The Locked Room Mystery
On graduation day in June 1960 I was ready to face the world, and that very afternoon with a “Yes, Sir!” I reported for duty in the U.S. Army.
I had majored in International Politics under Dr. Henry Kissinger at Harvard.
My father, Dr. Harry Reiff, was the professor of International Law at St. Lawrence University in Canton. His parents were German Russian immigrants who had discouraged him from going to college. Despite his parents’ objections, my dad worked hard and received a scholarship to Harvard University. Naturally he wanted his sons—my brother, Daniel, and me—to have the same fine education.
Besides majoring in International Politics, I’d enrolled in the ROTC program. So that summer I attended Officers Training, Ranger School, and Paratrooper School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was excited about serving my country as an army officer. After completing the training, I was assigned to a tank division in West Germany.
On August 15, 1961, the East Germans closed East Berlin and began building the Berlin Wall. The closing divided the city of Berlin into two parts: two-thirds West Berlin and one-third East Berlin.
A large number of us servicemen were transferred to Berlin that very day to help defend the city in case the East Germans or the Russians attacked it. The 10,000 American soldiers serving in Berlin were called The Berlin Brigade.
Checkpoint Charlie was a famous crossing point where the Russians prevented Americans from going into East Berlin. At that time many people who wanted freedom from the Communists in East Berlin tried dramatic escapes: trucks crashing through the Berlin Wall, small cars sneaking under the checkpoints when the guards weren’t looking, tourist boats filled with those wanting to escape down the river, people climbing over high tension wires, and others jumping out of upper windows to escape to West Berlin.
The city of Berlin was fifty miles across with forests and lakes, and the American Army trained in those forests. Serving as a lieutenant, an infantry officer, I participated in a number of military exercises throughout the fall and winter.
One cold week during the winter, we were on a special training maneuver in the forest, preparing to defend Berlin. During that whole week we slept outside in sleeping bags in the snow.
In the middle of the week I realized I was very sick. I could hardly eat, so I drank huge quantities of milk for energy. I was very achy during the maneuvers, but because I was an officer and the exercise was my duty, I continued the effort all day long and often all through the night.
At night we went on hard, long-distance foot patrols. Because I had eaten very little, I was weak and lost weight. My uniform hung on me. But I didn’t tell anyone how bad I felt. I decided that after the maneuvers were over, I’d go get checked out by a doctor.
On returning to the military post in Berlin Friday night, my company was put on alert to go out with a tank company to confront the Russians, who had blocked the superhighway into Berlin. It was potentially a combat duty. I knew if we were called to do it, we would go out on Saturday morning with tanks equipped with bulldozer blades. If necessary, we’d push the Russian tanks off the highway they were blockading.
I knew that if we were assigned to this, it would be my duty to go with my soldiers, so I chose not to go to the hospital that night. I was dead tired, so exhausted I could hardly move. I returned to my officers’ quarters and went directly to bed.
We bachelor officers lived in concrete buildings with thick steel doors on our apartments. We opened those heavy doors with a key and they locked automatically upon closing.
In the middle of the night I got up to use the bathroom and passed out. When I woke up, I was lying on my back in the hall with sharp pain on my left side. Several times I tried to get up, but each time I lifted my head, I passed out before I could move. Because of the severe pain in my left shoulder, I thought I’d suffered a heart attack.
I figured that since I passed out every time I moved my head, any moment might be my last moment of consciousness, so I had to get help quickly. I remained on my back and pushed myself with my feet down the hall to the living room, where the phone sat on a table.
Since I couldn’t reach the phone, I pulled it down by the cord and hoped it didn’t break. I succeeded in pulling the phone down and caught it! The room was dark and I couldn’t see, so I had to figure out how to dial both letters and numbers on a rotary dial without being able to see them.
It took some time, but fortunately I was able to remember my friend Lieutenant Bob Sands’s number and successfully dialed it. When he answered, I said, “Bob, I need you to come get me and take me to the hospital. I think I’ve had a heart attack.”
About fifteen minutes later, Bob rushed into the apartment. He carried me to his car and zoomed straight to the hospital. The doctors discovered I had a ruptured spleen the size of a football and operated immediately. After spending four months in the hospital and in rehab, I was able to return to duty as an army officer.
How can you explain that on the night when I desperately needed immediate help, Bob could walk right into my apartment? Right through a heavy steel casement door that was always locked?
If Bob had not been able to open that heavy door, I probably would have died in a short time. The only other key was in the engineers’ headquarters elsewhere in Berlin. And it was unlikely the duty officer could have gotten the key on a Friday night when many soldiers were out on the town.
Is there any other explanation but that God sent an angel to unlock that heavy steel door that Friday night in Berlin?
I believe there is no other way to explain how I survived that ordeal and am alive today.