The Berlin Wall (36 page)

Initially, in order to avert a violent Western response to the securing of the border, the Communists’ impositions had been modest. Western chanceries had greeted this with relief and had drawn conclusions that profoundly influenced their crisis planning.

These first impressions, however, would indeed prove deceptive. There would be further challenges to West Berlin and the Allied presence. Were these steps in a ruthless, planned escalation that would see West Berlin swallowed by the GDR? Or were they merely attempts to keep the Allies permanently on the defensive in the inevitable negotiations,
enabling Khrushchev to dictate from a position of strength? This was the uncertainty that began and would continue to plague decision-makers in the West for the duration of the crisis.

Willy Brandt’s letter to President Kennedy arrived at the White House by cable (via Lightner at the US Mission) late on the afternoon of 16 August (Washington time). The Berlin mayor described its contents as ‘personal and informal’.

Be that as it may, it was impossible for Kennedy to ignore Brandt’s clear criticism of the West in general and the US government in particular.

‘The illegal sovereignty of the East Berlin government,’ the mayor told Kennedy, ‘has been recognised by default, so far as the limitation in the number of crossing points and the restriction in access to the Eastern sector is concerned.’ He wrote of ‘inactivity and pure defensiveness’ on the part of the Allies, which could lead to a crisis of confidence among West Berliners, and ‘to an exaggerated self-confidence in the East Berlin regime, which already today is boasting in its newspapers of the success of its demonstration of military might’. The East had achieved the first part of its plan, to isolate and cut off West Berlin. Now the second step was only a matter of time, in which the island city would become an isolated ‘ghetto’. If that happened, then instead of people fleeing to West Berlin, they could begin to flee from it. The Soviet Union should stand accused before the United Nations, on the West’s initiative. Moreover, the three Western occupying powers should abandon the fiction of four-power rule and guarantee West Berlin’s freedom and security formally without reference to the Russians.

Brandt’s sharpest words came from the knowledge that, after refusing so long to talk to Khrushchev about his plans for a peace treaty, the West was suddenly eager to negotiate with the East, as a direct consequence of the sealing of the sector border.

I…cannot think without bitterness of those declarations that rejected negotiations with the Soviet Union on the grounds that one could not deal under duress. We now have a situation of total blackmail, and already I hear that we shall not be able to refuse to negotiate.
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Brandt ended up with a pointed request for reinforcements to the American garrison in Berlin as a symbol of Western determination.

It would have been a frank communication even between equal heads of state. From a municipal leader in Central Europe, however prominent, to the President of the most powerful nation on earth, it was astonishing in its boldness. Or insolence.

Brandt went even further in putting Kennedy on the spot. Addressing an enormous mass rally in front of Schöneberg Town Hall that same evening, just a few hours after Washington had started its day’s work, the mayor went public on his letter to Kennedy.

‘We are not afraid,’ Brandt told the huge crowd. ‘Today I expressed my opinion to the President of the United States, John Kennedy, in all frankness. Berlin expects more than words. Berlin expects political action!’

The applause exploded, and went on in great waves for some minutes. It was what Berliners wanted to hear. And maybe the entire West German electorate, too.

However, Kennedy’s instinctive reaction was to judge Brandt’s speech and letter as facets of his bid to become chancellor of West Germany. Since he first drew breath, the President had lived and thrived in the ruthless atmosphere of Boston politics, where any event, however tragic, was fair political fuel. ‘That bastard from Berlin’, he declared, had decided to use the border tragedy as an electoral ploy.
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At America’s expense.

That Brandt was acting, in the broadest sense, as a politician, there can be no doubt. Running for the highest office in the land, he wanted to show he could stand up for Berlin and for Germany. As West Berlin mayor, he was also aware that bad feeling, potentially anti-Western and especially anti-American, was on the increase. He needed to head it off. It would not be the first time in the history of democracy that a politician harboured multiple motivations for a necessary act.

The Berlin press, moreover, was starting to turn nasty. Axel Springer had insisted to Murrow on the afternoon of 13 August that the East would back down if the West rolled back the barbed wire. The press magnate was obviously displeased that the Allies had ignored his advice. That morning, 16 August, Springer’s
Bild
ran a banner headline
attacking Western inaction. ‘The West does nothing!’ the front page bellowed. ‘President Kennedy stays silent…Macmillan goes hunting…and Adenauer hurls abuse at Brandt.’ Another paper claimed that Marshall Konev had warned the Allied commandants about the coming border restrictions before 13 August. This was immediately denied, but the rumour found plenty of credence among anxious, increasingly disillusioned West Berliners.

So, Brandt had to channel all this negativity and frustration, neutralise its effects. His speech must be seen as a high-wire performance that, at least so far as his immediate aims were concerned, succeeded triumphantly.

Whether Brandt also understood the effect that his letter and his speech might have on the White House is still not clear. He was encouraged to send the letter, not just by his German colleagues, but by Allen Lightner and Ed Murrow, the latter having acquired temporary membership of the ‘Berlin Mafia’. The air had to be cleared, the city’s plight presented in stark terms that would shake official Washington from its August torpor. He would probably have sent the letter anyway, even had he been able to predict the President’s displeasure. Willy Brandt might occasionally have lacked judgement, but he was never short of courage.

Kennedy’s reply to Brandt arrived a little less than forty-eight hours later. It was wrapped up in a much more dramatic exercise of power. The American leader’s letter was hand-delivered to Brandt by Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, who by way of further reinforcement was in turn accompanied, on the President’s order, by one of the great figures of the immediate post-war period: the former Governor of the American Zone of Germany, General Lucius Dubignon Clay.

The idea of yoking Johnson, the low-born Texas career politician, with the aristocratic army general from Georgia (son of a US senator), in a grand public gesture over Berlin, seems to have been floating around even before Brandt’s letter arrived in Washington.

‘LBJ’, the renowned congressional horse-trader, and Clay, the renowned American war-horse, were personally and politically about as unlike as could be imagined. Clay, concealing his toughness beneath a
low-key, polite façade, was also, politically, a lifelong Republican; Johnson was rough-mannered and extrovert, a combative New Deal Democrat from the first hour. Talk at the Steering Group meeting on 15 August of a military figure may have seemed vague, but in fact there is reason to believe that the ‘drafting’ of Clay was already under way. It may even have
preceded
the selection of Vice-President Johnson.

Eyewitness testimony from the time indicates that the ‘Berlin Mafia’ played a crucial role in engineering this move in the crisis. Influential journalists James O’Donnell and Marguerite Higgins, both fiercely anti-Communist old ‘Berlin hands’ now living in Washington, seem to have concocted the idea as early as Monday 14 August. Higgins lived near Clay and knew him well. Her husband, General William Hall, had served as General Clay’s Air Intelligence Officer in the post-war period and they remained on friendly terms. Contacting each other shortly after the news of the border closure came through, O’Donnell and Higgins regretted that the State Department ‘appeasers’ seemed to have control of the situation.

How to provide a counterweight, someone who might turn the situation their way? Higgins had already discussed things on the telephone with Clay, and knew that he shared her distrust of the State Department. She suggested to O’Donnell that the general could be their man. After talking with O’Donnell, Higgins called Clay again; he agreed to volunteer for a mission to Berlin if the administration could be persuaded of its usefulness. Finally, Higgins spoke with Robert Kennedy. RFK accepted the idea in principal but was concerned that Clay represented a leftover from the Eisenhower era. This may have been when the idea of sending Johnson with him, to provide political balance, fell into place. Certainly by Wednesday, the teaming of these two powerful, charismatic men was being actively pursued.

The crucial session of the Berlin Steering Group, on the morning of 17 August, was attended by the President. It agreed on a combined trip to Berlin by Johnson and Clay. It also approved the almost inevitable strengthening of the American garrison in Berlin. This would involve withdrawing a battle group (1,500-1,800 men) from the Army’s 8th Division, based near Frankfurt.
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The detachment to go to Berlin would also include a battery of 105mm. Howitzers, the first artillery force—an
essentially fighting rather than a mere occupation unit—to be sent through Soviet-controlled territory since 1945.
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Both the President’s decisions were opposed from within the military-governmental apparatus by powerful voices. Senior officers—contrary to the cliché—showed themselves to be ultra-cautious in the sudden crisis, rather than warmongering. Generals Norstad and Maxwell Taylor continued to see any raising of the American military profile in response to the sector-border closure as potentially provocative and therefore dangerous. As for the plan to send Johnson, Norstad sounded just like a State Department ‘dove’. He cabled the Chief of Staff, General Lemnitzer:

The delivery of the President’s reply to the Brandt letter by the hands of the hero of the Berlin crisis of an earlier day, General Lucius Clay, would appear to me to be a brilliant stroke; but to add to this the great stature of the Vice President would be overdoing it, and would run the risk of exciting great expectations in West Berlin and possibly also among the unhappy East Germans. This is a big gun which we may need and need badly in the weeks and months to come.
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But finally someone was present at a meeting who knew really Berlin and was aware of the fragility of the Berliners’ morale. David E. Murphy was a senior CIA man who just weeks earlier had returned to the US after years as Deputy Director and then Director of Berlin Operations Base. He had been summoned to Washington from home leave in San Francisco.

Recognising a potential member of the ‘Berlin Mafia’ when he saw one, the President warned Murphy that he was interested exclusively in hearing about morale in West Berlin. ‘Our writ does not run to East Berlin,’ he told the CIA man. The border closure itself was not up for discussion. This must be accepted as
fait accompli
. Thirty years later, Murphy would recall his advice to Kennedy:

The problem, I explained, was one of West Berliners’ perceptions. Although they realized that since 1948 there was little the Allies could do to counter Soviet and East German actions in East Berlin, in essence Berlin remained for them one city. East Berliners could shop and attend
the theater in West Berlin while relatives and friends in both sectors exchanged regular visits. Whereas over the years there had been frequent crackdowns at border-crossing points, the actual closure of 13 August came as a deep emotional shock. This shock, plus the perception of Western inaction, caused many to fear that the Allies intended gradually to withdraw their protection from West Berlin. Thus, it seemed essential that steps be taken to restore confidence and rekindle the spirit of the West Berliners.
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This cool, measured contribution from Murphy seemed to crystallise resolve. The President’s mind was made up. He would send Clay and Johnson to Berlin, and reinforce the garrison there without delay, sending this force along the road route through East Germany.

Kennedy’s decision indicated that he had moved away from the passive, safety-first attitude promoted by some in both the State Department and the military, and shifted towards a measured show of determination, though still of a largely symbolic sort. To those who criticised the ‘aggressive’ tactic of reinforcing the garrison, Clay himself would retort that sending a force of 1,500 men, bringing the Allied garrison in West Berlin up to around 12,000, could not possibly indicate a plan to attack the Soviet/East German forces exceeding a quarter of a million that surrounded the city. Not even the most skilful Communist propagandist could make that accusation stick.

By late on 17 August the Johnson-Clay mission was a reality. Kennedy invited Marguerite Higgins into the White House for an informal briefing the next morning, and smilingly told her, ‘I have good news for you. Not only have we decided to send General Clay to Berlin; we are sending the Vice-President too’.

Actually, the President’s revelation came as no surprise to the formidably well-informed
Herald Tribune
columnist. She had been at dinner the previous evening with Clay, Vice-President Johnson, and Sam Rayburn, a Texan congressman and Johnson confidant, when LBJ was called to the phone to get his marching orders from the White House. Johnson was not pleased. Unfamiliar with foreign policy and no great traveller, he not only doubted the usefulness of his mission, but complained: ‘There’ll be a lot of shooting, and I’ll be in the middle
of it. Why me?’
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After dinner resumed, all the persuasive powers of his companions, especially his old ally Rayburn, had been required before Johnson accepted the presidential command with something like good grace.
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