would prove it, that conventional forces were unnecessary and that political overtures would be harmful. Inasmuch as West Berlin was a three-power responsibility, Kennedy had proposed four-power ministerial talks when Gromyko came to New York for the UN session in September, 1961. De Gaulle objected to any such talks until the West had a new position—and he objected to any new position. The British, on the other hand, who were as uncooperative as the French on military preparations (but for different reasons), let it be known that they were only too eager to make major negotiating concessions—and this simply encouraged Khrushchev to be tougher, in Kennedy’s view.

  The President decided, therefore, that the United States would jaw, jaw on its own as a self-appointed agent for the Alliance. Theoretically we were to engage, not in “negotiations,” but in “exploratory talks to see whether serious negotiations could be undertaken.” De Gaulle opposed even this approval, and caused the first split (14 to 1) NATO communiqué in history. Adenauer was persuaded by Kennedy to give it his grudging approval, but the German Foreign Office continued to leak and then disparage each new suggestion that was put forward. Yet neither the West German nor any other ally’s response to the crisis had incurred an added military and financial burden proportionate to our own, the President often pointed out, and he had to restrain his public comments about those nations “who speak with [such] vigor now. It is not difficult to…say ‘Oh, well, you shouldn’t do this or that’…but we carry the major military burden.” Adenauer had expressed concern about the dangers of “undue optimism,” he added, but that was one danger unlikely to arise.

  Kennedy recognized that he would only encourage Khrushchev’s ambitions if the Alliance were badly split, and that he could not conclude any settlement which the West Germans were convinced was a sellout. But he was equally persuaded that failure on the diplomatic front meant a return to the military front. Between this Scylla and Charybdis he proceeded somewhat unsteadily for more than a year. “It’s not easy,” he candidly told his news conference.

  The United States is attempting to carry on negotiations for several powers. All of them have different ideas how it ought to be done, and we have to…present a position which has some hope of working out…. There is daily consultation…but…it takes a long time…. [The] necessity to debate these matters publicly…even before they become our official position…makes it very difficult to carry on any negotiations with the Soviet Union.

  Yet the talks were carried on—in New York, Moscow, Geneva and Washington, in meetings between Rusk and Gromyko, Thompson and Gromyko, Rusk and Dobrynin, and Kennedy and Gromyko. Proposals were discussed in the Kennedy-Khrushchev letters and in Kennedy’s meetings with Adzhubei. But no real progress was made. With all the overlapping U.S. and Allied machinery bogged down in disagreement and detail, few initiatives were forthcoming. Many of those came from the White House or from outside advisers such as Acheson; and even these, the President thought, were dissipated or discounted by the time they had gone through the bureaucratic and inter-Allied mills. Objections, amendments, delays and referrals to one group or another seemed to block every proposed plan and nearly every Soviet-American meeting. If the White House and State Department agreed, one or more Allies disagreed; and if all were agreed, the Soviets disagreed. Indeed, one of the most useful lessons to Kennedy in the entire episode was the folly of pressing upon the Germans and other Allies solutions which were not really negotiable anyway.

  The talks nevertheless served the purpose of defining the U.S. position more precisely, making clear what we would and would not fight for or talk about. By stressing that his essential objectives were carefully limited, Kennedy thereby stressed that his commitment to defend them was unlimited. Our real concern, he indicated to the annoyance of Adenauer and the “hard-line” diplomats, was the continuation of our access and other rights—not whether the Soviets signed a treaty with a regime of their own creation, not whether Russian or East German sentries stamped Western papers on the Autobahn, and not even whether East Germans were represented at the conference table or in an International Access Authority. Nor would he close his eyes to the facts of life that would keep Germany divided for some years to come, the Ulbricht regime in control in the East, its present Eastern boundaries permanent, and Eastern Europe in fear of German military might, particularly nuclear weapons. He was willing to curtail certain of the American “irritant” activities within West Berlin which were in fact nonessential. He was willing to recognize the historic and legitimate interests of the nations of Eastern Europe in preventing future German aggressions. Could an accommodation within this framework obtain a detailed written guarantee of freedom in and access to West Berlin, thus improving our position? he asked. “We are committed to no rigid formula…. We see no perfect solution.”

  Rusk, with a professional preference for four-power ministerial meetings, had initially been undecided about meeting the Soviets alone on this issue. But once he started he tirelessly and skillfully demonstrated the value of using prolonged discussions to avert deadlines and disaster. In three autumn, 1961, talks with Gromyko in New York, he stressed that the West would not sign an agreement giving concessions in exchange for nothing more than its present ill-defined rights. “That,” he said, “would be buying the same horse twice.” Kennedy, in his subsequent talk with Gromyko, added his own metaphor: “You have offered to trade us an apple for an orchard. We don’t do that in this country.” Khrushchev, no slouch at figures of speech himself, complained later in a letter that West Berlin for him was not an orchard but a weed of burr and nettle.

  Berlin was the principal topic of the Kennedy-Khrushchev letters. The initiation of the correspondence in September, 1961, helped cool off the crisis; and while Khrushchev’s subsequent letters on the subject fluctuated in tone, the President always managed to find some passage with which he could associate himself to keep the Chairman’s hopes ali
ve. He wrote Khrushchev that an East German peace treaty, by convincing the West German people that peaceful reunification was impossible, might well give rise to the very kind of nationalism and tension that Khrushchev most feared. He pointed out the discrepancy between Khrushchev’s stated wish not to exacerbate the situation and Ulbricht’s savage bluster. He asked the Soviet Chairman to be as realistic in recognizing the West’s continued presence in West Berlin as Khrushchev wanted him to be in recognizing that no all-Berlin or all-German solution was immediately possible.

  During 1961-1962 the President interested himself in a variety of negotiating proposals: an updated version of the 1959 “Western Peace Plan,” adjudication by the World Court, an all-Berlin free city, parallel Western and Communist peace conferences, a five-to-ten-year modus vivendi, the use of Berlin as a UN headquarters, a Central European security plan, an International Access Authority, a ten-point mutual declaration and others. Most failed to survive copious Allied study and deliberate French and German leaks. The result, as Prime Minister Macmillan commented to him, was that he had little that was specific to offer the Russians, “hardly the soup course and none of the fish.” The Germans, prodded by De Gaulle, became angry all over again in the spring of 1962, wrongfully charging that the Americans were not reporting all their proposals and complaining about those that were reported. Our error, JFK later acknowledged, was in trying to push the Germans to accept ideas in which he could not interest Khrushchev anyway.

  Nevertheless the contacts and exchanges continued. Kennedy often likened the problem to that of Austria, where several years of fruitless bargaining had suddenly produced a Soviet-Western agreement after Khrushchev took over. But even in 1963, after the Cuban missile crisis and the nuclear Test Ban Treaty had helped change the bargaining atmosphere, no agreement was reached or in sight. Khrushchev did, however, remove his pressure and halt his threats; and the President believed that our demonstrated willingness to talk—by holding out the possibility of a reasonable settlement, by treating the Soviet Union as a great power and by making clear to the world that the intransigence was not on our side—had contributed in its own way to the peaceful defense of West Berlin. “Jaw, jaw” for its own sake had been helpful and effective, and Kennedy was not pushing for any new solutions now that the pressure was off.

  In 1963 the Wall was still there, but the East Germans had initiated proposals for openings in exchange for trade. West Berlin was still a city in danger, an island of freedom and prosperity deep within imprisoned East Germany. And incidents still occurred—including an unseemly squabble in the fall of 1963 over whether Western troops at the Autobahn checkpoints needed to dismount or lower their truck tailgates to be counted. But access to West Berlin remained free—West Berlin remained free—and neither a devastating nuclear war, nor a collapse of the Western Alliance, nor a one-sided treaty of peace had taken place as once feared. “I think [the Communists] realize,” said President Kennedy, “that West Berlin is a vital interest to us…and that we are going to stay there.”

  The West Berliners also realized it. They gave John Kennedy the most overwhelming reception of his career on the twenty-sixth of June, 1963. The size of the crowd, their shouts and the look of hope and gratitude in their eyes moved some in our party to tears—even before we surveyed the Wall. The President—who would later remark that his trip had given him a far deeper understanding of the necessity of ultimate reunification—was moved to extemporaneous eloquence. “When I leave tonight,” he told a trade union conference, “the United States stays.” “You are now their hostages,” he said to the American troops stationed in the city, “you are…the arrowhead.” And at a luncheon given by Mayor Brandt at Berlin City Hall, he offered a toast “to the German people on both sides of the Wall [and] to the cause of freedom on both sides of the Wall.”

  It was on the platform outside that City Hall—from where I could see only a sea of human faces chanting “Kenne-dy,” “Kenne-dy” as far as my vision could reach—that he delivered one of his most inspired and inspiring talks:

  Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was “Civis Ro-manus sum.” Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

  There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’ t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin…. And there are even a few who say that it is true that Communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. “Lasst sie nach Berlin kommen.”

  Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in….

  We…look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one—and this country, and this great continent of Europe—in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.

  All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

  As we departed that evening to fly over East Germany to Ireland, the President was glowing from his reception. It would make all Americans recognize that their efforts and risks had been appreciated, he said. He would leave a note to his successor, “to be opened at a time of some discouragement,” and in it he would write three words: “Go to Germany.”

  He came into the cabin of “Air Force One” with a look of pride and pleasure that reflected more, I believe, than that day’s tributes. It reflected satisfaction that he had done what had to be done, despite dangers and detractors, to keep that city free. As he sat down across from me, weary but happy, he said, “Well never have another day like this one as long as we live.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE ARROWS

  OF ALL the Churchill phrases John Kennedy liked to quote, his favorite was: “We arm to parley.” Kennedy believed in arming the United States to provide bargaining power and backing for disarmament talks and diplomacy. He also believed in 1961 that urgent steps were required to make certain that “our arms are sufficient beyond doubt.”

  His task was made more difficult by the fact that his predecessor was a justly renowned general who believed that our arms were sufficient beyond doubt. “I’ve spent my life in this,” President Eisenhower had snapped in answer to a 1960 press conference question on defense, “and I know more about it than almost anybody, I think, in the country…. Defense has been handled well and efficiently.” Later, in 1963, complaining of Kennedy’s large military expenditure increases, he would declare that “the defense budget I left behind provided amply for our security.”

  But John Kennedy had a different view. As a student author in 1940 he had written: “We must always keep our armaments equal to our commitments.” As a Senator in the 1950’s he had grave doubts that we had done so, and had strongly opposed the “New Look” weakening of Army manpower and the overreliance on “massive retaliation.” As a candidate in 1960 he had repeatedly called for strengthening our nuclear and conventional forces. As President-elect he fired off a list of questions to his new Secretary of Defense following our late December, 1960, budget and program review:

  Should there be a supplemental Defense Budget…additional funds now for Polaris, Minuteman and Atlas missiles… an air alert…continental defense…modernization of conventional forces…airlift capabilities…?

  [We] will have to undertake a basic re-evaluation of our defense strategy, targets and capability…the place of manned aircraft…aircraft carriers…present troop strength…bases abroad…the overlapping of services and missions…the coordination of intelligence functions…command and control systems, particularly with regard to the authority to use nuclear weapons…the role of the Reserves and the National Guard…

  At the same time he gave McNamara his
first basic policy change: “Under no circumstances should we allow a predetermined arbitrary financial limit to establish either strategy or force levels.” Our strategy was to be determined by the objectives of our foreign policy. Our force levels were to be determined by the necessities of our safety and commitments. His Budget Director and White House aides were to work with McNamara on providing whatever had to be provided at the lowest possible cost. “Like any other investment,” Kennedy had said of defense spending in 1960, “it will be a gamble with our money. But the alternative is to gamble with our lives.”

  Less than a week after the new administration had come into office, McNamara reported to the Cabinet and then in detail to the President what he had found in the Pentagon:

  1. A strategy of massive nuclear retaliation as the answer to all military and political aggression, a strategy believed by few of our friends and none of our enemies and resulting in serious weaknesses in our conventional forces.

  2. A financial ceiling on national security, making military strategy the stepchild of a predetermined budget.

  3. A strategic nuclear force vulnerable to surprise missile attack, a nonnuclear force weak in combat-ready divisions, in airlift capacity and in tactical air support, a counterinsurgency force for all practical purposes nonexistent, and a weapons inventory completely lacking in certain major elements but far oversupplied in others.

  4. Too many automatic decisions made in advance instead of in the light of an actual emergency, and too few Pentagon-wide plans for each kind of contingency. The Army was relying on airlift the Air Force could not supply. The Air Force was stockpiling supplies for a war lasting a few days while the Army stockpiles assumed a war of two years.