Berlin 1961 (83 page)

Though the men in the room:
“Newsfronts: JFK’s Triple Play Against Khrushchev,”
Life
, July 28, 1961, 32–33; John C. Ausland and Colonel Hugh F. Richardson, “Crisis Management: Berlin, Cyprus, Laos,”
Foreign Affairs
, 44, no. 2 (January 1966), 291–303.

Acheson gave the group:
Catudal,
Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis
, 141.

Before television cameras: Pravda
, June 18, 1961, in
The Current Digest of the Soviet Press
, 13, no. 23 (1961), 15.

Khrushchev framed the Western refusal:
Slusser,
Berlin Crisis of 1961
, 11–13, 18.

One after another, the Soviet Union’s: The Current Digest of the Soviet Press
, 13, no. 25 (1961), 4–6 (6); Slusser,
Berlin Crisis of 1961
, 14–17.

Even as Dean Acheson:
Acheson Letter to Truman, June 24, 1961 (courtesy David Acheson); see also HSTL, Dean G. Acheson Papers, 1961, Box 161; Brinkley,
Dean Acheson
, 137–138; JFKL,
Dean G. Acheson OH
.

Time
magazine:
“The People: The Summer of Discontent,”
Time
, 07/07/1961;
Newsweek
, 07/03/1961.

Kennedy complained to Salinger:
JFKL, News Conference No. 13, Washington, D.C., June 28, 1961, 10:00 a.m., EDST; quoted in Reeves,
Kennedy: Profile of Power
, 188–189.

The first three paragraphs of Acheson’s:
FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 49, Report by Dean Acheson, Washington, June 28, 1961.

He said that the “real themes”:
FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, 1961–1962, Doc. 52, Memo for the Record, Washington, undated, Discussion at NSC Meeting June 29, 1961.

The veteran opposed:
FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, 1961–1962, Doc. 52.

After the meeting, Schlesinger:
John Patrick Diggins,
The Liberal Persuasion: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and the Challenge of the American Past
. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997, 29–31; Arthur M. Schlesinger,
The Crisis of Confidence: Ideas, Power, and Violence in America
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969, 54, 60; Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 384; JFKL,
Abram Chayes OH
, no. 4, July 9, 1964, 244–245, 248.

His ambassador to East Germany:
Sergei N. Khrushchev,
Creation of a Superpower
, 453.

In a July 4 letter, Pervukhin:
Harrison,
Driving the Soviets up the Wall
, 185; AVP-RF, Letter from Ambassador Pervukhin to Foreign Minister Gromyko sent to the Central Committee on 4 July 1961. Top secret file, Russian Foreign Ministry Archive, Fond: referentyra po GDR, Op. 6, Por 34, Pap. 46, Inv. 193/3, vol. 1, in Harrison,” Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, 55, 98–105, Appendix F.

Ulbricht had long since overcome:
Yuli A. Kvitsinsky (Julij A. Kwizinskij),
Vor dem Sturm: Erinnerungen eines Diplomaten
, Berlin: Siedler, 1993, 175, 179.

Since Vienna, Khrushchev’s son:
Sergei N. Khrushchev,
Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower
, 453; Harrison,
Driving the Soviets up the Wall
, 186, 216.

Though Ulbricht still demanded:
Nikita S. Khrushchev,
Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament
, 505–508 (506).

Khrushchev complained that:
Sergei N. Khrushchev,
Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower
, 454.

She was Walter Ulbricht’s:
Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, “Die schönste Frau der Welt—eine Deutsche!”
Junge Welt
, 07/20/1961; “Marlene Schmidt, Die Anti-Miss von 1961,”
Der Spiegel
, 4/30/2001.

At age twenty-four:
“Marlene Schmidt, Die Anti-Miss von 1961,”
Der Spiegel
, 4/30/2001.

Time
magazine couldn’t resist:
“Universal Appeal,”
Time
, 7/28/1961.

Marlene’s triumph was:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i9sllFNZqs.

Marlene, who was earning:
Lee Rutherford, “Refugee Takes Universe Title,”
Washington Post
, 07/18/1961.

In the case of Marlene:
“Die schönste Frau der Welt—eine Deutsche!”
Junge Welt
, 07/20/1961.

In 1962, she would:
“Marlene Schmidt, Die Anti-Miss von 1961,”
Der Spiegel
, 4/30/2001.

13.
“THE GREAT TESTING PLACE”

“The immediate threat”:
JFKL, Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, President Kennedy, The White House, July 25, 1961: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03BerlinCrisis07251961.htm.

“Khrushchev is losing”:
JFKL,
Walt W. Rostow OH
; Walt W. Rostow,
The Diffusion of Power: An Essay in Recent History
, New York: Macmillan, 1972, 231. Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 394.

Mikhail Pervukhin, the Soviet Ambassador:
Kvitsinsky,
Vor dem Sturm
, 179–180; Klaus Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer,”
Der Spiegel
, 08/06/2001, 71.

Years later, Khrushchev would take:
Nikita S. Khrushchev,
Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament
, 508; Nikita S. Khrushchev,
Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes
. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990, 169.

Khrushchev would tell the West German:
Hans Kroll,
Lebenserinnerungen eines Botschafters
. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1967, 512, 526.

Khrushchev had agonized:
Sergei N. Khrushchev,
Creation of a Superpower
, 454–455; Kroll,
Lebenserinnerungen
, 512, 527; Nikita S. Khrushchev,
Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes
, 169.

Pervukhin told a satisfied Ulbricht:
Harrison,
Driving the Soviets up the Wall
, 186; Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer,” 71; Kvitsinsky,
Vor dem Sturm
, 180–181.

The only way to close such a border:
Kvitsinsky,
Vor dem Sturm
, 179–181; Central Analysis and Information Group of the Ministry for State Security (ZAIG),
Protokol über die Besprechung am 07.07.1961
, Top secret, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) 4899, 9; Uhl and Wagner, “Another Brick in the Wall: Reexamining Soviet and East German Policy During the 1961 Berlin Crisis: New Evidence, New Documents,” CWIHP Working Paper, published under “Storming On to Paris: The 1961 ‘Buria’ Exercise and the Planned Solution of the Berlin Crisis,” in Mastny, Holtsmark, and Wenger,
War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War
, 46–71; Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer,” 71.

The Soviets should not underestimate:
SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/202/130, “Besondere Informationen an Genossen Walter Ulbricht,” Bd. 6, July 15, 1961; Patrick Major,
Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, 110.

Having won the Pulitzer Prize:
Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 255–256; A. J. Langguth,
Our Vietnam: The War 1954–1975
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000, 136–137.

Schlesinger was determined:
Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 383–384, 386–387.

When Kennedy first drafted:
Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 381; Chace,
Acheson
, 391; McGeorge Bundy,
Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years
. New York: Random House, 1988, 375–376.

On July 7, just after a lunch meeting:
FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 57, JFKL, POF, Memo from the President’s Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President Kennedy; Under Secretary of State Bowles sent Rusk a similar memo on July 7, expressing concern about trend of U.S. thinking on Berlin; see Department of State, Central Files, 762.00/7-761.

Schlesinger had calculated
: Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 386.

“The Acheson premise”:
FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 57.

At the same time, Kennedy was also hearing:
Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 388; Catudal,
Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis
, 160.

Henry Kissinger spent only a day:
Walter Isaacson,
Kissinger: A Biography.
New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005, 110–113; W. R. Smyser,
Kennedy and the Berlin Wall.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010, 35–38.

Kissinger would complain:
Henry Kissinger,
White House Years.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1979, 13–14.

So Kissinger put his warning:
JFKL, Henry Kissinger, Memorandum for the President, Subject: Berlin, July 7, 1961, 1–2.

In a separate note to Schlesinger
: W. R. Smyser,
Kennedy and the Berlin Wall,
38; Jeremy Suri,
Henry Kissinger and the American Century.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, 175–176.

President Kennedy was displeased
: “Kennedy Confers on Berlin Issues,”
New York Times
, 07/09/1961; “Kennedy to Meet 3 Aides on Berlin,”
New York Times
, 07/08/1961; Reeves,
Kennedy: Profile of Power
, 192.

It was fine to drop the ball:
Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 390.

The news from the Soviet Union:
Nikita S. Khrushchev,
Communism—Peace and Happiness for the Peoples
, vol. 1,
January-September 1961.
Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1963, 288–309, Speech at a Reception Given by the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. and the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. for Graduates of Military Academies, July 8, 1961; “Khrushchev Halts Troop Reduction; Raises Arms Fund,” “Excerpts From Khrushchev’s Address on Arms Policy,”
New York Times
, 07/09/1961.

Kennedy was livid: Newsweek
, 07/03/1961.

Khrushchev had responded to the
Newsweek: Beschloss,
Crisis Years
, 244; “West Is Drafting Reply to Soviet on German Issues,”
New York Times
, 06/30/1961, 07/01/1961, 07/05/1961, 07/14/1961; “British Envoy Tells Khrushchev Soviet Policy on Berlin Is Illegal,”
New York Herald Tribune
, 07/06/1961; “Matter of Fact: Khrushchev as Hitler,”
Washington Post
, 07/12/1961; Martin McCauley, ed.,
Khrushchev and Khrushchevism
, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987, 222.

When Rusk explained:
Reeves,
Kennedy: Profile of Power
, 192; Catudal,
Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis
, 153–154.

The president then turned on:
Gelb,
The Berlin Wall
, 112.

Martin Hillenbrand, head:
Beschloss,
The Crisis Years
, 246–248;
New York Times
, 07/09/1961, 07/14/1961; Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days
, 752; Catudal,
Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis
, 153–154.

“I want the damn thing”:
Reeves,
Kennedy: Profile of Power
, 192.

Kennedy soaked in a hot bath:
Evelyn Lincoln,
My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy.
New York: D. McKay, 1965, 232–233, 278.

“Finally, I would like to close”:
Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, July 25, 1961: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03BerlinCrisis07251961.htm.

Kennedy said to his secretary:
Lincoln,
My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy
, 233–234.

On July 13 in the Cabinet Room:
FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 66, Memo of Discussion in the National Security Council, Washington, July 13, 1961, prepared by Bundy on July 24, 1961; Brinkley,
Dean Acheson
, 144.

Bundy had left:
FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 66n3, memo drafted by Bundy on military choices in Berlin planning outlining four alternatives.

The president listened:
JFKL, NSF, NSC Meetings, Top Secret, prepared by Bundy on July 24, 1961, Memo of Discussion in the National Security Council; in FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 66.