75. CIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, August 17, 1961, in Donald P. Steury, ed., On the Front Lines of the Cold War: Documents on the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946 to 1961, CIA History Staff (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999).
76. Pervukhin, Konev, Chuikov to Khrushchev, August 10–12, 1961, 1961, 3-64-745, pp. 133–35, APRF.
77. Harrison, op. cit., p. 205.
78. www.wall-berlin.org, German Historical Museum (Berlin) Web site (accessed June 17, 2003).
79. Ulbricht gave this account to Khrushchev at their November 1961 meeting, NSK and Ulbricht, November 2, 1961, APRF.
80. Marshal Konev and General Ariko to NSK, August 13, 1961, 3-65-745, pp. 140–41, APRF. They also reported that the East German police had handled themselves well and that the majority of the people had accepted the measures.
81. Bundy, op. cit., p. 398.
82. Sorensen, op. cit., p. 593. On August 18, Kennedy formally announced that the U.S. government would not use force to tear down the wall. Chace, op. cit., pp. 393–94.
83. Dallek, op. cit., p. 426; After Joseph Alsop explained the utility of the wall in his column, Kennedy sent him a handwritten note saying privately how he agreed. Alsop with Adam Platt, “I’ve Seen the Best of It”: Memoirs (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 446.
84. Dallek, op. cit., pp. 425–27. See also Sorensen, op. cit., pp. 593–95.
85. Ann Tusa, The Last Division: A History of Berlin, 1945–1989 (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997), pp. 282–86; Murphy et al., op. cit., pp. 378–81.
86. The CIA reported Adenauer’s announcement. Donald P. Steury, ed., On the Front Lines of the Cold War, loc. cit., Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, August 17, 1961, pp. 525–26.
87. Ibid., p. 530.
88. Schecter, ed., Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, loc. cit., p. 170.
89. Seymour Topping, “Russia Exhibits Atomic Infantry,” New York Times, August 18, 1961.
90. Gromyko and Malinovsky to the Central Committee, July 7, 1962 (this report recounts the events of 1961), 0742, 7/28/54, pp. 10–13, MFA.
91. Ulbricht to Khrushchev, October 31, 1961, APRF. In this letter Ulbricht rehearsed the story of the August decision. Pervukhin had opposed the idea of reducing the number of access points, but Ulbricht did it anyway.
92. Gromyko and Malinovsky to the Central Committee, July 7, 1962, 0742, 7/28/54, pp. 10–13, MFA. In mid-1962 Ulbricht again tried to get a security zone, and the Soviets again said no.
93. A few days later Khrushchev recalled these words for Ulbricht. Memcon, NSK and Ulbricht, August 1, 1961, APRF.
94. See letter, NSK to JFK, November 9, 1961, FRUS, vol. 6, pp. 45–57.
95. Acheson to Truman, September 21, 1961, Harry S. Truman Library. The authors are grateful to archivist Randy Somell for turning up this document.
96. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1965), p. 397.
97. Ibid., pp. 397–98.
CHAPTER 16: “THE STORM IN BERLIN IS OVER”
1. Robert M. 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), pp. 190–210; Cyrus Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p. 786.
2. Editorial note, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS], 1961–1963, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993), vol. 14, p. 387.
3. Rusk to Kennan, August 14, 1961, reproduced in Rolf Steininger, Der Mauerbau: Die Westmächte und Adenauer in der Berlinkrise 1958–1963 (Munich: Olzog, 2001), pp. 267–68.
4. John Kennedy believed Spaak had shown “great courage and restraint” in reversing Belgium’s support for Moise Tshombe and Katangan separatism in the Congo. Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 637.
5. Memcon, Deputy Soviet Foreign Minister Nikolai Firyubin and Polish Ambassador Yastuka, July 29, 1961, 7/5/14, 0570, MFA. The Poles asked for this meeting with the Soviet Foreign Ministry in Moscow to report on feelers from the Belgians on West Berlin. Initially a Belgian official named Lambiotte approached the Polish Embassy in Brussels. Then Spaak himself went directly to the Polish Embassy to outline his ideas on a possible settlement. He was the first former NATO official to indicate support for a free West Berlin.
6. Ernest May, Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), p. 325.
7. “Talk with Khrushchev encourages Reynaud,” New York Times, September 16, 1961, “M. Paul Reynaud: M. Khrushchev a jugé en homme d’Etat la Vraie Valeur du Problème de Berlin,” Le Monde, September 19, 1961.
8. May, op. cit., p. 337.
9. Steno, May 26, 1961, AOK. The one bright spot in the July 20 report from the KGB was that though NATO seemed unified, the Europeans were far less committed to using force to defend the access routes to West Berlin than were the Americans. Shelepin to NSK, July 20, 1961, APRF.
10. Memcon, Kuznetsov, meeting with Kroll, 3-64-746, August 29, 1961, APRF.
11. Ibid.
12. Sulzberger, op. cit., pp. 801–02.
13. This presidential initiative most likely preceded Washington’s receipt of Khrushchev’s private note. Sulzberger managed to mail his note to Kennedy only on September 10. Editorial note, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, pp. 401–2.
14. See National Security Action Memorandum 92, September 8, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, pp. 398–99.
15. Memo, Maxwell Taylor to JFK, September 8, 1961, ibid., vol. 7, pp. 168–70.
16. Rusk to Thompson, September 3, 1961, ibid., vol. 14, pp. 388–89.
17. Thompson to Rusk, September 7, 1961, ibid., pp. 394–95.
18. Memo, JFK to Dean Rusk, September 12, 1961, ibid., pp. 402–3.
19. Hugh Sidey, John F. Kennedy, President (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1964), p. 178.
20. JFK to Rusk, Berlin negotiations, September 12, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, p. 402.
21. See the daily reports from the Ministry of Defense (signed by Malinovsky and Zakharov) to the Central Committee, September 15 and 16, 1961, Fond 89, Microfilm, Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Palo Alto, CA. For the response of the Soviet command in Germany, see the speech from early October 1961, probably given by Marshal Konev, to the Communist Party leadership in the military, Fond 89, Microfilm, Hoover. At his meeting with Reynaud on September 16, Khrushchev asked, “Do you think the West Germans want war?” Moscow (Dejean) to Paris, September 16, 1961, DDF, no. 111, 1961, vol. 11.
22. Walter Lippmann, “Nuclear Diplomacy,” New York Herald Tribune, September 14, 1961.
23. Moscow (Dejean) to Paris, September 16, 1961, DDF, no. 111, 1961, vol. 11.
24. Moscow (Dejean) to Paris, September 16, 1961, DDF, no. 111, 1961, vol. 11 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1998).
25. Memcon, Firoubina meeting with Polish Ambassador Yastuka, July 29, 1961, 7/5/14, MFA.
26. Paul-Henri Spaak, Combats inachevés: De l’espoir aux deceptions (Paris: Inyard, 1969), vol. 2, pp. 334–42. Although providing a good account of his trip to Moscow, Spaak left out of his memoir his July initiatives via the Poles. Instead he claimed that Khrushchev called on him in August because as NATO secretary-general he had had a good relationship with the Soviet ambassador in Paris, Sergei Vinogradov.
27. “M. Paul Reynaud: M. Khrouchtchev a jugé en homme d’Etat la Vraie Valeur du Problème de Berlin,” Le Monde, September 19, 1961; Seymour Topping, “Moscow Suggests the U.N. Be Moved to West Berlin,” New York Times, September 20, 1961.
28. Memcon, Allen Dulles, August 22, 1961, NSF, Box 82, “Germany Berlin—General 8/22/61,” JFK Library. Eisenhower had recounted this story to Dulles at a Berlin briefing on August 20 organized by the Kennedy administration.
29. Sydney Gruson, “Spaak Says Soviet Backs Wide Talks with No Deadline,” New York Times, September 25, 1961; Spaak, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 338.
30. Telegram from DOS to Paris, summarizing September 21 Rusk and Gromyko conversation, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, pp. 431–33.
31. Gromyko to Central Committee, October 22, 1961, cited in Hope M. Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet–East German Relations 1953–1961 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 209.
32. See Chen Yi meetings with Gromyko, July 5 and 6, 1961, 0570, 7/5/14, pp. 157–71, MFA.
33. Memcon, Chen Yi and Gromyko, July 5, 1961, 0570, 7/5/14, MFA.
34. These instructions were sent to the Soviet ambassador to North Vietnam, Suren Tovmasyan. See Hanoi (Ambassador Tovmasyan) to Moscow, November 14, 1961, report on meeting called at the request of the North Vietnamese in Hanoi, September 22–25, 1961, 0570 7/5/15, MFA.
35. Ibid.
36. Assistance requested by royal government and Pathet Lao—last half of 1961 and 1962, 0570, 7/5/15, pp. 132–59, MFA. The Pathet Lao’s declared size was 8,100 men in Laos, with 400 legally in training in North Vietnam. In fact, in addition to those men, the Pathet Lao had a secret army of 13,324, with 1,100 Lao fighters in training in North Vietnam.
37. Ibid.
38. See Hanoi (Ambassador Suren Tovmasyan) to Moscow, November 14, 1961, report on meeting called at the request of the North Vietnamese in Hanoi, September 22–25, 1961, 0570, 7/5/15, MFA. The North Vietnamese were not merely lying to Souvanna Phouma but were preventing much of the Soviet aid from reaching the Pathet Lao. To weaken the Pathet Lao’s support for Moscow, the Vietnamese military switched Soviet rifles for 1903 U.S. Enfield rifles that they had picked up in the field at the end of World War II. The Pathet Lao had no idea that the rusty, old weapons they were receiving were war booty. Presumably the Vietnamese shipped the better Soviet weapons south to assist the insurgency in South Vietnam. At the September conference it seemed to the Soviets that the Chinese had stage-managed the Lao and North Vietnamese presentations. But in the end, once Moscow promised to continue some assistance to the Pathet Lao, the Chinese chose to show solidarity with the Soviets, despite their fundamental disagreement over tactics.
39. Regarding this activity, see cable, Havana (Alekseyev) to Moscow, July 19, 1961, SVR; cable, Havana (Alekseyev) to Moscow, July 22, 1961, SVR. Regarding the letter, Castro to NSK, September 4, 1961, 3-65-872, pp. 136–38, APRF.
40. The Cubans requested eight divisions of surface-to-air missiles (a total of 360 SA-2 missiles), 412 tanks, 100 transports, and 282 Zenith cannons.
41. The only assistance agreed to in late 1961 were four antitorpedo and antisubmarine devices sent aboard the ship Tbilisi. Cable, Alekseyev to Moscow, January 21, 1962, SVR.
42. Cable, Alekseyev to Moscow, November 11, 1961, SVR.
43. NSK to Ulbricht, September 28, 1961, SED Archives, Hope Harrison, trans., “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose’: New Archival Evidence on the Dynamics of Soviet–East German Relations and the Berlin Crisis, 1958–1961,” CWIHP, Working Paper No. 5.
44. Elie Abel Oral History, March 18, 1970, pp. 3–4, JFK Library. Abel had been offered a job as Pentagon press secretary in January but had turned it down to earn a little money for his family. His relations had nevertheless remained close. See Elie Abel, “Kennedy after 8 Months Is Tempered by Adversity,” Detroit News, September 23, 1961.
45. Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966), p. 191.
46. Cited in Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), p. 431.
47. Address in New York City before the General Assembly of the United Nations, September 25, 1961, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, January 20 to December 31, 1961 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962), p. 625. Dallek, op. cit., p. 431.
48. Memcon, JFK and Taylor, September 18, 1961, FRUS, vol. 14, pp. 428–29.
49. NSK to JFK, September 29, 1961, ibid., vol. 6, pp. 25–38.
50. JFK to NSK, October 16, 1961, ibid., pp. 38–44.
51. The extent of KGB reporting in the fall of 1961 is unknown. The GRU seemed to have better-placed informants.
52. Bolshakov meeting with source, October 8, 1961, Bolshakov German Question summaries (May 21, 1961–April 13, 1962), GRU.
53. For an insightful summary of actual French policy in the Berlin crisis, see Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 267–74.
54. Bolshakov meeting with source, October 21, 1961, Bolshakov German Question summaries (May 21, 1961—April 13, 1962), GRU.
55. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in White House, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), p. 400.
56. Slusser, op. cit., p. 342.
57. Moscow sent a high-level delegation to attend the GDR’s twelfth anniversary celebrations, October 5–8, but there is no evidence that any warning was given at that time. Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, loc. cit., p. 210. Ulbricht’s behavior at his November 2 meeting with Khrushchev indicates that he was not warned.
58. Allen Lightner to DOS, October 23, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, pp. 524–25.
59. Note 1, ibid., p. 532. On October 25, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko and Defense Minister Malinovsky suggested to Khrushchev that he “request that Comrade Ulbricht take measures to halt such actions of the police and the GDR authorities which create tensions not corresponding with the requirements of the given moment.” Harrison cites research by Brice W. Menning in the archives of the Soviet general staff. Harrison, loc. cit., p. 213.
60. Norman Gelb, The Berlin Wall: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Showdown in the Heart of Europe (New York: Times Books, 1986), p. 238.
61. Clay to Rusk, October 24, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, pp. 532–34.
62. Foy Kohler, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, who headed the Berlin task force, was upset when Clay did not sent a probe into East Berlin on October 24. Clay had decided to await further instructions before proceeding. Kohler considered Clay’s momentary restraint “a tactical mistake.” Ibid., p. 535.
63. Ann Tusa, The Last Division: A History of Berlin, 1945–1989 (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997), pp. 335–36.
64. E. W. Kenworthy, “German Ride Act,” New York Times, October 26, 1961.
65. Rusk to Clay, October 26, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, p. 540.
66. This meeting was arranged by Edwin Guthman. See RFK Date Diary, RFK Papers, JFK Library.
67. Report from Bolshakov, October 26, 1961, Bolshakov German Question summaries (May 21, 1961–April 13, 1962), GRU.
68. Tusa, op. cit., p. 336.
69. Editorial note, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, p. 544.
70. Bolshakov German Question summaries, GRU. There is no record in RFK’s Date Diary for this meeting. In 1964, as part of the JFK Oral History Program, Robert Kennedy recalled that at his meeting with Bolshakov on October 27 he had requested on JFK’s behalf that Khrushchev remove the tanks within twenty-four hours. This request has subsequently became part of the lore of the standoff at Checkpoint Charlie. In the GRU record, however, there is no specific mention of the tank confrontation or of any presidential request that the Soviet tanks be withdrawn in twenty-four hours. No Bolshakov report or cable from October 27 has been found in the Presidential Archives subject file for Berlin in 1961. For information on the time that Soviet tanks began to withdraw (10:30 A.M., Berlin time), see editorial note, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, p. 544.
71. Ibid.
72. Memcon, Khrushchev and Kroll, November 9, 1961, APRF.
73. Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, loc. cit., p. 214.
74. Ibid.
75. Ulbricht and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) Central Committee delegation to the CPSU Twenty-second Congress in Moscow to NSK, October 30, 1961, Appendix K, Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” loc. ci
t. In machine tools, the GDR would be 2.5 percent under plan in 1961; in the construction industry, about 5.3 percent below. As a result, Berlin expected imports to increase by 13 percent in 1962. The Soviet Union had provided an emergency supply of raw materials in 1961 to offset what East Germany could not get from West Germany or buy from the rest of the world. These supplies could last only through mid-1962. “Due to the dragging out of the conclusion of the peace treaty,” Ulbricht added, “this term will no longer suffice.”
76. Memcon, NSK and Ulbricht meeting, November 2, 1961, APRF.
77. Ibid. An East German record of this important meeting has not been found. See Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, p. 306, n. 338.
78. NSK to JFK, November 9, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 6, pp. 45–57.
CHAPTER 17: MENISCUS
1. O’Brien interview with Roswell Gilpatric, June 30, 1970, JFK Library. The air force ultimately got an order for a thousand Minutemen.
2. For background on the speech, see the June 30, 1970, Gilpatric Oral History at the JFK Library and John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 256–57. Defense and State worked on the speech before Kennedy personally reviewed it
3. Cited in Hugh Sidey, John F. Kennedy, President (New York: Atheneum, 1964), p. 218.
4. Ibid., p. 220.
5. Ibid., p. 218.
6. www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/Tsarbomba (accessed November 28, 2005). See also Viktor Adamsky and Yuri Smirnov, “Moscow’s Biggest Bomb: The 50-Megaton Test of October 1961,” Cold War International History Project [hereafter CWIHP] Bulletin, issue 4 (Fall 1994), pp. 3, 19–21.
7. Memcon, GDR Ambassador to Beijing Josef Hengen with the Polish minister counselor of the Polish Embassy in Beijing, December 1, 1961, cited in Hope M. Harrison, Driving to Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953–1961 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 240.
8. Superb testimony on the change in China’s policy in Southeast Asia comes from Marek Thee, Poland’s member on the tripartite International Control Commission. Marek Thee, Notes of a Witness: Laos and the Second Indochinese War (New York: Random House, 1973), pp. 180–205. See also Spravka (preceding the visit of Souphanouvong to the USSR), January 26, 1962, 0570, 8/8/15, MFA.
Khrushchev's Cold War Page 84