It was only the inescapable flight route through Moscow that alerted the Soviet leadership to the mission. Yuri Andropov, then the Politburo member responsible for Socialist Party relations, asked to be briefed on the trip during the delegationas airport layover. Matern insisted the missionas purpose was purely economic, and Ulbricht knew Khrushchev could not object at a time when East Germanyas needs were growing and the Kremlin was complaining about the cost of satisfying them.
But everything about the tripas timing and ch.o.r.eography was political. In China, the group was received by Vice Premier Chen Yi, Maoas confidant and a legendary communist commander during the Sino-j.a.panese War and marshal of the Peopleas Liberation Army. He told Matern that China regarded its Taiwan problem and Ulbrichtas East German problem as having avery much in common.a They both involved areas of aimperialist occupationa of integral pieces of communist countries.
In a direct challenge to Khrushchev, the East Germans and the Chinese agreed to a.s.sist each other in their efforts to recover these territories. The Chinese view was that Taiwan was the eastern front and Berlin the western front of a global ideological strugglea"and Khrushchev was faltering in both places as world communist leader. Beyond that, Chen promised that China would help get the Americans out of Berlin because the situation there affected all other fronts in the global communist struggle.
Chen reminded the East Germans that communist China had sh.e.l.led the Taiwanese islands of Quemoy and Matsu in 1955, causing a crisis during which Eisenhoweras Joint Chiefs had considered a nuclear response. This happened, he said, not because China had wanted to increase international tensions, but rather because Beijing had needed ato show the USA and the whole world that we have not come to terms with the current [Taiwan] status. We as well had to remove the impression that the USA is so powerful that no one dares to do something and one must come to terms with all of its humiliations.a His suggestion was that the same determination was now necessary regarding Berlin.
The warmth of the East Germana"Chinese exchange was in sharp contrast to the Sinoa"Soviet chill that had set in. Ulbricht knew from his November meeting with Khrushchev in Moscow how compet.i.tive the Soviet leader felt toward Mao, and he had already played that card to successfully increase Moscowas economic support. Khrushchev had declared at the time that he would provide East Germany with the sort of economic a.s.sistance Mao could not, creating joint enterprises with the East Germans on Soviet territorya"something the Soviets had done with no other ally. aWe arenat China,a he declared to Ulbricht. aWe are not afraid of giving the Germans a boosta. The needs of the GDR are our needs.a Three months later, the Chinese were becoming an ever greater problem for Khrushchev, despite the apparent truce he had negotiated with them at the November gathering of Communist Parties in Moscow. While the East Germans were in Beijing seeking economic a.s.sistance, China was in Tirana encouraging xenophobic Albanian leader Enver Hoxha to break with the Soviet Union. During the Fourth Congress of the Albanian Communist Party, from February 13 to 21, Albanian communists had torn down public portraits of Khrushchev and replaced them with those of Mao, Stalin, and Hoxha. Never had a Soviet leader suffered such humiliation in his own realm.
Ulbrichtas course of greater diplomatic pressures on Khrushchev had its risks.
The far more powerful Khrushchev might have decided it was finally time to replace Ulbricht with a more submissive and obedient East German leader. He might have decided the China mission had crossed some impermissible line. However, Ulbricht had gambled correctly that Khrushchev had no good alternatives.
THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW.
MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 1961.
Khrushchevas response landed on Ulbrichtas desk twelve days after the East German leader had written to him and, by coincidence, on the day of John F. Kennedyas State of the Union speech. Given the impertinence of Ulbrichtas demands, Khrushchevas letter was surprisingly submissive.
The Soviet leader reported to Ulbricht that the Central Committee ahas discussed your letter carefullya and that Moscowas leaders agreed with much of it. The fact that Khrushchev had shared it with party bosses showed that he recognized the gravity of Ulbrichtas criticisms and the urgency of his requests. That said, Khrushchev again asked Ulbricht to contain his mounting impatience.
aCurrently, we are beginning to initiate a detailed discussion of these questions with Kennedy,a he wrote. aThe probe which we carried out shows that we need a little time until Kennedy stakes out his position on the German question more clearly and until it is clear whether the USA government wants to achieve a mutually acceptable resolution.a The Soviet leader conceded that the extreme measures Ulbricht had suggested in his letter aunder the circ.u.mstancesa would prove necessary. aIf we do not succeed in coming to an understanding with Kennedy, we will, as agreed, choose together with you the time for their implementation.a Ulbricht had achieved less than he had sought, but more than he might have considered probable. Khrushchev again would ratchet up economic a.s.sistance. The Soviet leader would also convene a Warsaw Pact meeting on Berlin. Of all Ulbrichtas demands, Khrushchev refused to agree only to the East Germana"Soviet summit.
Khrushchev had accepted Ulbrichtas diagnosis of the problem, and he had not rejected the steps Ulbricht had suggested toward a cure. Ulbricht could be satisfied that he had penetrated and influenced Soviet Communist Party thinking on Berlin at the highest levels.
Khrushchev was still buying time to work the new American president. However, Ulbricht had put all the pieces in place to move forward decisively at the moment Khrushchevas efforts to negotiate a Berlin deal with Kennedy failed. And the East German leader was certain they would.
In the meantime, Ulbricht would put his team to work on contingencies.
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1961.
The clouds were already gathering around the U.S.a"West German relationship when Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo walked into the Oval Office with his satchel full of Adenaueras concerns.
For several years, Americans had been warming to the West Germans, impressed by their embrace of U.S.-style freedoms. Now, however, public opinion was turning more negative again, fed by media reports about the impending trial in Israel of n.a.z.i war criminal Adolf Eichmann, and publicity around William L. Shireras best-selling book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, with all its sordid new details about the not-so-distant German past.
The West German foreign office had warned Adenauer at the beginning of the year: aThere are still some resentments and suspicions which lie dormant under the surface, but which are ready to break out under certain stimuli.a In exasperation at the shifting mood, West German amba.s.sador Wilhelm Grewe told a group of U.S. journalists at a conference of the Atlantik-Brcke, an inst.i.tution created to bring the two countries closer, that they had ato choose whether they consider us as allies or a hopeless nation of troublemakers.a Kennedyas briefing papers for the Brentano meeting warned the president that his visitor was coming to express Adenaueras concern that his administration might sell out West German interests in Berlin in exchange for a deal with the Soviets. aThe Germans are acutely aware that vital aspects of their destiny are in hands other than their own,a said the position paper, signed by Secretary of State Dean Rusk. It advised Kennedy to both rea.s.sure Brentano of continued U.S. commitment to West Berlinas defense and share with him as much of the presidentas thinking as possible about the possibility of Berlin negotiations with Moscow.
Given past experience, however, U.S. officials distrusted their West German partnersa ability to keep a secret. American intelligence services a.s.sumed that their West German counterparts were infiltrated and thus unreliable. aWhile frankness is desirable particularly in view of the chronic German sense of insecurity,a the Rusk memo said, athe German government does not have a good record for retaining confidences.a Detractors said that Brentanoa"a fifty-seven-year-old bachelor whose life was his job and its trappingsa"was little more than the genteel, cultured instrument of the strong-willed Adenauer, and the foreign minister did little to alter this impression. Adenauer was determined to run his own foreign policy, and no independent actor could remain long in Brentanoas job. Where Brentano and Adenauer did differ was their att.i.tude regarding Germanyas European calling. While Brentano was of a younger generation that considered Europe as Germanyas natural destiny, Adenauer regarded European integration more as a means of suppressing German nationalism.
Kennedy opened what would be a stiff meeting with Brentano by speaking from a script about athe appreciation of the U.S. government for the cooperation and friendship of the German government during the past years.a He very much wanted to arrange a meeting soon with Adenauer, he said, and hoped athat all mutual problems would be worked out satisfactorily.a Adenaueras political opponent w.i.l.l.y Brandt had already manipulated matters so that he would arrive in Washington ahead of Adenauer in March for a personal meeting with Kennedy, a breach of the usual protocol that put the head of an Allied government before any city mayor. Rusk had supported the Brandt visit to keep afreshly before the world our determination to support West Berlin at all costs.a He wanted the Adenauer meeting to follow as closely thereafter as possible to avoid giving the impression that Kennedy favored Brandt in upcoming German elections, which of course he did.
Kennedy rea.s.sured Brentano that his failure to mention Berlin by name in the inaugural address or in his State of the Union, a matter that had become such an issue in the German press, adid not by any means signify a lessening of United States interest in the Berlin question.a He said he had merely wanted to avoid provoking the Soviets at a time of relative calm in the city. Kennedy told the foreign minister that he expected Moscow to renew pressure on Berlin in the coming months, and he wanted Brentanoas suggestions about how one could best counter athe subtle pressuresa Moscow was likely to exert.
Brentano said Berlinas absence from Kennedyas speeches was of such little concern that it had not even been in talking points Adenauer had given him. He agreed there was no reason yet to raise the Berlin question, but added, aWe would have to deal with it sooner or later.a Brentano frowned, declaring, aThe leaders of the Soviet Zone cannot tolerate the symbol of a free Berlin in the midst of their Red Zone.a He told Kennedy that East German leaders awill do all in their power to stimulate the Soviet Union to action with regard to Berlin.a On the positive side, Brentano estimated that 90 percent of the East Berlin population opposed the East German regime, which he called the regionas second-harshest communist system after that of Czechoslovakia. His message was that the people in both Germanys heavily favored its Western version and therefore would over time support unification.
Kennedy probed deeper. He worried the Soviets would unilaterally sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and then cut short West Berlinas freedom, maintaining the status quo for only a brief period in order to mollify the West.
Brentano agreed such a course was probable, so Kennedy asked what the NATO allies should do about it.
Brentano described to Kennedy his chancelloras apolicy of strengtha approach, and said the Soviets would ahesitate to take drastic steps with regard to Berlin as long as they know that the Western Allies will not tolerate any such steps.a As long as Kennedy remained firm, he said, the Soviets amay continue to threaten but will not take any actual steps for some time to come.a However, Brentano agreed that recent U.S. setbacks in the Congo, Laos, and Latin America all increased the chance that the Soviets would test Kennedy over Berlin.
As if to prove Brentanoas point, Khrushchev simultaneously escalated pressures on Adenauer in Bonn.
FEDERAL CHANCELLERY, BONN.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1961.
Amba.s.sador Andrei Smirnovas urgent requests for meetings with Adenauer were seldom good news.
It was invariably Smirnov, Khrushchevas envoy in Bonn, who was the vehicle for the Soviet leaderas bullying. So the West German chancellor was already apprehensive upon receiving Smirnovas demand for an immediate meeting, considering that its timing coincided with his foreign ministeras visit to the White House.
More often than not, Smirnov was a charming and courteous diplomat who delivered the fiercest communication with a calm demeanor and outside the public spotlight. A rare exception had come the previous October, when he had exploded in rage at the comments of Adenaueras number two, Ludwig Erhard, to a visiting delegation of two hundred African leaders from twenty-four countries, many of them newly independent. aColonialism has been overcome,a Erhard had said, abut worse than colonialism is imperialism of the Communist totalitarian pattern.a Before storming out of the hall, Smirnov rose from the audience and shouted, aYou talk about freedom, but Germany killed twenty million people in our country!a It was a rare public display of the enduring Russian resentment toward Germans.
This time Smirnovas task was a more familiar one. He was presenting Adenauer with a nine-point, 2,862-word aide-mmoire from Khrushchev that would provide the most compelling evidence yet during the Kennedy administration that Khrushchev had again turned confrontational on Berlin. Soviet intelligence reports tracked Adenaueras doubts regarding Kennedyas reliability, and Khrushchev was wagering that Adenauer might be more susceptible to Soviet entreaties than he had been under the more dependable Truman or Eisenhower.
aAn entirely abnormal situation has emerged in West Berlin, which is being abused for subversive activities against the German Democratic Republic, the USSR and other socialist states,a the Khrushchev doc.u.ment said in clear, undiplomatic language. aThis cannot be allowed to go on. Either one continues down the path of an increasingly dangerous worsening of relations between countries and military conflict, or one concludes a peace treaty.a The aide-mmoire, written in the tone of a personal letter from Khrushchev to Adenauer, called Berlin the most important issue in Sovieta"German relations. It criticized what it called ever louder and more emphatic popular support in West Germany for revising postwar agreements that had ceded a third of the Third Reichas territory to the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. aIf Germany now has different borders than it had before the war, it has only itself to blame,a the letter said, reminding Adenauer that his country had invaded its neighbors and killed amillions upon millions.a Though the aide-mmoire had been delivered by the Soviet amba.s.sador to Adenauer, its tough message was intended just as much for Kennedy. In unmistakable fashion, the Soviet leader was declaring that he had lost all patience with Western dithering. First, he complained, the U.S. had asked the Soviets to wait for Berlin talks until after its elections, then Moscow was told to wait until Kennedy could settle into his job, and now Moscow was being asked to wait again until after West German elections.
aIf one gives in to these tendencies,a Khrushchev wrote, ait could go on forever.a The letter closed with Khrushchevas characteristic c.o.c.ktail of seduction and threats. He appealed to Adenauer to use aall his personal influence and his great experience as a statesmana to secure European peace and security. If matters turned more confrontational, however, the letter reminded Adenauer that the current correlation of military forces provided the Soviet Union and its friends with all the force they required to defend themselves.
The letter scoffed at West Germanyas appeal for disarmament at a time when Adenauer was quickly building up his military forces and seeking nuclear weapons while trying to transform NATO into the fourth nuclear power. It scolded Adenauer over talk that his partyas coming election campaign would focus on anticommunism. aIf that is really the case,a the letter said, ayouamust be aware of the consequences.a The Kennedy administration was not yet a month old, but Khrushchev had already shifted course on Berlin. If Kennedy was unwilling to negotiate an acceptable deal with him, Khrushchev was determined to find other ways to get what he wanted.
PART II.
THE GATHERING STORM.
7.
SPRINGTIME FOR KHRUSHCHEV.
West Berlin is a bone in the throat of Sovieta"American relationsa. If Adenauer wants to fight, West Berlin would be a good place to begin conflict.
Premier Khrushchev to U.S. Amba.s.sador Llewellyn E. Thompson Jr., March 9, 1961 It seems more likely than not that the USSR will move toward a crisis on Berlin this year. All sources of action are dangerous and unpromising. Inaction is even worse. We are faced with a Hobsonas choice. If a crisis is provoked, a bold and dangerous course may be the safest.
Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, memo on Berlin for President Kennedy, April 3, 1961 NOVOSIBIRSK, SIBERIA.
SUNDAY, MARCH 9, 1961.
Nikita Khrushchev was in poor condition and foul temper.
The Soviet leaderas face was ashen, his body slumped, and his eyes lifelessa"an appearance in such contrast to his usual brash buoyancy that it shocked U.S. Amba.s.sador Llewellyn aTommya Thompson and his two travel companions, the young U.S. political counselor Boris Klosson and Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet foreign ministryas top America hand.
It had taken Thompson ten days of pleading before head succeeded in winning an audience with Khrushchev to deliver the presidentas first private letter to the Soviet leader, which included a long-awaited invitation to meet. Even then, Thompson had to fly 1,800 miles to catch up with Khrushchev in Akademgorodok, the vast science city Khrushchev had ordered to be built outside Novosibirsk on the West Siberian plain.
Khrushchevas aspiration in Siberia had been to create the worldas leading center of scientific endeavor, but like so many of his dreams, this one, too, had fallen short. Just that week he had fired a geneticist whose theories he disliked, and he had ordered four of nine stories chopped off the plans for a new academy so that it conformed to a more standard Soviet size. Akademgorodokas frustrations only added to a growing list of Soviet failures that were taking a toll on the Soviet leaderas confidence.
Khrushchevas ongoing agricultural tour of the country had taken a physical and emotional toll, making him all the more aware of his countryas economic shortfalls. Albania had shifted its allegiance from Moscow to China in a heretically public manner, a worrisome crack in Khrushchevas leadership of world communism. Moscowas ally in the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, had been murdered, for which Khrushchev blamed UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjld.
More fundamentally, the capitalist world was proving far more resilient than his propagandists had predicted. Decolonization in Africa had failed to damage the Westas standing in the developing world as much as his experts had envisioned. For all the Soviet efforts to divide the alliance, NATOas integration was deepening, and the West German Bundeswehr was expanding its capabilities so quickly that it was altering the European military balance. Both in his rhetoric and his defense spending, President Kennedy was acting more anticommunist than Eisenhower. And each month, the East German refugee numbers. .h.i.t new records. If Khrushchevas luck didnat turn soon, the Soviet leader had to worry that his October Party Congress would become a struggle for survival.
Facing such an array of new challenges, Khrushchev agreed to meet Thompson only after the U.S. amba.s.sador had leaked to New York Times correspondent Seymour Toppinga"and to any number of diplomats in Moscowa"that the Soviet leader was giving him the cold shoulder at a time when Kennedy was trying to reach out. On March 3, Topping had reported dutifully that Thompson had been frustrated in his efforts to pa.s.s Khrushchev a crucial message from Kennedy in hopes of aseeking to head off a serious mishap in relations.a Topping wrote that Thompson had a new mandate ato initiate a series of exploratory conversations looking to substantive negotiations on a range of East-West differences.a Even after that, Khrushchev agreed only reluctantly to see Thompson. Khrushchevas adviser Oleg Troyanovsky had seen his bossas high hopes for a new start in U.S.a"Soviet relations come aquickly to evaporatea in the four months since Kennedyas election. There were few better barometers of the U.S.a"Soviet temperature than Troyanovsky, the ever-present Khrushchev adviser who had attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., while his father served as the first Soviet amba.s.sador to Washington in the mid-1930s. He could quote Marx and speak American slang with equal fluency.
Troyanovsky had seen Khrushchev weary of the Kennedy waiting game, having lost the opportunity he had sought to reach the new American leader before he could be infected by what Khrushchev considered Washingtonas anti-Soviet bias. A little less than a year after the U-2 incident and the failed Paris Summit, Khrushchev could not politically afford another failed meeting with an American president. Yet that now seemed the most likely outcome of any such summit, given Kennedyas determination to drag his feet on Berlin and to press for a nuclear test ban agreement that the Soviet military didnat want. Khrushchev was already in hot water with his military bra.s.s over troop cuts, and they would resist any measures that would constrain their nuclear development or leave them open to intrusive inspections.
Khrushchevas farm visits en route to Novosibirsk had fed his discontent. A new Soviet statistical yearbook showed the Soviet Union had achieved some 60 percent of Americaas gross national product, but that was certainly an exaggeration. The CIA pegged it at closer to 40 percent, and other experts estimated that the Soviet economyas size was no more than 25 percent of the U.S. level. Agricultural productivity was but a third of the U.S. level, and shrinking.
During his travels, Khrushchev had seen the ugly truth behind overly optimistic reports from provincial sycophants. Soviet farming was failing because of erratic planting, bad harvests, and dreadful distribution systems that often left crops to rot. Every week Khrushchev fumed at a new list of incompetent subordinates, some of whom fudged numbers to conceal their failures while others conceded their shortcomings but failed to fix them. In confessing his inadequacy, one party secretary named Zolotukhin, from the western Russian provincial capital of Tambov on the Tsna River, pulled down his trousers and asked Khrushchev three times to lash him.
aWhy is it that you want your pants whipped off to show us your a.s.s?a Khrushchev had barked. aDo you think you will give us some sort of thrill? Why would we keep such secretaries?a At one local Communist Party gathering after another, Khrushchev demanded his underlings match American economic and agricultural benchmarks and exceed U.S. milk and meat productivity, goals that had been his fixation since his 1959 visit to the American heartland. When comrades questioned the wisdom of benchmarking against imperialists, Khrushchev said America was athe highest stage of capitalism,a while Soviets were only just getting started building the foundation for the house of communisma"aand our bricks are production and consumer goods.a The Soviet publicas awareness of the countryas failings had produced a b.u.mper crop of humor, told in the food lines as Khrushchev hopscotched the country: Q. What nationality were Adam and Eve?
A. Soviet.
Q. How do you know?
A. Because they were both naked, had only an apple to eat, and thought they were in paradise.
Some of the jokes involved the new U.S. president: President John Kennedy comes to G.o.d and says: aTell me, G.o.d, how many years before my people will be happy?a aFifty years,a replies G.o.d.
Kennedy weeps and leaves.
Charles de Gaulle comes to G.o.d and says: aTell me, G.o.d, how many years before my people will be happy?a aA hundred years,a replies G.o.d.
De Gaulle weeps and leaves.
Khrushchev comes to G.o.d and says: aTell me, G.o.d, how many years before my people will be happy?a G.o.d weeps and leaves.
As sour as Khrushchevas mood had been when Thompson arrived, it worsened as the Soviet leader read the Russian translation of Kennedyas letter. Khrushchev could not find a single word on Berlin. Speaking calmly and wearily, Khrushchev told Thompson that Kennedy must understand that he would never back off his demand to negotiate athe German question.a Over time, Khrushchev said, he had converted Eisenhower to the realization that Berlin talks could not be avoided, but then U.S. militarists adeliberately exploded relationsa with their U-2 flight.
Under instructions not to be drawn on Berlin, Thompson responded only that Kennedy was areviewing our German policy and would wish to discuss it with Adenauer and other allies before reaching conclusions.a Fed up with what he considered U.S. delay tactics, Khrushchev scoffed at the notion that the worldas most powerful country must consult with anyone before acting, given his own dismissive treatment of Warsaw Pact allies. aWest Berlin is a bone in the throat of Sovieta"American relations,a Khrushchev told Thompson, and it would be a good time to remove it. aIf Adenauer wants to fight,a he said, aWest Berlin would be a good place to begin conflict.a Though Kennedy was not ready to negotiate Berlin with Khrushchev, the Soviet leader eagerly laid out his own negotiating position for Thompson so that he could relay it to the president. He told Thompson that he was ready to stipulate in any agreement that West Berliners could maintain the political system of their choice, even if it was capitalism. However, he said, the Americans would have to take the notion of German unification off the table, even if both the U.S. and Soviets might desire it over time. Abandoning the language of unification was necessary, he said, if the Soviet Union and the U.S. wanted to sign a war-ending treaty that recognized both Germanys as sovereign states.
For his part, Khrushchev a.s.sured Thompson he would not expand the Soviet empire any farther westward, but he also wanted Washington to refrain from any rollback of what was already his. Employing a voice calculated to project intimacy between old friends, Khrushchev told Thompson it was his afrank desirea to improve relations with Kennedy and make nuclear war impossible. However, he said, he could not do so alone.
Khrushchev was pushing Thompson far beyond his approved talking points. The American amba.s.sador warned Khrushchev not to expect rapid change in the U.S. position on Berlin, further cautioning the Soviet leader that if he acted unilaterally he would only increase tensions. aIf there is anything which will bring about a ma.s.sive increase in U.S. arms expenditures of the type which took place at the time of the Korean War,a Thompson said, ait would be the conviction that the Soviets are indeed attempting to force us out of Berlin.a Khrushchev dismissed Thompsonas warning. aWhat attracted the West so much to Berlin anyway?a he countered.
It was because America had given its solemn commitment to Berliners, Thompson responded, and thus it had its national prestige invested in their fate.
Khrushchev shrugged that it was only Germanyas World War II capitulation that had brought Western powers to Berlin. aLet us work out together a status for West Berlin,a he said. aWe can register it with the UN. Let us have a joint police force on the basis of a peace treaty which can be guaranteed by the four powers, or a symbolic force of four powers could be stationed in West Berlin.a Khrushchev said his only precondition was that East Berlin would have to be left out of any such planning, as the Soviet zone of the city would remain the capital of East Germany under any new plan.
Because Berlin lacked political significance for Moscow, Khrushchev repeated that he would provide the U.S. whatever guarantees it wanted to protect its prestige and ensure West Berlinas current political system. He was prepared to accept West Berlin as a capitalist island in East Germany, he said, because in any case the Soviet Union would surpa.s.s West Germany in per capita production by 1965, and then surpa.s.s the United States five years later. To further ill.u.s.trate West Berlinas insignificance, Khrushchev said that since the Soviet population grew each year by 3.5 million, the total population of West Berlin at two million was just aone nightas worka for his s.e.xually active country.
Playing devilas advocate, Thompson responded that even if West Berlin were unimportant to the Soviets, aUlbricht was very much interested,a and would be unlikely to endorse Khrushchevas guarantee for its democratic, capitalist system.
With a dismissive wave of the hand, as if swatting away a troublesome gnat, Khrushchev said he could compel Ulbricht to approve whatever he and Kennedy would decide.
In an effort to find safer ground than Berlin, Thompson changed the subject to U.S.a"Soviet trade liberalization. On that matter, he did have an offer he hoped would mollify Khrushchev. He said the U.S. was hoping to lift all restrictions on Soviet crabmeat imports to the United States.
Instead of embracing the gesture, Khrushchev shot back his outrage at a recent U.S. decision to cancel, on national security grounds, the sale to Moscow of advanced grinding machine tools. aThe USSR can fly its rockets without U.S. machines!a he snarled. He railed further against the delayed approval of a urea fertilizer factory sale, also due to its potential military application, ostensibly for chemical weapons. Khrushchev said such urea technology was so widely available that he already had purchased three such plants from Holland.
However, no amount of fertilizer could approach the importance of Berlin to Khrushchev, and the Soviet leader returned to the issue time and again until Thompson reluctantly engaged him. He a.s.sured Khrushchev that the president knew the situation was unsatisfactory to both sides, was are-examining the whole problem of Germany and Berlin,a and would be adisposed to do something to help relaxation.a But Thompson repeated that he could not reflect Kennedyas views until the president had consulted personally with alliesa"and he would do that during meetings in March and April before their own proposed summit.
Khrushchev complained that Kennedy did not understand fully what was at stake in Berlin. If he and Kennedy could sign a treaty ending the cityas postwar status, he told Thompson it would calm tensions all around the world. If they were unable to solve their Berlin disagreements, however, their troops would continue to confront each other in a situation anot of peace but of armistice.a Khrushchev dismissed Kennedyas notion that arms reduction talks could build the confidence necessary to take on the more difficult matter of Berlin. Quite the contrary, he said; only U.S. and Soviet troop withdrawal from Germany would create the right atmosphere for weapons cuts.
After so many weeks of angling to meet Kennedy, Khrushchev now balked at the presidentas invitation. He said only that he was ainclined to accepta Kennedyas offer to get together the first week of May, some two months away, following visits to Washington by Britainas Macmillan and West Germanyas Adenauer, and after a stop Kennedy would make in Paris to see de Gaulle. Kennedy had offered as a venue either Vienna or Stockholm. Although he preferred Vienna, Khrushchev said, he would not rule out Sweden. The Soviet leader shrugged that it would be useful to get to know Kennedy, noting they had met only briefly in 1959 when the then senator had arrived late for the Soviet leaderas visit to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Without accepting or declining the invitation, however, Khrushchev told Thompson it awould be necessary to work out a reason for the meeting.a At the end of the lunch that followed, Khrushchev raised a gla.s.s of his favorite pepper-flavored vodka in a lukewarm toast to Kennedy that was in striking contrast to his enthusiastic New Yearas message. Khrushchev dispensed with the usual wishes for Kennedyas health: aBeing so young, he does not need such wishes.a Having withdrawn his invitation to Eisenhower to visit the Soviet Union a year earlier, he regretted the time still was not ripe for him to extend his countryas traditional hospitality to Kennedy and his family.
Thompson returned by plane that evening to a snow-blanketed Vnukovo Airport in Moscow, and his driver whisked him over icy streets to the emba.s.sy, where Thompson cabled Washington his report. Although Thompson had been on the move for eighteen hours, adrenaline surged through him as he typed.
In Thompsonas experience, Khrushchevas fixation on Berlin had never been so single-minded. The Soviet leader had convinced Thompson he would no longer delay action. aAll my diplomatic colleagues who have discussed the matter consider that in the absence of negotiations, Khrushchev willaprecipitate a Berlin crisis this year,a he wrote.
A week later, Thompson urged his superiors in another cable to accelerate their contingency planning for a Soviet move on Berlin. Relations between Khrushchev and the Kennedy administration were so bad, the amba.s.sador argued, that the Soviet leader might feel he had much to gain and very little to lose over Berlin. Thompson added, however, that Khrushchev still wanted to avoid provoking a military confrontation with the West, and would instruct the East Germans not to interfere in any way with Allied military access to the city.
Thompson listed the sources of growing U.S.a"Soviet tensions that had acc.u.mulated during the Kennedy administrationas first weeks: The Kremlin lacked interest in the U.S. proposal of a nuclear test ban agreement; it considered Kennedy more militant than Eisenhower with his increased arms budget; it worried about new U.S. preparations for guerrilla warfare in the developing world; and it was displeased with the Kennedy administrationas increased restrictions on selling the Soviets sensitive technologies. The Kremlin was particularly irked by Kennedyas personal and public commitment to provide more support for Radio Free Europe, which was proving an effective tool in preventing communist regimesa monopoly on information. In Africa and South America, wrote Thompson, proxy confrontations would continue and perhaps increase.
Laying out his thoughts for President Kennedy on what might be the focus of his likely meeting with Khrushchev, Thompson wrote: aDiscussion of the German problem will be the main point of the exercise so far as [Khrushchev] is concerned. It would be at that meeting or shortly thereafter that the Soviet leader would set his course on Berlin.a Thompson thought the presidentas challenge would be to convince a doubtful Khrushchev that the U.S. would fight rather than abandon West Berliners. On the other hand, a tough stance alone could not avoid confrontation. Khrushchev would force the issue ahead of his October Party Congress, Thompson predicted, and if he did so, ait could involve the real possibility of world war, and we would almost certainly be led back to an intensified Cold War relationship.a Thompson repeated his conviction that the risks of dealing with Khrushchev must be weighed against the reality that the U.S. had no good alternative. For all his downsides, said Thompson, Khrushchev ais probably better from our point of view than anyone likely to succeed him.a It was thus in Americaas interest to keep Khrushchev in power, though Thompson conceded that his emba.s.sy knew far too little about the Kremlinas inner workings to provide any reliable advice on how Kennedy could influence Communist Party struggles.
With uncanny clairvoyance, Thompson then added: aIf we expect the Soviets to leave the Berlin problem as is, then we must at least expect the East Germans to seal off sector boundary in order to stop what they must consider the intolerable continuation of the refugee flow through Berlin.a With that thought, Thompson may have been the first U.S. diplomat to predict the Berlin Wall.
Thompson then proposed a negotiating position that he thought the Soviets might be willing to accepta"and which would allow Washington to regain the initiative. He suggested that Kennedy propose to Khrushchev an interim deal on Berlin under which the two Germanys would have seven years to negotiate a longer-term solution. During that time, and in exchange for a Soviet guarantee of continued Allied access to West Berlin, the U.S. would give the Soviets a.s.surances that West Germany would not try to recover eastern territories it had lost after World War II.
With that deal, Thompson said the East Germans could stop the refugee flow, which he argued would be in American as well as Soviet interests because the rising numbers threatened to destabilize the region. Fleshing out his plan, Thompson proposed as confidence-building measures the reduction of Western covert activities conducted from Berlin and the shutting down of RIAS, the U.S. radio station that beamed reports into the Soviet zone from West Berlin. Even if Khrushchev rejected such a U.S. offer, Thompson argued that the simple act of making it would allow Kennedy to win over public opinion and thus make it more unpalatable for Khrushchev to act unilaterally.
Kennedy, however, disagreed with his amba.s.sadoras sense of urgency. He and his brother Bobby were beginning to suspect that Thompson was falling victim to the State Departmentas malady of aclient.i.tisa and was a.s.sociating himself too readily with Soviet positions. The president conceded to friends that he still didnat ageta Khrushchev. After all, Eisenhower had ignored the Soviet leaderas Berlin ultimatum of 1958 without paying any real price. Kennedy didnat see why the urgency should be any greater now.