Berlin 1961 (67 page)

Faithfully yours,

Lucius D. Clay,

General, Retired,

U.S. Army.

PARIS
MONDAY, OCTOBER
23, 1961

At Kennedy’s instruction, the U.S. ambassador to Paris, General James M. Gavin, had arranged a meeting with President Charles de Gaulle to respond to the French leader’s letter that Kennedy had read with considerable irritation just two days earlier.

At a time when Kennedy badly wanted a common Allied front behind his desire to engage Moscow in new Berlin talks, de Gaulle had become his most troublesome ally and was egging on West German Chancellor Adenauer as well. De Gaulle had refused to join even the preliminary discussions among the Americans, British, and West Germans regarding the possibility of new negotiations with the Soviets—and no amount of cajoling or wooing seemed to move him.

De Gaulle had disapproved of the Rusk–Gromyko talks that had taken place so soon after the border closure because they gave the impression that the U.S. had accepted Berlin’s permanently divided state and was willing to discuss with Moscow a recognition of that status. He worried further that Kennedy was even willing to discuss with the Soviets the future of West Germany’s alliance membership. The French leader saw no circumstances under which talks with Khrushchev could result in anything but further concessions that would negatively alter the political balance in Europe and “create a psychological demoralization, difficult to contain, in the countries that belong to our alliance, particularly in Germany, and could encourage the Soviets to undertake a further advance.”

In his letter, de Gaulle had discarded all of the fatherly warmth he had shown during Kennedy’s Paris visit ahead of Vienna. His language was clear and tough: “I must say, Mr. President, that today more than ever, I believe the policy to be pursued should be as follows: to refuse to consider changing the status quo of Berlin and the present situation in Germany, and consequently [to refuse] to negotiate concerning them, so long as the Soviet Union does not refrain from acting unilaterally and so long as it does not cease to threaten.”

As harsh as it was, de Gaulle’s letter had merely built upon a confrontational tone he had established with Kennedy immediately following August 13. As early as two weeks after that, Kennedy had asked for de Gaulle’s help in influencing Third World opinion against communism. He also had said he wanted French assistance in his efforts to reach out to Moscow for new negotiations on Berlin.

De Gaulle rejected Kennedy’s plea for help in the Third World, arguing that underdeveloped countries lacked the West’s burden of responsibility, and “for the most part have already made up their minds, and you know in what way.” De Gaulle was all the more clear in his opposition to new talks with the Soviets due to “the threats that they are hurling at us and the actual acts that they are committing in violation of agreements.”

The French president warned Kennedy that any negotiations so closely following the August border closure would be understood by the Soviets as “notice of our surrender” and thus would be a grave blow to NATO. Khrushchev, he wrote, would only use the talks to apply greater pressures to Berliners.

Despite two months of U.S. diplomatic efforts since then to win over de Gaulle, including Kennedy’s personal correspondence, the French leader had only hardened his position. On October 14, Kennedy had informed de Gaulle that he had achieved a “breakthrough” with Moscow in that Khrushchev had agreed to negotiate directly with the Allies over Berlin and not require them to deal with East Germany. Kennedy had said that he hoped to organize a mid-November meeting of Allied foreign ministers to prepare for new Berlin negotiations with Moscow. Kennedy had assured de Gaulle, “We have no intention of withdrawing from Berlin nor do we intend to give our rights away in any negotiations.” He argued, however, that the Allies should make every diplomatic effort possible before Berlin moved “to the stage of great and dramatic crisis.” Kennedy said what he wanted was Allied clarity of purpose and military preparation “before the ultimate confrontation.”

De Gaulle scoffed at Kennedy’s notion that Khrushchev had made a concession regarding East Germany. He dismissed Kennedy’s fear of war, saying Khrushchev “does not give the impression that the Kremlin is really prepared to hurl the thunderbolt. A wild beast that is going to spring does so without waiting that long.”

With that as prelude, Ambassador Gavin knew that he was in for a difficult meeting. Kennedy had chosen Gavin for the Paris job in part because his military record made him one of the few men available whom de Gaulle respected. He had been the youngest major general to command a division in World War II, and his men called him “Jumping Jim” for his willingness despite his rank to join combat drops with his paratroopers. Nevertheless, de Gaulle spoke to him with characteristic condescension.

De Gaulle told Gavin that although he would do nothing to prevent the U.S. from holding a November meeting of the Allies, Kennedy would have to do so without French participation.

Gavin asked whether de Gaulle didn’t think it would be better to participate and make clear in a common Allied front “our intent to engage in hostilities” if the Soviets pursued their current course.

De Gaulle told Gavin he believed the Soviets had only two options, and neither of them required negotiations. Either the Soviets did not want to wage a general and nuclear war, as de Gaulle believed was the case—thus there was no hurry to talk to them—or they did want to go to war, in which circumstance the Allies should refuse talks because they then “would be negotiating under direct threat.”

“One cannot make working arrangements with people who are threatening them,” de Gaulle told Gavin. Driving home his point, de Gaulle said the Allies could not negotiate with the Soviets “when they have threatened us with the atomic bomb, built the wall in Berlin, threatened to sign a treaty with East Germany with no promise to guarantee access to Berlin, and indulged in saber-rattling in general.” His recipe: “If they apply force, we will do the same and see what happens. Any other stand would be very costly for not only Germany but for all alike.”

As had been the case with his predecessors in the White House, Kennedy was losing his patience with de Gaulle, who was all too willing to risk American lives over Berlin. Kennedy’s frustrations were mounting as he wrestled with the incalculable Soviets, uncooperative allies, and a retired general in Berlin who was playing by his own rules and now even trying to interfere in diplomacy.

U.S. MILITARY HEADQUARTERS, WEST BERLIN
MONDAY, OCTOBER
23, 1961

Emboldened by the success of his military escorts, Clay decided it was time to provide Washington with advice about how it could couple a negotiating initiative with military muscle-flexing. He wrote down his thoughts in a cable to Secretary of State Rusk, one of his key opponents in Washington.

Clay said he agreed with Rusk’s view that the matter of showing identification papers at East German border points was not by itself a matter of “major import,” but nevertheless he insisted that the U.S. had to push back. “I do not believe,” he told Rusk, repeating the message he had sent to the president, “that we can afford to have any remaining right taken away from us prior to and without negotiation as we would then enter into negotiations with only those rights left which we are committed to maintain by force if necessary.”

Therefore he “urgently recommended” that Rusk summon the Russian ambassador and advise him that the U.S. rejected the new East German border regime and would refuse to join any talks with the Russians on Berlin until the East Germans reversed their decree. He argued that this would improve the American position in Berlin, test Khrushchev’s goodwill for negotiations, and more closely align the U.S. approach on Berlin talks with the harder-line views of the French and the West Germans.

Clay made the case to Rusk that using the border dispute for diplomatic leverage right away was a more promising track than the continuation of his armed escorts, for he realized they would ultimately run up against vast Soviet conventional superiority. Clay thus announced that he would stop his probes at Checkpoint Charlie after only one day’s execution so that Rusk could pursue the diplomatic path that Clay believed he had made possible.

“We will avoid a test at Friedrichstrasse today awaiting your consideration of this recommendation,” he said, then added, “We must probe not later than tomorrow.”

OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER
24, 1961

The White House staff considered West German Ambassador Wilhelm Grewe to be the most unpleasant member of the foreign diplomatic corps. Humorless and condescending, Grewe had been so open about his disdain for Kennedy’s so-called New Frontiersmen that Adenauer himself had reproached him.

Given Ambassador Gavin’s failure to move de Gaulle the day before, Kennedy did not look forward to his morning meeting with Grewe in the Oval Office. He was irritated by increasing leaks to the U.S. and European media about French and German opposition to his desire for a new round of Berlin negotiations, and he wanted them to stop.

Ambassador Grewe dispensed with small talk and spoke of the chancellor’s concern about Kennedy’s lack of commitment to West Berlin and to German unification more generally. Grewe had the dry, prosecutorial bearing that came with being one of his country’s leading international lawyers. He had negotiated the end of the Allied occupation of West Germany and had been instrumental in creating the so-called Hallstein Doctrine, the tough policy which dictated that West Germany would not establish or maintain diplomatic relations with any country that recognized East Germany.

Grewe said Adenauer was prepared to go to war to defend Berlin’s freedom. To prepare for that, he said, the chancellor was increasing his military budget and building up forces even as he built his new coalition government. However, Grewe said that Adenauer worried about Kennedy’s plan for a conventional buildup in Europe. He “considered that such operations would only be convincing if we were prepared to follow them with a preemptive nuclear strike if that became necessary.”

The German fear, Grewe said, was that a greater Allied reliance on conventional forces could create a situation where a lack of clearly defined or believable nuclear deterrent encouraged Soviet forces to “cross the border and occupy considerable areas” of West Germany, a potential he compared to the Chinese situation in 1947 when communist troops took the mainland. “The decision to use nuclear weapons,” said Grewe, “must be made clear to the Soviets as well as the fact that the Soviet Union itself would be a target.”

Kennedy did not betray his growing impatience with Allied lectures about what sorts of risks he should take with American lives over Berlin. He lied to Grewe that he was eager to meet with Adenauer, a meeting that was planned for mid-November, and that he hoped they could get on the same page regarding policy toward the Soviets. The president said he “deplored” press reports suggesting the two sides were at odds over opening talks with Moscow. He wanted to probe Khrushchev’s more flexible ideas about what might constitute a free West Berlin. “I personally would feel much better if we did this before we got to the nuclear stage,” he told Grewe.

Kennedy complained to Grewe that de Gaulle “apparently felt that every move toward the Soviets was a manifestation of weakness.”

Grewe knew Adenauer had the same concerns. Like de Gaulle, Adenauer was deeply displeased by the Rusk–Gromyko talks. Beyond that, Grewe said Adenauer worried that the U.S. was abandoning its traditional support of German unification through its de facto recognition of East Germany, by encouraging closer contacts between the two Germanys, and by abandoning its support for the ultimate goal of German unity through free elections.

Impatient with the same old complaints, Kennedy responded that the U.S. and West Germany “should be looking for new approaches” to the Soviets. Kennedy told Grewe that he saw no prospect of unification in the foreseeable future and did not believe the Allies should stand pat on the West Berlin situation. He was looking for ways to improve the city’s current status, and for that he wanted Adenauer’s help.

Reflecting Adenauer’s own contempt for Kennedy’s belief in “new approaches,” Grewe echoed de Gaulle’s view that there was no practical possibility of achieving any improvement with the Soviets, as Moscow’s approach for the moment was to seek further concessions that the West must resist. He detailed for Kennedy the cost thus far to Germans and Adenauer of the president’s acquiescence to the border closure.

Before August 13, Grewe said, Berlin had enjoyed a daily average of 500,000 border crossings of families, friends, and workers, which closely linked the two cities and their peoples. These had been reduced to about 500, he said. Because of Adenauer’s “reserved and moderate” response to the Berlin Wall’s construction, Grewe told Kennedy that the chancellor had lost his majority and had nearly lost the elections a little more than a month earlier.

Kennedy reminded Grewe that the alternative to talks with the Soviets on Berlin was “the real prospect of a military engagement.” The U.S. would not give Berlin away, he said, but on the other hand he wanted to be sure “when we come to the end of the road” that no one wondered whether force might have been avoided through more effort at talks. Kennedy impatiently told Grewe that instead of just shooting down U.S. ideas, Germany should provide “proposals of its own which it would regard as acceptable.”

Stung, Grewe said that the West Germans were also looking for ways to change the Berlin situation for the better but did not believe for the moment that such an outcome could be achieved. He dismissed as unattainable the notion he had heard from some Kennedy administration sources of Berlin hosting the UN headquarters. At best, he said, such a far-fetched idea could be an opening gambit in negotiations.