Brandt, who until then had responded with restraint, lashed back. aThe old gentleman really cannot grasp whatas going on anymore.a He advised Adenauer to seek aein friedliches Lebensabendaa"a peaceful retirement. Brandt calculated that his best strategy was to announce that he was abandoning electioneering altogether. aFor me all that matters is the struggle for Berlin,a he said, announcing that he would reduce his election work to one day each week and otherwise focus on aGermanyas destiny.a Brandt realized that perhaps the most important factor with voters was how he handled the Americans. On the day of his rally, West Germanyas most-read newspaper, Bild-Zeitung, with its circulation of 3.7 million, covered the entire top half of its front page with a headline that captured the public mood: THE EAST ACTSa"AND THE WEST? THE WEST DOES NOTHING.
The editors had placed large photographs of the three Allied leaders under the story with derisive cutlines: aPresident Kennedy remains silent / Macmillan goes hunting / And Adenauer insults Brandt.a In an accompanying front-page editorial, Bild said: We entered the Western alliance because we believed this would be the best solution for Germany as well as for the West. The majority of Germans, the overwhelming majority, is still convinced of this. But this conviction is not strengthened if some of our partners, at a moment when the German cause is in great danger, coolly declare: aAllied rights have not been touched.a The German cause is in the greatest danger. Three days already and so far nothing has happened apart from a paper protest by the Allied commandants.
We are disillusioned!
The more sober Berlin broadsheet Der Tagesspiegel captured the spirit of the day in a giant four-panel cartoon that was so popular it was being pa.s.sed from person to person around Berlin.
The primary character in each panel, labeled THE WEST, is portrayed as an aging, bald American man in a dark suit and a bow tie and with a raised, lecturing finger.
In the first frame, the West winces from Stalinas blows to his head with a club labeled GERMANYaS VISION. He says only, a[Hit me] Once more and Iall take out my big stick.a The second panel shows the West with two b.u.mps, the new one marked HUNGARY. The third frame has a diminutive Ulbricht bashing the West with a club stamped CLOSING OF THE INTERCITY BORDER. The final panel shows a bruised and beaten West, standing by himself pathetically above the caption UND SO WEITERa"aAnd so on.a After wiping the sweat from his brow, Brandt told the 250,000 Berliners standing before him that through the border closure the Soviets had agiven their pet dog Ulbricht a little extra leasha with his aregime of injustice.a Brandt captured the frustration of the crowd, saying, aWe cannot help our fellow citizens in the sector and our countrymen in the Zone bear this burden, and that is for us the bitterest pill to swallow! We can only help them bear it in showing them that we will rise to stand with them in this desperate hour!a The crowd exploded with relief that Brandt had finally expressed their dismay.
Brandt drew parallels between the Ulbricht dictatorship and the Third Reich. He called the border closure aa new version of the occupation of the Rhineland by Hitler. Only today the man is named Ulbricht.a He had to shout above the crowdas deafening cheers in a raspy voice made hoa.r.s.e from the campaign trail and his chain-smoking.
Brandt paused before the most sensitive part of the speech, during which he directly addressed the U.S. and Kennedy. He began by defending the Americans, to the displeasure of many of his listeners. aWithout them,a he said, athe tanks would have rolled on.a The crowd only began to applaud when he voiced their own disappointment with Kennedy.
a[But] Berlin expects more than words,a he said. aIt expects political action.a The crowd erupted in cheers when he told them that he had written to President Kennedy with that opinion. aI told him our views in all frankness,a he said to roars of approval. Brandt saw in their eyes the political appeal of an attack on the Americans even as they knew how powerless they were to take on the Soviets alone.
OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
WEDNESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 16, 1961.
President Kennedy was enraged.
He considered the letter from Mayor Brandt, which rested atop his morning correspondence, to be insulting and impertinent. Even given Berlinas situation, it overstepped the sort of language any city mayor should use with the American president. With each line that he read, Kennedy grew more certain that the letteras primary purpose was to serve Brandtas electoral campaign.
Brandt called the border closure an encroachment that was athe most serious in the postwar history of this city since the blockade.a In a surprisingly direct rebuke of the Kennedy administration, he wrote, aWhile in the past Allied Commandants have even protested against parades by the so-called National Peopleas Army in East Berlin, this time, after military occupation of the East Sector by the Peopleas Army, they have limited themselves to delayed and not very vigorous steps.a He charged that the Allies had thus endorsed the aillegal sovereignty of the East Berlin government.a Brandt protested, aWe now have a state of accomplished extortion.a He told Kennedy that although this had not weakened West Berlinersa will to resist, ait has tended to arouse doubts as to the determination of the three powers and their ability to react.a He conceded Kennedyas argument that existing four-power guarantees applied only to West Berlin and its people, the presence of troops there, and their access routes. aHowever,a he stressed, athis is a matter of a deep wound in the life of the German people.a Brandt warned Kennedy that Berlin could become alike a ghettoa and lose aits function as a refuge of freedom and a symbol of hope for unification. Worse,a he said, ainstead of flight to Berlin, we might then experience the beginning of flight from Berlina as its citizens lost confidence in the cityas future.
Brandtas letter then set out a series of proposals, again ignoring the fact that he was only a city mayor or that this was a level of bilateral exchange that belonged more properly to the chancellor. He called upon Kennedy to introduce a new, three-power status for West Berlin that would exclude the Soviets but include the French and British. He wanted Kennedy to bring the Berlin question before the United Nations, as the Soviet Union ahas violated the Declaration of Human Rights in most flagrant manner.a Finally, he said, aIt would be welcomed if the American garrison were to be demonstratively strengthened.a Brandt closed with the line aI consider the situation serious enough, Mr. President, to write to you in all frankness as is possible only between friends who trust each other completely.a Then he signed it aYour w.i.l.l.y Brandt.a Kennedy fumed. The letter was political dynamite. Already stung by charges that he had demonstrated weakness in Cuba, Laos, and Vienna, Kennedy considered it salt on an open wound. The final line, in which Brandt referred to his relationship of trust with the president, irked Kennedy most.
aTrust?a Kennedy spat as he angrily waved the letter at his press secretary, Pierre Salinger. aI donat trust this man at all. Heas in the middle of a campaign against old Adenauer and wants to drag me in. Where does he get off calling me a friend?a The State Department and the White House were furious that Brandt had revealed the existence of the letter at a rally before Kennedy had even received ita"driving home its electoral purpose. Administration officials briefed the press in that fashion, setting off a storm of negative U.S. media comment. The Daily News called Brandtas letter arude and presumptuous.a The Washington Evening Staras commentator William S. White condemned Brandt as a amere mayora trying to atake over the foreign policy, not only of his own country, but of all the West by addressing personal notes to the President of the United Statesa. It is easy for demagogues to whip up excited crowds, as Mr. Brandt is doing, to pour scorn on the West for inaction.a Brandt would later take credit for his letter shifting Kennedy to a more active defense of Berlin, yet perhaps more decisive was the journalist Marguerite Higgins, to whom Kennedy had shown the letter with disgust while sitting in his rocking chair in the Oval Office. The well-known U.S. war reporter, who had covered both World War II and the Korean conflict, was at age forty-one a personal friend of the president. aMr. President, I must tell you quite openly,a she said, athat in Berlin the suspicion is growing that you want to sell out the West Berliners.a Kennedy came to accept that he had to take some action quickly to rea.s.sure Berliners, Americans, and Soviets alike that he remained ready to stand up to the Kremlin. Two days after receiving the Brandt letter, Kennedy wrote back to the mayor that he planned to dispatch to Berlin both Vice President Johnson and General Lucius Clay, the hero of the Berlin Airlift in 1948 and a friend of Marguerite Higgins.
He would take Brandtas advice that he send more troops to Berlin, but his letter would make clear it wasnat a lowly mayor who had prompted the decision. aOn careful consideration,a he wrote to Brandt, aI myself have decided that the best immediate response is a significant reinforcement of the Western garrisons.a He said that what was important wasnat the number of troops, which would be small, but that the reinforcements would be seen as the U.S. response to Moscowas demand that Allied soldiers leave Berlin altogether. aWe believe that even a modest reinforcement will underline our rejection of this concept,a he said.
However, Kennedy rejected Brandtas other suggestions. He said the mayoras notion of three-power status for West Berlin would weaken the four-power basis for an Allied protest of the border closing. He would also not pursue Brandtas idea of an appeal to the United Nations, as it was aunlikely to be fruitful.a aGrave as the matter is,a he wrote, athere are, as you say, no steps available to us which can force a significant material change in this present situation. Since it represents a resounding confession of failure and of political weakness, this brutal border closing evidently represents a basic Soviet decision which only war could reverse. Neither you nor we, nor any of our Allies, have ever supposed that we should go to war on this point.a Kennedyas logic was that the Soviet action was atoo serious for inadequate responses.a By that measure, any action short of war seemed inadequate to him, and thus he objected to all the remedies he had heard thus far, including amost of the suggestions in your own letter.a Tossing the mayor a bone that would cost Kennedy nothing, he supported Brandtas notion of aan appropriate plebiscite demonstrating the continuing conviction of West Berlin that its destiny is freedom in connection with the West.a Kennedy didnat like rewarding Brandt for pulling him into his messy, petty German politics. On the other hand, he had his own domestic political reasons for a demonstration of strength. If anyone understood how deeply intertwined Americaas domestic and foreign policies were, it was Kennedy.
Brandt read Kennedyas response with disappointment, believing the U.S. president had athrown us in the frying pan.a American reporters were writing with the confidence of the well-briefed that the border closure had shocked and depressed Kennedy. But the truth was quite different.
Among those who were closest to him, Kennedy did not hide his relief. He considered the border closure a potentially positive turning point that could help lead to the end of the Berlin Crisis that had been hanging over him like a Damoclean nuclear sword. He thought the fact that West Berlin had remained untouched ill.u.s.trated the limits of Khrushchevas ambitionsa"and the relative caution with which he would execute them.
aWhy would Khrushchev put up a wall if he really intended to seize West Berlin?a Kennedy said to his friend and aide Kenny OaDonnell. aThere wouldnat be any need of a wall if he planned to occupy the whole city. This is his way out of his predicament. Itas not a very nice solution, but a wall is a h.e.l.l of a lot better than a war.a The communist move also allowed Kennedy to score public opinion points for the U.S. across the world. The communist enemy had been forced to build a barrier around its people to lock them in. Nothing could have been more d.a.m.ning. One couldnat buy a better argument in favor of the free world, even if the cost was the freedom of East Berliners, and, more broadly, Eastern Europeans.
Kennedy thought of himself as a pragmatic man, and the Eastern Europeans were beyond any reasonable hope of liberation anyway.
Kennedy had little sympathy for the East Germans, and told journalist James aScottya Reston that the U.S. had given them ample time to break out of their jail, as the Berlin border had been open from the establishment of the Soviet zone after World War II to August 13, 1961.
In the first days after the Wall went up, a similar Kennedy remark reached an alarmed West German amba.s.sador, Wilhelm Grewe, and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer: aAfter all, the East Germans have had more than fifteen years to reflect on whether they wanted to stay in East Germany or go to the West.a Grewe watched and worried as this callous statement further poisoned the already toxic atmosphere with Adenauer.
aAlso,a Grewe would later recall of Kennedy, aI got the feeling that sometimes he was not absolutely sure himself whether it was appropriate to preserve a completely pa.s.sive att.i.tude at that time, or whether he should have tried a more active policy to prevent the erection of the wall.a Kennedy expressed his self-doubt with the sort of question he posed to Grewe: aWell, do you feel we should have handled this business otherwise?a The matter would occupy the president more with each dayas distance from August 13 and the greater realization that the border closure was not making relations with Khrushchev any easier.
THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW.
MID-AUGUST, 1961.
Khrushchev congratulated himself on having outmaneuvered the U.S., the British, and the French without military conflict, political backlash, or even the most modest of economic sanctions.
His son Sergei saw him initially sigh with relief after August 13, and then grow more delighted over time as he reflected upon his achievement. Had Khrushchev not acted at all, the Soviet bloc might have begun to unravel with the implosion of its westernmost outpost. With refugees bleeding out of Berlin, his enemies would have sought his head on a platter at the Party Congress, egged on by Mao.
Khrushchev also reflected later on how awar could have broken outa if he had miscalculated. He had read Kennedyas signals perfectly, which had provided a road map for his action. The only interest Kennedy had professed was in preserving West Berlinas status and access to the city, which Khrushchev had been careful not to touch. He had been confident that Kennedy would do nothing to help liberate East Germans or contest whatever the Soviets chose to do within their own zone.
Khrushchev believed he had achieved even more than he could have expected from a peace treaty. In a treaty, Kennedy would have forced him to accept language recognizing the need for German unification over time through free elections. Now he had every reason to hope that the Western commitment to the city would continue to erode, along with the morale of West Berliners, who might decide to abandon their city in droves, doubting that the Allies would continue to defend their freedoms and connection to West Germany.
Khrushchev concluded beyond any doubt that the Vienna talks had arepresented a defeata for Kennedy. The Kremlin had decided to act and athere was nothing he could doa"short of military actiona"to stop us. Kennedy was intelligent enough to know that a military clash would be senseless. Therefore the United States and its Western Allies had no choice but to swallow a bitter pill as we began to take certain unilateral steps.a In a nod to his countryas national sport, Khrushchev spoke of himself as a skilled chess player. When the U.S. ratcheted up military pressure in Berlin, he moved in Marshal Konev. aTo use the language of chess,a he said, athe Americans had advanced a p.a.w.n, so we protected our position by moving a knight.a Khrushchev enjoyed this turn of phrase, because he was also employing a play on words, as the Russian word for a knight in chess is kon, or horse, which was the root of Konevas surname. The p.a.w.n referred to Kennedyas later decision to bring Clay to Berlin.
What he was telling Kennedy, he said, was that aif you insist on holding up the shield of war against us and thwarting us in our intentions, then weare ready to meet you on your own terms.a In Vienna, Khrushchev recalled, the president had argued that under the Potsdam Agreement there was only one Germany, which a peace treaty would have to recognize. Yet now he had brought about a de facto Western recognition of two Germanys in as dramatic a manner as he could have imagined.
But Khrushchev was not done yet. Throughout August, encouraged by Kennedyas inaction, the Soviet leader reinforced East German troop positions and took other actions to hammer home his victory and solidify his position ahead of his Party Congress. He launched Soviet military maneuvers on August 16 that for the first time included nuclear-tipped battlefield missiles in tactical exercises that simulated a potential war over Berlin access. So that the Kennedy administration would not miss his point, for the first time since 1936 the Soviets invited Western military attachs to observe their ground exercises.
The tactical maneuver involved a mobilized battalion of the sort operating around the Berlin Autobahn. The Soviet guide for the attachs told them the rockets were equipped with nuclear warheads. The Soviets even simulated a nuclear cloud over a hypothetical enemy position in the village of Kubinka, west of Moscow.
More dramatic yet, at the end of August, Khrushchev announced that he would break his three-year self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing. Then, two days later, the Soviet Union began new atmospheric blasts that were heard around the world from Semipalatinsk in Central Asia.
af.u.c.ked again,a President Kennedy groaned when he received the news after an afternoon nap.
On August 30, the president met with his military advisers to discuss a potential response. In a gloomy mood, his brother Bobby worried that the Russians afeel strongly that if they can break our will in Berlin that we will never be good for anything else and they will have won the battle in 1961a. Their plan is obviously not to be most popular but to be the most fearsome and terrorize the world into submission.a Bobby recalled what Chip Bohlen had said at the outset of 1961: aThis was the year that the Russians were going to come the closest to nuclear war. I donat think there is any question but that that is true.a After the meeting, when President Kennedy asked for his brotheras further thoughts, Bobby said, aI want to get off.a The president didnat understand him at first.
aGet off what?a aGet off the planet,a Bobby said.
Bobby joked he was going to discard adviser Paul Corbinas suggestion that he run against his brother in the 1964 elections. He didnat want the job.
WEST BERLIN.
WEEKEND OF AUGUST 18a"20, 1961.
It was not the first time Vice President Johnson had been displeased about an a.s.signment from the president. The mission Kennedy wanted him to accept was to lead a morale-building trip to West Berlin with General Lucius Clay. Coming just five days after the border closure, Johnson immediately saw that what the mission lacked in substance it made up for in danger.
Just a few months earlier, Kennedy had made Johnson Chancellor Adenaueras hand-holder at the LBJ ranch during the botched Bay of Pigs invasion. So when Kennedy phoned during his dinner on August 17 to make the Berlin request, Johnson had responded, aIs that necessary?a aYes, itas necessary,a Kennedy had insisted. It would send the wrong message for the president himself to rush so quickly to Berlin. He had to send a message to the world that the U.S. would not abandon West Berlin, but at the same time he didnat want to provoke a Soviet response. Kennedy could not publicly express his genuine relief that the communists had closed the border, but at the same time he didnat want to express false outrage too loudly.
Johnson grew all the more reluctant to make the trip when he learned that part of his mission would be to receive a battle group of 1,500 soldiers in West Berlin, troops who would storm up the Autobahn from Helmstedt, West Germany, to reinforce the 12,000 Allied troops who were already there. Though their paltry numbers might do little to defend Berliners, LBJ knew their arrival would be fraught with risk.
aWhy me?a he asked Kennedyas aide Kenny OaDonnell. aThereall be a lot of shooting and Iall be in the middle of it.a After some coaxing, the vice president took on the mission with a more willing Clay.
During their overnight flight on August 18 on an Air Force Boeing 707, Clay regaled Johnson with stories of his own Berlin heroics back in 1948. He told Johnson he had converted President Truman to that operation, which Clay had begun single-handedly. What he had learned, Clay told Johnson, was that the only way to deal with the Soviets was to stand up to them.
He would tear down the Wall if he were president, he told Johnson. He believed the Korean War might have been avoided if the U.S. had shown the Soviets it was willing to be more aggressive even earlier in Berlin, when Truman had at first refused to allow Clay to bring an armored column down the Autobahn to demonstrate American commitment.
Nothing could have demonstrated just how eager West Berliners were for U.S. rea.s.surance than Johnson and Clayas joyous reception at Tempelhof Airport, once the stage for the Berlin Airlift. Here they were, a largely powerless vice president and a retired general who commanded no troops, but a police band played aThe Star-Spangled Banner,a seven U.S. tanks fired a salute, and 100,000 Berliners shouted their approval.
To keep Johnson on message, the White House had scripted every word he would speak publicly with the usual Kennedy poetry. aDivided, you have never been dismayed,a Johnson told Berliners. aThreatened, you have never faltered. Challenged, you have never weakened. Today, in a new crisis, your courage brings hope to all who cherish freedom and is a ma.s.sive and majestic barrier to the ambitions of tyrants.a Speaking to the West Berlin city Senate later in the day, Johnson said, aTo the survival and creative future of this city we Americans have pledged, in effect, what our ancestors pledged in forming the United States: aOur lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.a These are the final words of our Declaration of Independence.a His words electrified a city that had been drained of its energy since August 13. The crowd of 300,000 gathered on the square before City Hall were the same Berliners who had stood depressed and angry just three days earlier before Brandt. Now many of them wept for joy. Even Clay could not hold back tears.
As Johnson made his way from appointment to appointment, he turned from reluctant traveler to eager campaigner, often climbing out of his car to bathe in the glow of an adoring crowd. The intermittent rain could not dissuade him or tens of thousands of West Berliners, whose mood reminded New York Times correspondent Sydney Gruson of what he had witnessed during the triumphant liberation of Paris at the end of World War II.
aThe city was like a boxer who had thrown off a heavy punch and was gathering stamina for another rounda.a he wrote. aThe Vice President said nothing essentially new. That did not seem to matter. The West Berliners wanted the words said at this time in their city and, above all, they wanted his presence as a tangible expression of the link that sustains them.a Johnson elicited a huge roar from the crowd when he said the men of the 18th Infantry, 1st Battle Group, were already rolling up the Autobahn to reinforce West Berlinas garrison.
For Kennedy, the troop deployment was the first moment during the Berlin Crisis when he feared a violent exchange. Though the U.S. contingent was small, he had told White House special counsel Ted Sorensen that he saw the troops as aour hostage to that intenta of U.S. commitment to defend West Berlin.
Kennedy had postponed his usual weekend retreat to Hyannis Port in order to receive reports every twenty minutes during the night as the troops rolled toward Berlin. The Pentagon demanded to have every detail of the planned mission in advance, including each and every rest stop the soldiers would use to relieve themselves on the Autobahn as they drove through East German territory to West Berlin.
Kennedyas military advisers, Joint Chiefs chairman Lyman Lemnitzer and White House military aide Maxwell Taylor, had opposed sending the reinforcements. British Prime Minister Macmillan considered the gesture politically provocative and military anonsense.a General Bruce C. Clarke, the sixty-year-old commander of U.S. forces in Europe, who had helped swing World War IIas Battle of the Bulge in Americaas favor, also didnat like the looks of it.
The operationas commander, Colonel Glover S. Johns Jr., was a proud Texan himself, a former commandant of the Virginia Military Inst.i.tute and decorated World War II combat commander. Tall, blond, German-speaking, and with a flair for the theatrical, Johns knew his mission had no military value and posed considerable risk. Kennedy had handpicked him because he had heard this was a man who would not lose his cool commanding a small battle group of 1,500 through hostile terrain surrounded by at least a quarter of a million Soviet soldiers.
For all the details his superiors had demanded, none of them had said how Johns should respond if he was fired upon. Without any specific instructions about what weaponry to carry, he had decided himself what to put in the ammunition boxes of each vehicle. As was his habit, Johns also carried his own antique Colt pistol. If hostilities did start, Johns knew, awe were in for certain destruction.a If the Soviets didnat want them heading up the Autobahn, they would be like lambs heading for slaughter.
While Johns was working out his defense plan, Johnson was working on his footwear. Johnson looked down at Brandtas fashionable loafers and issued a challenge to the mayor while the two men toured Berlin in an open Mercedes convertible, standing and waving at crowds. aYouave been asking us for action instead of words,a he said. aIad like to see whether you can act, too.a He pointed to the shoes. aWhere do you get a pair like that?a he asked.
aI can get a pair like that for you right here in Berlin,a said Brandt, reckoning Berlinas defense was worth a pair of shoes for Americaas vice president.
Shortly after noon on Sat.u.r.day, August 19, the U.S. emba.s.sy in Bonn reached General Bruce Clarke in Heidelberg and informed him that Vice President Johnson would be leaving for home from Berlin at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, whether or not U.S. troop reinforcements had arrived in the city. Clarke protested angrily through his Berlin commander to Washington that Johns and his men could not risk so much if Johnson would not even stay in place to greet them.
National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy phoned Clarke on Sat.u.r.day night at 7:00 p.m. aGeneral, I understand youare chewing out everybody in sight because youare not happy with the vice president leaving before the troops get in.a aThat puts it mildly, Mr. Bundy,a replied Clarke. aThe men will go all-out to get there to be received by the vice president.a He couldnat imagine anything Johnson had to do in Washington that was more important athan to be receiving the troops with all the world watching.a Clarke knew nothing of Johnsonas concerns about the possible dangers.
aWhat time are you going to have all the men in Berlin?a asked Bundy.
Clarke shot back, aIf I could guarantee that, we wouldnat be having a crisis, would we? Who can say where we may get stopped?a Bundy replied, aGeneral, Iall see what we can do.a At 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 20a"6:30 a.m. in the White Housea"and just a week after the border was closed, the first sixty trucks carrying the American soldiers crossed into Berlin without incident. Khrushchev had stood by his commitment not to impede Allied access, aside from a three-hour delay at a checkpoint while Soviet troops head-counted the number of troops who were entering Berlin.
West Berliners greeted Johnsas men like conquering gladiators; thousands waited along bridges and roads. A few hundred Berliners stood with Vice President Johnson, who had opted to delay his departure, at the U.S. checkpoint at Dreilinden, where the Autobahn entered West Berlin. Flowers rained upon them from all directions, surprising and delighting the weary soldiers in their soiled vehicles and battle dress.
Colonel Johns had never seen anything like it, awith the possible exception of the liberation of France.a Johnsas men had been on the road for four days without relief, having been pulled from field maneuvers in West Germany since they were the only fully equipped battle group that was capable of getting to Berlin with such speed. Even as they cruised through a city of cheers, many slept off their exhaustion.
The Soviet response was muted. The Kremlin dismissed the reinforcement as being of ano military significance,a and said it merely put more men ain West Berlinas mousetrap.a An article in Pravda signed aObserveraa"which denoted a commentary reflecting Soviet government opiniona"said it was aa provocation that cannot be ignored.a Among the troops stationed in Berlin who watched the show, Military Police Lieutenant Vern Pike was displeased, but for another reason. Like most U.S. soldiers in Berlin, he thought Kennedy and Johnson could have simply pushed the Wall down before it was built without the Sovietsa doing much more than whimpering in retreat.
aJohnson was a joke, a total joke,a he said. aAll he wanted was to see the crowd.a As for the arriving battle group, Pike considered it aa rotten lousy outfita that was little fit for battle but acted arrogantly toward the troops who had been in place for so long. When the new arrivals came to stay in Roosevelt Barracks, they rubbed the long-resident soldiers the wrong way, claiming they had been sent to rescue them after their failure to stop the border closure.
aWe took offense to that,a said Pike, aas they were only going to be here for ninety days, then they would be rotated out. We didnat need saving, and we knew they were only in Berlin for symbolic reasons.a Worse, Johnsas unit was adrunk and disorderly, caught fighting, resisting arrest.a However, Berliners knew only that America had finally shown its colors. Seldom had so many so loudly celebrated so little rescue. Pike thought it was a measure of Berlinersa despair that they would so loudly cheer so modest a gesture.
Johnson stayed clear of East Berlin during his stay, wanting to avoid either provoking Moscow or inciting a crowd. But after General Clay quietly toured the amputated Soviet part of the city, Clay declared East Berlin to be aan armed campa with a population that looked atotally oppressed.a For all the historic moment, Johnson didnat lose sight of his missionas other purpose: shopping.
At 5:30 on Sunday morning, his State Department escort Lucian Heichler woke Johnsonas valet to get the vice presidentas shoe size so that Brandt could produce the shoes that he had wanted. Because Johnson had feet of two different sizes, which required him to wear handmade shoes, Brandtas people had a Leiser shoe-shop owner send twenty different pairs over to Johnson. From them, he picked two pairs that fit the bill.
On Sunday afternoon, a famous Berlin porcelain maker, the Knigliche Porzellan-Manufaktur, opened its showroom at Johnsonas request because he had admired the china at w.i.l.l.y Brandtas official City Hall dinner the night before. He had told the mayor he wanted a set for his new vice presidential residence, a mansion called athe Elmsa that he had purchased in Washington, D.C.
They showed the vice president one set after another, but he protested that they were all too expensive for him. He wondered whether they had any aseconds.a With his American escort, Heichler, looking for a hole to crawl into, Deputy Mayor Franz Amrehn saved the day by announcing, aThe Senate and people of Berlin want to give you this as a present.a Replied Johnson, aOh, well, in that caseaa The vice president then picked the fanciest china he could find, thirty-six place settings in all, and then arranged for his office to send the vice presidential insignia to be painted on every plate, saucer, cup, and bowl.
Shopping aside, Johnson had been infected by Berlinas spirit. In a report marked SECRET, he wrote to Kennedy: I returned from Germany with new pride in Americaas leadership but with an unprecedented awareness of the responsibility which rests upon this country. The world expects so much from us, and we must measure up to the need, even while we seek more help from our allies. For if we fail or falter or default, all is lost, and freedom may never have a second chance.
With that, an order for thirty-six place settings of china, and two pairs of shoes, and having safely seen 1,500 more troops land in Berlin, Johnson returned home.
EAST BERLIN.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1961.
Ulbricht was too busy consolidating his victory to engage in self-congratulation.
His determination to change Berlinas status, which at the beginning of 1961 had neither Soviet approval nor means of execution, had been accomplished more successfully than he could have hoped. He had played a bad hand with enormous skill, and now he hoped to press his advantage.
On August 22, Ulbricht announced publicly that he would establish a no-manas-land that would stretch for a hundred meters on both sides of the Berlin Wall. East German authorities, without Soviet approval, declared they would shoot West Berliners if they strayed into the buffer zone that very soon would be known to them as athe death strip.a Swelling with confidence, the following day Ulbricht shrugged off objections from Soviet Amba.s.sador Pervukhin and also reduced crossing points that Westerners could use from seven to only one, Checkpoint Charlie at Friedrichstra.s.se.
Two days later, Pervukhin and Konev summoned Ulbricht to reprimand him for these unilateral measures. The Soviets, Pervukhin said, could not accept the concept of a no-manas-land running into West Berlin territory, which acould lead to a clash between the GDR police and the forces of the Western powers.a So Ulbricht reversed those orders, protesting to his Soviet counterparts that he had ano intention of interferinga in West Berlin affairs. It was an easy compromise to make, as he had won more rights over Berlin than he had dared imagine at the beginning of the year. However, he refused to back off his decision to reduce the Western crossing points to just one.
As would happen so often in 1961, the Soviets ceded the point to Ulbricht.
TEMPELHOF AIRPORT, WEST BERLIN.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1961.
Chancellor Adenauer finally surfaced in Berlin, but only ten days after the communists had shut down the Berlin border, and after Vice President Johnson and General Clay had safely left town. Only a few hundred people cheered Adenauer when he landed at Tempelhof Airport, and perhaps only another 2,000 awaited him when he arrived for a visit to the Marienfelde refugee camp.
Many West Berliners demonstratively turned away from him as he drove through the city. Others held signs that criticized how he had handled the crisis. One typical placard read SIE KOMMEN ZU SP"Ta"aYouave come too late.a Another said sarcastically, HURRAH, THE SAVIOR HAS COME. At Marienfelde and elsewhere, the signs suggested voters would punish him for his weak response to the border closure.
When he viewed the wall at spots along the border, the Ulbricht regime taunted him from the eastern side from a loudspeaker truck, comparing him to Adolf Hitler while pointing a high-pressure water hose in his direction. At another spot along the way, however, older East Germans wept and cheered as they waved white handkerchiefs by way of greeting.