An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 (71 page)

Kennedy’s determination to give himself more than the nuclear option in the growing crisis registered forcefully on his three weekend companions. While they cruised off Cape Cod, Kennedy peppered Rusk, inappropriately dressed in a business suit (which perfectly symbolized his and the State Department’s unhelpful formality and inability to think imaginatively), McNamara, and Taylor with questions about diplomatic initiatives and military alternatives that might deter Moscow from a nuclear attack.

Determined not to find himself confronting inadequate military options, as he had during the Bay of Pigs, and to rein in public pressure for overt military preparations, which might prove wasteful and dangerous, Kennedy asked McNamara and Bundy to extract concrete explanations from the Pentagon on anticipated Berlin outcomes. At the same time, he directed Pentagon press officer Arthur Sylvester to write William Randolph Hearst Jr., providing a catalogue of actions refuting complaints in his newspapers about insufficient military preparedness. Sylvester hoped that Hearst would “give these additional facts . . . the same prominence that you gave your earlier report.”

During July, as planning proceeded on how to respond to the Soviet threat, Kennedy sought the greatest possible flexibility. He wanted no part of a Pentagon plan that saw a ground war with Soviet forces as hopeless and favored a quick resort to nuclear weapons. Nor did he want pseudonegotiations that would make the United States look weak and ready to yield before Soviet pressure. He believed that “the only alternatives were authentic negotiation or mutual annihilation.” As he told
New York Post
editor James Wechsler, “If Khrushchev wants to rub my nose in the dirt, it’s all over.”

To make his intentions clear to Moscow and reassure Americans and European allies, Kennedy scheduled a highly publicized television address on July 25. As a run-up to the speech, he used a July 19 press conference to urge Moscow “to return to the path of constructive cooperation,” looking toward “a just and enduring settlement of issues remaining from” World War II. He also outlined the themes of his forthcoming speech, promising a discussion of responsibilities and hazards as well as a statement of “what we must do and what our allies must do to move through not merely the present difficulties” but also the many challenges ahead.

As Sorensen and several other aides helped Kennedy draft his television address, the president continued to worry about perceptions that he lacked the guts to fight an all-out war. Bobby heard from a Soviet embassy source that Moscow’s ambassador Mikhail Menshikov was privately telling Khrushchev that JFK “didn’t amount to very much, didn’t have much courage.” Bobby dismissed this as Menshikov “telling Khrushchev what he’d like to hear,” but American press reports (probably leaked by Pentagon sources eager to pressure the White House) of Menshikov’s opinion added to Kennedy’s problem over Berlin.

Acheson privately shared Menshikov’s assessment. After Kennedy made clear in the July meetings that he would not strictly follow Acheson’s advice, the former secretary of state said to a small working group, “Gentlemen, you might as well face it. This nation is without leadership.” Mac Bundy believed it essential for the president to counter these impressions.

Given all this, Kennedy’s speech on the twenty-fifth was the most difficult moment for him since the Bay of Pigs. Speaking from the Oval Office, crowded with TV cameras and klieg lights that added to the heat of the summer night, Kennedy struggled not to appear uncomfortable. Additional steroids helped ease the tensions of the moment, but he suffered physical discomfort nevertheless, which added to the pressure of speaking to hundreds of millions of people around the world seeking reassurance that the young American president would fend off a disastrous conflict. Too little emphasis on military planning and too much on negotiations seemed certain to bring cries of appeasement; too much talk of readiness to fight and too little on possible discussions or interest in another summit would provoke shouts of warmonger.

But the speech struck a masterful balance between the competing options, effectively blaming the crisis on Moscow. More important, Kennedy made it clear that he would not permit the Soviets to overturn America’s legal rights in West Berlin or its promise “to make good on our commitment to the two million free people of that city.” Using a map, he illustrated the Soviet-East German ability to close off Western access to the city. But it would be a mistake, he said, for Moscow to look upon Berlin as “a tempting target” because of its location. It had “now become—as never before—the great testing place of Western courage and will. . . . We cannot and will not permit the Communists to drive us out of Berlin, either gradually or by force. . . . We will at all times be ready to talk, if talk will help. But we must also be ready to resist with force, if force is used upon us.” And to make sure that the United States had “a wider choice than humiliation or all-out nuclear action,” Kennedy declared his intention to ask Congress for an additional $3.25 billion appropriation for defense, an increase in army strength from 875,000 to one million men, with smaller increases in navy and air force personnel, a doubling and then tripling of draft quotas, a call-up of reserves to meet manpower needs, and expanded funding for greater civil defense planning.

The choice, however, was “not merely between resistance and retreat, between atomic holocaust and surrender. . . . Our response to the Berlin crisis will not be merely military or negative,” Kennedy declared. “We do not intend to abandon our duty to mankind to seek a peaceful solution.” He was ready to talk with other nations if they had constructive proposals and if they sought “genuine understanding—not concession of our rights.” He expressed sympathy for Moscow’s security concerns “after a series of ravaging invasions,” but not at the expense of Berlin’s freedom or Western treaty rights. “To sum it all up: we seek peace—but we shall not surrender.”

The response to Kennedy’s speech pleased and partly surprised the White House. Predictably, it created a “rally” effect, with Americans and West Europeans approving of the president’s “determination and firmness.” Majorities in the United States and the Western European countries backed Kennedy’s intention to defend American rights in Berlin and supported the right of Berliners to self-determination. What startled Kennedy and others in the administration was the public’s lack of support for negotiations. And reactions in the press and Congress and from Nixon reflected the current national view that an unbridgeable divide between the U.S. and the USSR would end in a nuclear war. Sixty percent of Americans believed that Soviet insistence on control of Berlin would mean a war, and 55 percent thought that chances were either nil or poor that Moscow would give in. The press, which always found conflict more interesting than diplomacy, saw the U.S. military buildup as the headline in Kennedy’s speech, even though the White House leaked suggestions that the president might be ready to accept alterations in East Germany’s boundary or a nonaggression pact with Moscow guaranteeing Russian safety from a German attack. As a result, Congress rushed to approve funding not only for Kennedy’s defense requests but also for arms that the administration believed unnecessary.

Despite public and press militancy, Kennedy was not about to be stampeded into military action. And though Khrushchev was unhappy with Kennedy’s speech, he also deciphered Kennedy’s restraint. Khrushchev publicly emphasized his determination not to be intimidated and predicted that Soviet nuclear superiority could make Kennedy America’s last president, but he also declared his continuing faith in Kennedy’s reason and said that “after thunderstorms people cool off, think problems over and resume human shape, casting away threats.”

During the next two weeks, Khrushchev publicly mixed harsh warnings with invitations to negotiate. It was what a State Department analyst called the “twin tactics” of “maintaining, even stepping up his threats . . . and at the same time, gradually broadening the possible terms of negotiation.” It was more stick than carrot, but it allowed Khrushchev to save face while Moscow laid plans to extricate itself from a confrontation in which it was increasingly clear Kennedy would not give ground.

EARLY SUNDAY MORNING,
August 13, while Kennedy was in Hyannis Port, East German security forces threw up barriers that blocked access from East to West Berlin. There had been some talk in Washington about such a development. In a television interview on July 30, Senator William Fulbright had wondered “why the East Germans didn’t close their border, because I think they have a right to close it.” Five days later, during a stroll in the White House Rose Garden with Walt Rostow, Kennedy, reflecting on how unbearable Khrushchev’s refugee problem was, said, “East Germany is hemorrhaging to death. The entire East bloc is in danger. He has to do something to stop this. Perhaps a wall. And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.” Kennedy also said: “I can get the alliance to move if he tries to do anything about West Berlin but not if he just does something about East Berlin.”

But this was all conjecture; Kennedy had no advance knowledge of Khrushchev’s plan, and the administration’s failure to anticipate the development left him frustrated and angry. Moreover, there is no indication that he saw the border closing as ending the Berlin crisis; quite the opposite: “With this weekend’s occurrences in Berlin there will be more and more pressure for us to adopt a harder military posture,” he told McNamara. “I do not think we can leave unused any of the men or money that were offered by the Congress with the exception perhaps of the bomber money.” At the same time, Kennedy asked Rusk, “What steps will we take this week to exploit politically propagandawise the Soviet-East German cut-off of the border? This seems to me to show how hollow is the phrase ‘free city’ and how despised is the East German government, which the Soviet Union tries to make respectable. The question we must decide is how far we should push this. It offers us a very good propaganda stick.”

Kennedy responded to the border closing with studied caution. He stayed at the Cape until his scheduled return Monday morning and confined the administration’s initial response to a State Department statement declaring the action without impact on the “Allied position in West Berlin or access thereto.” Nevertheless, the department noted “violations of existing agreements” that would be “the subject of vigorous protests through appropriate channels.”

The restrained response reflected Kennedy’s realization that the Berlin Wall, as the thirteen-foot-high barrier came to be known, was something of a godsend. “Why would Khrushchev put up a wall if he really intended to seize West Berlin?” Kennedy asked O’Donnell. “There wouldn’t be any need of a wall if he occupied the whole city. This is his way out of his predicament. It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”

With the wall, Kennedy’s problem was in fact more with his allies—the West Germans in particular—than with the Soviets. On August 16, Edward R. Murrow, USIA director, who had been visiting Berlin when the wall went up, cabled Washington that conversations with West Berlin’s mayor, Willy Brandt, and newspaper, radio, and TV journalists had indicated a degree of demoralization that “can and should be corrected.” The absence of any “sharp and definite follow up” to Washington’s response had produced a “letdown” that amounted to “a crisis of confidence.” At a public rally, Brandt asked Kennedy to demonstrate his commitment to Berlin by reinforcing the U.S. garrison stationed in the city. Embarrassed by the appeal, which Kennedy believed a campaign tactic to help Brandt win election to the chancellorship, JFK bristled: “Look at this! Who does he think he is?” But the pressure to do something was irresistible. At a meeting on August 17 with national security officials, Kennedy cautioned them against considering the issue of the wall itself—“our writ does not run in East Berlin”—and asked them to address instead the question of West Berlin morale. The discussion persuaded him to send additional troops to Berlin along with a letter delivered publicly to Brandt by Johnson, who had played almost no part to that point in the Berlin crisis, and General Lucius D. Clay, the architect of the 1948 Berlin airlift that had saved the Western sector from a Soviet blockade. As Kennedy told Brandt in the letter, he appreciated that these actions were more symbolic than substantive, but not entirely. (The troop reinforcement underlined the U.S. rejection of Soviet demands for “the removal of Allied protection from West Berlin.”) More important, Kennedy promised to continue the buildup of military forces in Europe to counter the Soviet threat to Berlin.

Johnson thought the trip a poor idea, less because he feared for his safety—as Kenny O’Donnell later suggested—than because he believed it would intensify the crisis. When Johnson heard that he would be expected to greet the American troops traveling through the Eastern Zone to West Berlin, he predicted, “There’ll be a lot of shooting, and I’ll be in the middle of it. Why me?” General Norstad also believed it a mistake to send the vice president: It “would run the risk of exciting great expectations in West Berlin and possibly also among the unhappy East Germans,” he cabled the Joint Chiefs from Paris.

Kennedy, however, believing that Johnson’s mission would send just the right message to Khrushchev, the West Germans, and the allies, ordered LBJ and Clay to fly to Bonn on August 18. Johnson threw himself into the assignment with characteristic energy, staying awake on the overnight transatlantic flight to work on his speeches. At the Bonn airport, he told a waiting crowd that America was “determined to fulfill all our obligations and to honor all our commitments.” Chancellor Konrad Adenauer assured LBJ that his presence was a refutation to an old woman in the crowd waving a sign that said “Action, Not Words.” Flying on to West Berlin, Johnson rode to the city center in an open car cheered by 100,000 spectators lining the roads. Stopping the car repeatedly, he plunged into the appreciative crowds, shaking hands, distributing ballpoint pens, and responding with visible emotion to the displays of enthusiasm. At city hall, he told 300,000 cheering Berliners to maintain faith in themselves and “in your allies, everywhere throughout the world. This island does not stand alone.”