Thursday, July 27, 1961
Office of the Attorney General, Washington, DC
The tug of war over Berlin had begun shortly after World War Two, the Soviets liberating the city from the east, while British, French, and American troops had eventually secured the city from the west. But the territory around Berlin, now referred to as East Germany, was Soviet controlled, a full-on part of the new Soviet bloc of nations. That Western allies would continue to occupy their half of Berlin had become a serious sticking point to the Soviets, first under Stalin, and now, with Khrushchev. The issue, from Khrushchev’s point of view was a simple one. There was no real reason he could see why Western troops should continue to occupy Berlin at all. It simply wasn’t necessary.
Bobby sat alone in his office, read over a brief prepared by the State Department, yet another warning about Soviet intentions in Berlin. This is ridiculous, he thought. Eisenhower had the opportunity to solve this mess three years ago, and passed us the buck. Jack had a chance, I suppose, in Vienna, to address this in a way that could defuse it all, and Khrushchev wouldn’t let him. At least, that’s how Jack tells it. I’m sure Khrushchev has his own version, that the president is just being stubborn, that the poor harmless Soviets are just looking out for the peaceful people of East Germany. He looked at the intercom on his desk, punched the button, called out, “I need Siegenthaler. Right now.”
He waited, drummed his fingers on the desk. The door opened, Siegenthaler, the one man who wasn’t required to knock before entering.
“What’s up? I was talking to your secretary. You sound annoyed.”
“I’m always annoyed. This Berlin thing just keeps spinning forward, with no end in sight. All it does around here is ramp up the tension, that we’re heading for a damned war. The Joint Chiefs are supposedly giddy about that, pushing their plans to wipe out the Soviets with only a loss of sixty million Americans. I’m getting damned tired of hearing about acceptable casualty rates. That doesn’t play too well on the evening news. We don’t need our citizens guessing if they’ll be among the unfortunates. There is no way in hell I’m going to sit back and allow my brother to be the first president in history to slaughter millions of our own people. And, since no doubt Khrushchev feels the same way about his people, neither one of them is willing to concede any ground. There has to be something I can do. So, I’ll try. Get me Bolshakov over here, for a meeting. At least I can get pissed off and nobody official has to hear about it.”
Siegenthaler seemed to measure him, testing just how angry he was.
“I suppose there’s no harm. But you know, you can’t make any kind of deal. He’ll know that too.”
“I’m not looking for a deal. I just want to let the Soviets know … well, maybe this one Soviet … that we need to settle this thing, and take it off the front page of the newspapers.”
“I AM AT your service, Mr. Attorney General. To what do I owe the honor of your summons?”
Bobby led him across the street without speaking, away from the Justice Department, away from a steady stream of people moving past, some of whom seemed to recognize him. They reached a small park, the shade of the trees a welcome relief from the summer sun. He could see that Bolshakov was sweating, the short round man seeming to suffer inside the necessary formality of his suit. Bobby stopped now, eyed a bench, said, “Let’s sit.”
Bolshakov followed his lead, planted himself beside him, waited patiently for Bobby’s chosen topic.
“We can’t just pull out of Berlin. Our allies will follow our lead, except for this. If we withdraw our forces from Berlin, we’ll leave the Brits and the French to handle things there alone. That will make them seriously unhappy. And, it won’t do much for the morale of the citizens of West Berlin, who depend on us for security. If we withdraw, it will be a show of weakness to the whole world, that we’re withdrawing from our commitment, a commitment we made after the war. No matter how much sense it might make to Khrushchev for us to leave, it simply doesn’t work. How in hell do we make Khrushchev understand that? How do we make him understand that we simply cannot leave, no matter his threats?”
Bolshakov stared down, seemed to absorb Bobby’s tirade.
“I cannot speak for Chairman Khrushchev. You know that.”
“No, but you can reach him, through your superiors. You can at least push upon him my reasoning.”
“That’s an unfortunate choice of words, Mr. Attorney General. No one will push anything upon Chairman Khrushchev. In Moscow, such things can be dangerous.”
Bobby was feeling the heat of the day, adding to his impatience.
“Why so much formality? As I told you before, dammit, just call me Bobby.”
“Sorry, of course. Bobby. I just never know what to expect, if you’re going to be friendly, or lecture me.”
“Look, I understand all of that. But we’re at a place where Berlin is liable to become a spark, a very dangerous spark that neither of us want to see. This has gone on long enough. The tension level rises every time we talk about it, every time Khrushchev talks about it. We have tanks aiming their guns at your tanks, staring at each other every damned day. All it takes is one nervous tank commander, who thinks he sees a twitch he doesn’t like…”
“I am aware, Bobby. I must mention to you that three years ago, Chairman Khrushchev made a pledge to you and your allies that if you withdrew from the city, it would become a free demilitarized city. You rejected his pledge, and so the chairman had no choice but to turn over management of the eastern portion of the city to the East German government. Since your government, and your allies would not comply, the chairman generously withdrew his pledge. He visited your President Eisenhower at his home in Gettysburg, hoping to discuss this in a friendly manner. The chairman tried to demonstrate to President Eisenhower that making Berlin a free city would have no detriment to the security of the United States. It was hoped by both sides that some kind of negotiation could be forthcoming to solve this problem.”
Bobby rolled the thought through his mind, said, “Regardless of all that, you must understand that there is a strong wave of suspicion in the American government not to trust the pledges of Chairman Khrushchev. It was difficult, if not impossible for Eisenhower to accept that all would happen exactly as Khrushchev said it would.”
Bolshakov stared at him now, a change in the man’s demeanor, the friendliness gone.
“You would speak of trust? No sooner had plans been made for both sides to make formal agreements to guarantee peace, our defense forces shot down your U-2 spy plane, capturing your pilot. I need not tell you what an outrage this was for us, that you would blatantly violate Soviet territorial airspace with your aircraft. That event changed attitudes in the Kremlin, to match the attitudes you speak of in Washington.”
Bobby let out a long breath, shifted himself on the hard bench, loosened his tie.
“So, we are both guilty of protecting our interests. And since those interests seem to clash, to contradict each other…”
“Peace is not contradictory, Bobby. We just have differing paths to reach the same goal.”
They sat silently for a long minute, then Bolshakov said, “It is very warm today. It has taken me a while to adjust to your climate. I imagine it is warm inside of those tanks in Berlin. You know, every day, citizens of the eastern part of the city, of East Germany, find their way into West Berlin. That alone produces tension, a need to stop such a flow of goods and citizens. Such a tide is costly, weakens the structure of the east. I have been told that measures are being considered that will stop such things.”
Bobby looked at him, felt an itch.
“What kinds of thing? That could add considerably to tensions as they are now.”
“I do not agree, Bobby. Dividing the city, with a clear boundary, could reduce tensions, especially among those tank gunners. I cannot speak for my government of course. I am not privy to everything that is happening. But I must believe that there is a means of solving our problems, allowing you to maintain your presence in West Berlin, while we can more effectively control the land in the east.”
“You mean … control the people.”
Bolshakov shrugged.
“I don’t know what I mean. I serve only my superiors.”
ON AUGUST 13, 1961, laboring quickly and with brutal efficiency, Soviet and East German construction workers completed a barrier, a wall that divided east and west Berlin, essentially into two cities. Where once German citizens could still move freely across the imaginary line, now that line was very real, and very deadly. The wall was concrete and wire, with guard towers and lookout posts that stretched across the city, denying anyone access to the other side. Khrushchev gambled that the rapid construction of the wall would calm tensions, and create a fait accompli in the city. He was right. Rather than continuing to rattle sabers, or make any kind of military effort to stop the wall, Kennedy and the Western allies in Britain and France accepted the wall as a solution, although an outrageous one. The diplomatic and public protests were long and loud, but in the end, neither side started shooting. As Kennedy phrased it, “A wall is better than a war.”
The Western military forces continued to occupy their positions in West Berlin, with only one significant confrontation. In October 1961, American general Lucius Clay decided to test the resolve of those on the eastern side of the wall, organizing forays to the eastern side, through the American gate known as Checkpoint Charlie. The aggressive forays, escorted by American tanks, finally produced a similar response from the other side, Soviet tanks lining the wall in a standoff barely one hundred yards apart. But cooler heads prevailed, orders coming to both General Clay and his Soviet counterpart to stand down. Though the Berlin crisis still simmered, for now, an uneasy sense of calm spread over the city.
As tense as the Berlin standoff had been, Kennedy realized that the wall had actually turned down the heat with the Russians. Unless Khrushchev made any effort to expand Russian influence into other lands, Kennedy could focus his attention more on the problems his administration faced at home, specifically, the building Civil Rights crisis, where blood, American blood, was being spilled from one end of the South to the other.
As attorney general, Bobby led the charge against the most extreme lawbreakers, pushing back into places where segregation had been absolute. Standing firm against the business-as-usual racist policies of men like Mississippi governor Ross Barnett, the Kennedys gradually won over the respect of the men in the trenches of the Civil Rights confrontations, men like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While a national Civil Rights law was still to come, both Kennedys made it clear that the old ways were to change.
Whether or not the Soviets watched the unfolding of these crises with rapt interest, it was clear to Khrushchev that for now, Kennedy had his hands full with domestic issues. Foreign policy had taken a back seat, and no one in Washington had any reason to believe the Soviets intended to change that.