Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth

SOURCES

The sources for the facts, quotes, and reenactment of crucial meetings and episodes in this text are many and varied—in English, German, and Russian. They include declassified documents, manuscript collections, oral histories, interviews, memoirs, diaries, recordings, and media reports of that time. I have carefully cited all relevant sources in the endnotes and bibliography. Some of this material was not available to or used by earlier chroniclers, and thus it has allowed me to provide a more accurate and more complete account. Many important potential documents are still classified or unavailable, so the telling of this history will be even more complete over time. I and other authors will then be able to expand upon what is in these pages, and I will also provide any new insights at the websites berlin1961.com and fredkempe.com.

To improve readability, I have added articles and other connecting words, such as “the,” “a,” and “and,” to my quotations from State Department and other government cable traffic; these had been left out at that time for reasons of brevity. I have also taken the liberty of using as direct quotes citations from these cables when it was apparent the note-taker was quoting a specific person’s words. In some cases—and the accounts of the Robert Kennedy–Georgi Bolshakov meetings are a good example—I have had to rely on accounts that were only partial and left a great many questions open. In these cases, I have used my best judgment while citing what sources were available in the endnotes.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

(See the bibliography for full citations and locations.)

AVP-RF: Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Russkoi Federatsii (Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives)

BstU: Behörde der Bundesbeauftragten für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der Ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik

CWIHP: Cold War International History Project

DDEL: Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

DNSA: Digital National Security Archive

FRUS: Foreign Relations of the United States (U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian)

GRU: Archive of the Main Intelligence Administration of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

HSTL: Harry S. Truman Presidential Library

JFKL: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library

MfS: Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit

OH: Oral History

RGANI: Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Noveishei Istorii (Russian State Archive of Contemporary History)

SAPMO-BArch: Stiftung Archive der Parteien und Massenorganisationen im Bundesarchiv

SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland Archives, Institut für Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, Zentrales Parteiarchiv

TsK KPSS: Declassified Materials from CPSU Central Committee Plenums

TsKhSD: Tsentr Khraneniia Sovremmenoi Dokumentatsii (Soviet Central Committee Archive)

TsAmo: Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv hromads’ kykh ob’ednan’ Ukrainy (Central Archive of Ministry of Defense, Podalsk, Russian Federation)

ZAIG: Zentrale Auswertungs- und Informationsgruppe Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit der DDR

FOREWORD

“Berlin was the worst moment of the Cold War”: Interview with Professor William Kaufmann, 08/30/1996, National Security Archive, George Washington University.

INTRODUCTION

“Who possesses Berlin”: Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945. New York: Viking, 2002, 139; quoting Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO) 233/2356/5804, 320–321.

“Berlin is the most dangerous place”: William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, 407.

Undaunted by the damp: Russian State Archive for Contemporary History (RGANI), 5/30/367, Bl. 179–182, Bericht des Verteidungsministeriums an das ZK der KPdSU über die Situation in Berlin und in der DDR, 28.10. 1961; Matthias Uhl, Krieg um Berlin? Die sowjetische Militär- und Sicherheitspolitik in der zweiten Berlin-Krise 1958 bis 1962. Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2008, 146–147.

Reporting from the scene: Daniel Schorr, Schorr Script Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Berlin, October 27, 1961.

The situation was sufficiently tense: Interview with Adam Kellett-Long, October 15–16, 2008.

“The scene is weird, almost incredible”: Daniel Schorr, Schorr Script Collection, Berlin, October 27, 1961.

Rumors swirled through the crowd: Norman Gelb, The Berlin Wall—Kennedy, Khrushchev, and a Showdown in the Heart of Europe. New York: Dorset Press, 1986, 256; Interview with Vern Pike, November 17, 2008; RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) radio reports, October 25–28, 1961; retrieved from Chronik-der-Mauer.de.

Clay, who had commanded the 1948: Andrei Cherny, The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008, 253; U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 186, Telegram from the Mission at Berlin to the Department of State, Berlin, October 23, 1961, 2:00 p.m.; Curtis Cate, The Ides of August: The Berlin Wall Crisis—1961. New York: M. Evans, 1978, 477.

Convinced from personal experience: William R. Smyser, “Tanks at Checkpoint Charlie,” The Atlantic Times, October 2005: http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=319; NYT, 10/24/1961; Cate, The Ides of August, 479.

Since then, the communists had fortified: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 3. Winston Churchill, “‘Iron Curtain’ Speech,” Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946; as quoted in Katherine A. S. Sibley, The Cold War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998, 136–137.

the tank showdown at Checkpoint Charlie: RIAS radio reports, October 25–28, 1961; Raymond L. Garthoff, “Berlin 1961: The Record Corrected,” Foreign Policy, no. 84 (Fall 1991), 142–156.

Reuters correspondent Adam Kellett-Long: Interview with Adam Kellett-Long, October 15–16, 2008.

From there they phoned: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (JFKL), Lucius D. Clay OH.

“Mr. President,” responded Clay: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 195, 196; Cate, The Ides of August, 485–486.

Between the establishment of the East German state: Berlin Wall Statistics (Der Polizeipräsident von Berlin), chronik-der-mauer.de.

1. KHRUSHCHEV: COMMUNIST IN A HURRY

“We have thirty nuclear”: Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev 1960–1963. New York: HarperCollins, 1991, 52; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 449.

“No matter how good”: Pravda, no. 2 (15492), February 2, 1961.

At home, Khrushchev was suffering: Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006, 343–344.

Khrushchev was fond: Dean Rusk, As I Saw It: A Secretary of State’s Memoirs. London: I. B. Tauris, 1991, 227.

Given Khrushchev’s increased capability: Bryant Wedge, “Khrushchev at a Distance: A Study of Public Personality,” Society (Social Science and Modern Society), 5, no. 10 (October 1968), 24–28.

Another top-secret personality: CIA, Office of Current Intelligence (OCI), No. 2391-61, Copy No. 22.

During the campaign: Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985, 108–109.

As the countdown: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 106–107.

Though still vigorously youthful: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 16; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 47; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 39, 191; Marshall MacDuffie, The Red Carpet: 10,000 Miles Through Russia on a Visa from Khrushchev. New York: W. W. Norton, 1955, 202; Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: The U-2 Affair: The Untold Story of the Greatest US–USSR Spy Scandal. New York: Harper & Row, 1986, 163–164, 199.

He recognized many faces: MacDuffie, Red Carpet, 198.

Given his purpose: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 50–52.

“We consider the socialist”: Pravda, no. 2 (15492), February 2, 1961.

World War II’s battles: Sidney Pollard, The International Economy Since 1945. New York: Routledge, 1997, 2; Leon Clarck, The Beginnings of the Cold War—Civilizations Past and Present the Bipolar “North,” 1945–1991, accessed at http://history-world.org/beginnings_of_the_cold_war.htm: “The Elusive Peace—Soviet And American Spheres,” Introduction.

That didn’t count the millions: William H. Chamberlin, “Khrushchev’s War with Stalin’s Ghosts,” Russian Review, 21, no. 1 (January 1962), 3–10.

Khrushchev blamed Stalin: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 332; Nikita S. Khrushchev, “Memuary Nikity Sergeevicha Khrushcheva,” Voprosy Istorii, no. 2 (1995), 76.

Kroll had been born: Hans Kroll, Lebenserinnerungen eines Botschafters. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1967, 15–17; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 205–206.

“Ulbricht lobby”: Eberhard Schulz, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Gert Leptin, and Ulrich Scheuner, GDR Foreign Policy. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1982, 197.

Marta Hillers’s only consolation: Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary. Translation of Eine Frau in Berlin by Philip Boehm. New York: Picador, 2006; Jens Bisky, “Kleine Fussnote zum Untergang des Abendlandes.” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 06/10/2003, 10.

Published for the first time: Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk and Stefan Wolle, Roter Stern über Deutschland: Sowjetische Truppen in der DDR. Berlin: Christoph Links, 2010, 38.

One such review: Maria Sack, “Schlechter Dienst an der Berlinerin / Bestseller im Ausland—Ein Verfälschender Sonderfall,” Tagesspiegel, 12/06/1959, 35.

The East German relationship: Kowalczuk and Wolle, Roter Stern über Deutschland, 105.

The East German pity: Silke Satjukow, Besatzer: “Die Russen” in Deutschland 1945–1994. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008, 41, 43.

The latest escape: “Vopo feuert auf Sowjet-Soldaten—Sie wollten in den Westen,” Bild-Zeitung, 01/04/1958; “Sowjets jagen Deserteure,” Abendzeitung (Munich), 01/03/1958.

That dread had grown: Jan Foitzik, Berichte des Hohen Kommissars der UdSSR in Deutschland aus den Jahren 1953/1954, in Machtstrukturen und Entscheidungsmechanismen im SED Staat und die Frage der Verantwortung (Materialien der Enquete-Kommission “Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland,” Band II, 2), Baden-Baden, 1995, 1361; http://www.ddr-wissen.de/wiki/ddr.pl?17._Juni_1953.

2. KHRUSHCHEV: THE BERLIN CRISIS UNFOLDS

“West Berlin has turned”: The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 10, nos. 40–52 (1958), 17.

“The next President in his first year”: Freedom of Communications: Final Report of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, Part III: The Joint Appearances of Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Other 1960 Campaign Presentations. 87th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Report No. 994, Part 3. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961.

Standing at the center: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 396; Nikita S. Khrushchev, For Victory in Peaceful Competition with Capitalism. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1960, 38.

“The time has obviously arrived”: U.S. Department of State, Documents on Germany 1944–1985, Office of the Historian, Khrushchev Address, November 10, 1958. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985, 542–546.

The Poles weren’t the only surprised: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 195–211; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 396–403.

Khrushchev explained to Gomulka: “New Evidence on the Berlin Crisis 1958–1962,” “Minutes from the Discussion between the Delegation of the People’s Republic of Poland and the Government of the USSR” (October 25–November 10, 1958), Cold War International History Project Bulletin (CWIHP-B), Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, No. 11 (1998); retrieved from Douglas Selvage, Khrushchev’s November 1958 Berlin Ultimatum: New Evidence from the Polish Archives, 200–203, www.wilsoncenter.org; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 207–209.

“Now the balance of forces”: CWIHP-B, No. 11 (1998), in Selvage, Khrushchev’s November 1958 Berlin Ultimatum, 202; Matthias Uhl and Vladimir I. Ivkin, “‘Operation Atom’: The Soviet Union’s Stationing of Nuclear Missiles in the German Democratic Republic, 1959,” CWIHP-B, No. 12/13 (2001), 299–307.

What he told his Polish: CWIHP-B, No. 11 (1998), in Selvage, Khrushchev’s November 1958 Berlin Ultimatum, 200–201; Nikita S. Khrushchev, For Victory in Peaceful Competition with Capitalism, 738.

He had also: Matthew Evangelista, “‘Why Keep Such an Army?’ Khrushchev’s Troop Reductions,” CWIHP Working Paper No. 19, Washington, D.C.: December 1997, 4–5; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 379.

The second source of Khrushchev’s: Robert Service, Comrades! A History of World Communism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, 314; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 148.

The third source of Khrushchev’s: Service, Comrades!, 310; Nikita S. Khrushchev, “Khrushchev Remembers, Part III: The Death of Stalin, the Menace of Beria,” Life, December 11, 1970, 54–72.

At the time, Khrushchev: Hope M. Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall—Soviet–East German Relations. 1953–1961. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003, 27; Mark Kramer, “The Early Post-Stalin Succession Struggle and Upheavals in East-Central Europe: Internal-External Linkages in Soviet Policy Making (Part1),” Journal of Cold War Studies, 1, nos. 1–3 (1999), 12–28.

The March 1953 figure of 56,605: Bundesministerium für Gesamtdeutsche Fragen (BMG), ed., Die Flucht aus der Sowjetzone und die Sperrmassnahmen des Kommunistischen Regimes vom 13. August 1961 in Berlin, 1961; Helge Heidemeyer, Flucht und Zuwanderung aus der SBZ/DDR 1945/1949–1961, Die Flüchtlingspolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bis zum Bau der Berliner Mauer. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1994, 338.

“All we need is a peaceful”: Feliks Chuev, Sto sorok besed s Molotovym. Moscow: Terra, 1991, 332–334; Izvestia, 12/23/2003.

Beria wanted to negotiate: Vladislav M. Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, 159–160; Andrei Gromyko, Memories. London: Hutchinson, 1989, 316.

The post-Stalin collective leadership: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 24; “Memorandum, V. Chuikov, P. Iudin, L. Il’ichev to G. M. Malenkov, 18 May 1953, Secret,” retrieved from Christian F. Ostermann, “‘This Is Not a Politburo, but a Madhouse’—The Post-Stalin Succession Struggle, Soviet Deutschlandpolitik and the SED: New Evidence from Russian, German, and Hungarian Archives,” CWIHP-B, No. 10 (1998), 74–78.

At the party plenary: “Postanovlenie plenuma TsK KPSS o prestupnykh antipartiinykh i antigosudarstvennykh deistviiakh Beriia,” in “Delo Beriia,” Plenum TsK KPSS Iiuli 1953 goda, Stenograficheskii Otchet, 203, 304.

In the first days following Khrushchev’s: FRUS, 1958–1960, vol. VIII, Berlin Crisis, 1958–1959, Thompson cables to Washington on November 11 and 14, 1958, 47–48, 62; and Eisenhower—Herter phone conversation of November 28, 1958, p. 114.

“West Berlin has turned”: Oleg Grinevskii, “Berlinskkii krizis 1958–1959.” Zvezda, no. 2 (1996), 127.

Khrushchev’s son Sergei: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita S. Khrushchev: Krizisy i Rakety. Vzgliad Iznutri. Moscow: Novosti, vol. 1, 1994, 416.

In answer to similar doubts: Oleg Troyanovsky, Cherez godi i rasstoiania: Istoriia Odnoi Semyi. Moscow: Vagrius, 1997, 211–213.

Giving him only a half hour’s: Hubert Horatio Humphrey Papers. Trip Files, Russian, in Senatorial Files, 1949–1964, Box 703, Minnesota Historical Society, Minneapolis, MN; FRUS, 1958–1960, vol. VIII, Berlin Crisis, 1958–1959, 149–153; JFKL, Memorandum of conversation (Memcon) between Sen. Humphrey and Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, December 8, 1958, Box 126; Hubert H. Humphrey, “Eight Hours with Khrushchev,” Life, January 12, 1959, 80–91.

To show off his knowledge: FRUS, 1958–1960, vol. VIII, Berlin Crisis, 1958–1959, 149–153.

“somebody who has risen”: Humphrey, “Eight Hours with Khrushchev,” 82.

In recounting his meeting: Quoted in Department of State, Central Files, 762.00/12-358.

Eisenhower responded to Khrushchev’s: Christian Bremen, Die Eisenhower-Administration und die zweite Berlin-Krise 1958–1961. Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommision zu Berlin, Bd. 95, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1998, 383–386.

Khrushchev congratulated himself: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 416, quoting Sergei N. Khrushchev, Krizisy i Rakety, 442–443; Troyanovsky, Cherez godi, 218.

For that reason, Khrushchev’s considerations: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 421; Nikita S. Khrushchev, “Memuary Nikity Sergeevicha Khrushcheva,” Voprosy Istorii, no. 4 (1993), 36.

“the capitalists never missed”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974, 372.

Disregarding the advice of his pilot: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 372. Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, 328–330; Fred Kaplan, 1959: The Year Everything Changed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009, 107.

“From a ravaged, backward, illiterate Russia”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, “Memuary Nikity Sergeevicha Khrushcheva,” Voprosy Istorii, no. 4 (1993), 38–39.

To Khrushchev’s relief and delight: Morton Schwartz, The Foreign Policy of the USSR: Domestic Factors. Encino, CA: Dickenson, 1975, 89; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 377.

“We do not contemplate”: JFKL, Memcon, USSR–Vienna Meeting, Background Documents, 1953–1961, September 15, 1959, Box 126.

For his part, Eisenhower called: Jean Edward Smith, The Defense of Berlin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963, 212; Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 43.

His trip had nearly ended: Los Angeles Times, September 20, 1959, p. 1.

The climactic Camp David meeting: FRUS, 1958–1960, vol. IX, Berlin Crisis, 1959–1960, 35–53; vol. X, Part I, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, Cyprus, Doc. 129–136 (132), 459–485; Beschloss, Mayday, 206–215.

The following morning, Khrushchev agreed: Fursenko, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 238; JFKL, Eisenhower and Khrushchev meetings, September 26–27, 1959. USSR–Vienna Meeting, Background Documents 1953–1961, Box 4, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Initially, Khrushchev celebrated the incident: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 365–367.

Years later, Khrushchev would concede: Dr. A. McGhee Harvey, “A Conversation with Khrushchev: The Beginning of His Fall from Power,” Life, December 18, 1970, 48B.

Eisenhower removed Khrushchev’s: FRUS, 1958–1960, vol. X, Part I, Eastern Europe Region, Soviet Union, Cyprus, Doc. 82, Memo of Conference with President Eisenhower, July 8, 1959.

In what would be the one and only session: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 465, 495, quotes Pravda, May 19, 1960; Beschloss, Mayday, 299; A. Merriman Smith, A President’s Odyssey. New York: Harper, 1961, 199; Thomas P. Whitney, ed., Khrushchev Speaks—Selected Speeches, Articles, and Press Conferences, 1949–1961. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963, 389–390.

It concerned the sad story: Stanislaw Gaevsk, “Kak Nikita Sergeyevich vstrech v verkhak sorval.” Kievski Novosi, no. 1 (1993).

For all his theatrics, however, Khrushchev: Beschloss, Mayday, 305; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 282; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 31–32.

To the surprise of U.S. diplomats: Pravda, May 21, 1960, 1–2; “Text of the Address by Khrushchev in East Berlin,” New York Times, 05/20/1960; “Mr. K. Quiet in East Berlin,” Christian Science Monitor, May 20, 1960; “Back Home in Berlin, Mr. K. Smiles Again,” New York Times, 05/20/1960.

Instead of flying to America: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 472; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 408–409; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 463.

When one of the Soviet sailors: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 474; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 467.

“So, another dirty trick”: Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, 105–106.

The only saving grace: Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, 96–101; Martin Ebon, The Andropov File: The Life and Ideas of Yuri V. Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983, 26; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 474.

None of that dampened: Aleksei I. Adzhubei, Krushenie illiuzii. Moscow: Interbuk, 1991, 235; Nikolai Zakharov, “Kak Khrushceve Ameriku Pokarial,” in Argumenty I Fakty, no. 52 (2004), 12; Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 471.

By September 26, only a week into: New York Times, 09/26/1960.

Khrushchev was determined to use: Robert Divine, Blowing on the Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954–1960. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, 100; Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, vol. 2. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984, 349–350; Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library (DDEL). Eisenhower–Bulganin, 10/21/1956.

In public, Khrushchev hedged: Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, 108.

But behind the scenes: John Bartlow Martin, Adlai Stevenson and the World: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977, 471–475.

Stevenson responded that: Adlai E. Stevenson Papers. Memorandum (Memo) 01/16/1960: Tucker conversation; Martin, Adlai Stevenson, 471–475.

Republican Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 489–490.

By autumn, the Eisenhower administration: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 35; DDEL, Lodge–Christian Herter, 02/09/1960; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 489–491; Richard Nixon Papers, Nixon tel. note 02/27/1960.

“We thought we would have more hope”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 489.

Though Kennedy’s campaign rhetoric: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 340; Soviet Central Committee Archive (TsKhSD), Gromyko to N.S. Khrushchev, August 3, 1960, Folio 5, List 30, File 335, 92–108; reproduced in CWIHP-B, No. 4 (1994), 65–67.

The candidates continued to shower attention: New York Times, 09/27/1960.

Kennedy predicted that the next president: New York Times, 10/07/1960.

Yet before a national television audience: Washington Post, 10/08/1960.

During their third debate: JFKL, “Face-to-Face, Nixon-Kennedy” Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy Third Joint Television-Radio Broadcast, October 13, 1960: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/JFK+Pre-Pres/1960/Third+Presidential+Debate+101360.htm; The American Presidency Project: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu; Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 229.

Behind the scenes: Donald S. Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict 1956–1961. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1962, 245–251; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 254–255.

The Soviet embassy in Beijing: Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis 1958–1962),” CWIHP Working Paper No. 6, May 1993, 17.

Mao opposed Khrushchev’s foreign policy: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970, 461–479; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 245–248.

“Think of it”: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 42.

Mao had shocked Khrushchev: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 254–255; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, ed. Sergei Khrushchev. University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 2004–2007, vol. 3, 458.

“They understood the implications”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 471.

On the same trip: Zhisui Li and Anne F. Thurston, eds., The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician. New York, 1994, 261; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 391–392.

“The interpreter is translating”: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 391–392; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, vol. 3, 458; Mikhail Romm, Ustnye rasskazy. Moscow: Kinotsentr, 1991, 154.

Just two days before the gathering: Edward Crankshaw, The New Cold War: Moscow v. Pekin. Harmondsworth, England, and Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963/1970, 97–105; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 470.

He attacked the absent Mao: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 471; Crankshaw, New Cold War, 107.

“Within the short span”: Chinese Communist Party Central Committee letter of February 29, 1964 to Soviet Central Committee, excerpted in John Gittings, ed., Survey of the Sino-Soviet Dispute: A Commentary and Extracts from Recent Polemics, 1963–1967. London and New York: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1968, 130–131, 139; Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Alfred A. Knopf/Doubleday, 2005, 456.

Khrushchev called Mao: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 42–43; Beschloss, Mayday, 323–325; Chang, Mao, 456; David Floyd, Mao Against Khrushchev—A Short History of the Sino-Soviet Conflict. New York: Praeger, 1964, 280; New York Times, 12/02/1960; New York Times, 02/12/1961.

Deng attacked the Soviet leader’s: Crankshaw, New Cold War, 131–133; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 475–477.

Mao’s interpreter Yan Mingfu: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 472.

Ulbricht sat forward and erect: Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives (AVP-RF), Record of Meeting of Comrade N.S. Khrushchev with Comrade W. Ulbricht, 30 November 1960, Fond 0742, Opis 6, Por 4, Papka 43, Secret, in Hope Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose’: New Archival Evidence on the Dynamics of Soviet–East German Relations and the Berlin Crisis, 1958–61,” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, May 1993, 68–78, Papers, Appendices.

The Soviet ambassador in East Berlin: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 147: TsKhSD, Pervukhin, “Otchet o rabote Posol’stva SSR. V GDR za 1960 god,” 15.12.60, R, 8948, Fond 5, Opis 49, D. 287, 85; AVP-RF, Pervukin Report to Gromyko, October 19, 1960, “K voprosu o razyryve zapadnoi Germaniei soglasheniia o vnutrigermanskoi gorgovle s GDR,” Fond 5, Papka 40, D. 40, 3.

A second secretary: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 149: TsKhSD, “Zapis’ besedy s sekretarem Berlinskogo okruzhkoma SEPG G. Naemliisom,” October 17, 1960, from the diary of A. P. Kazennov, Second Secretary of the USSR embassy in the GDR, October 24, 1960, R. 8948, Fond 5, Opis 49, D. 288, 5; Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 147.

Ulbricht had created a new National Defense Council: Armin Wagner, Walter Ulbricht und die geheime Sicherheitspolitik der SED: Der Nationale Verteidigungsrat der DDR und seine Vorgeschichte (1953–1971). Berlin: Christoph Links, 2002, 189; Matthias Uhl and Armin 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 Vojtech Mastny, Sven G. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger, eds., War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East and West. New York: Routledge, 2006, 46–71; Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 149.

In his most recent letter: Stiftung Archive der Parteien und Massenorganisationen im Bundesarchiv (SAPMO-BArch), Letter from Ulbricht and the SED delegation in Moscow to the First Secretary of the CC of the CPSU, Comrade Khrushchev, Moscow, November 22, 1960, ZPA, DY, 30/J IV 2/202/336, Bd. 2, 1;11.

Khrushchev assured a skeptical Ulbricht: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 340–341.

Though Ulbricht remained distrustful: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 341; Letter from Ulbricht to Khrushchev, September 15 1961. SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA, Central Committee files, Walter Ulbricht’s office, Internal Party Archive, J IV 2/202/130, in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, 126–130, Appendices; Letter from Ulbricht and the SED CC delegation to the CPSU 22nd Congress in Moscow to Khrushchev, October 30, 1961, SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA, NL 182/1206, in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” 132–139.

“The situation in Berlin”: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 151.

“We still have not taken”: AVP-RF, Record of Meeting of Comrade N. S. Khrushchev with Comrade W. Ulbricht, November 30, 1960, Fond 0742, Opis 6, Por 4, Papka 43, Secret, in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, 69, Appendices.

“Luckily, our adversaries”: AVP-RF, Record of Meeting of Comrade N. S. Khrushchev with Comrade W. Ulbricht, 30 November 1960, Fond 0742, Opis 6, Por 4, Papka 43, Secret, in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, 73.

3. KENNEDY: A PRESIDENT’S EDUCATION

“We can live with the status quo”: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 342; quotation retrieved from David G. Coleman, “‘The Greatest Issue of All’: Berlin, American National Security, and the Cold War, 1948–1963,” unpublished dissertation (University of Queensland, 2000), 236–237.

“So let us begin anew”: The National Archives, Our Documents: 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, 222.

Eisenhower worried about Kennedy’s: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003, 302; DDEL, Earl Mazo OH (Columbia Oral History Project); Herbert S. Parmet, JFK—The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. New York: The Dial Press, 1983, 72; Geoffrey Perret, Eisenhower. New York: Random House, 1 999, 597.

Eisenhower doubted young Kennedy: Michael O’Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005, 175–176, 189–190; John Hersey, “Reporter at Large: Survival,” New Yorker, June 17, 1944.

On the cold, overcast morning: Washington Post, 01/19/1961; New York Times, 01/19/1961.

Ahead of the meeting: JFKL, President’s Office Files (POF), Memo of Subjects for Discussion at Meeting of President Eisenhower and Senator Kennedy on Thursday, January 19, 1961, Box 29a.

Eisenhower told Democratic political operative: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 303; New York Times, 12/07/1960; JFKL, Robert F. Kennedy OH; JFKL, Clark Clifford OH; O’Brien, JFK, 501.

Kennedy had been less taken with: JFKL, Robert F. Kennedy OH; JFKL, Charles Spalding OH; Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 302.

In contrasting Eisenhower with Kennedy: JFKL, Hervé Alphand OH.

Kennedy was perplexed: JFKL, Robert F. Kennedy OH; Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965, 118–119; Gary A. Donaldson. The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, 150; O’Brien, JFK, 499; Geoffrey Perret, Jack: A Life Like No Other. New York: Random House, 2002, 271–272; JFKL, John Sharon OH.

And his coattails: New York Times, 11/10/1960; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 125; Perret, Jack: A life like no other, 272; Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975, 33–34; JFKL, Clark Clifford OH.

During his transition briefings: Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars—Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 61; O’Brien, JFK, 550, 624, 644, 664.

Instead, the two teams: O’Brien, JFK, 509–513, 644.

“Current Soviet tactics”: DDEL, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers as President of the United States, Presidential Transition Series, Box 1, Topics suggested by Mr. Kennedy.

Martin Hillenbrand, the director: JFKL, Martin Hillenbrand OH.

“We can live with the status quo”: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 342; quote retrieved from David G. Coleman, “‘The Greatest Issue of All’: Berlin, American National Security, and the Cold War, 1948–1963,” unpublished dissertation (University of Queensland, 2000), 236–237.

In February 1959, Kennedy: New York Times, 02/23/1959.

“Our position in Europe”: Washington Post, 08/02/1959.

In an article published by: New York Times, 06/15/1960.

The president had only 5,000 troops: Kowalczuk and Wolle, Roter Stern über Deutschland, 97; Alan John Day, ed. Border and Territorial Disputes. Detroit: Gale Research, 1982, 42.

The CIA document warned Kennedy: CIA, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-4-60 Main Trends in Soviet Capabilities and Policies, 1960–1965; reproduced in Loch K. Johnson, Strategic Intelligence, vol. 1. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, Appendix E, 257–263 (263).

So, with Berlin on hold: O’Brien, JFK, 355, 512, 613–614, 624.

Eisenhower portrayed Laos as: O’Brien, JFK, 512–513; Mark K. Updegrove, Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies after the White House. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2006, 29.

Kennedy was struck by Eisenhower’s: JFKL, POF, JFK Memo, Special Correspondence, Greenstein and Immerman, January 19, 1961, Box 29a, 573, 577; POF, Clark Clifford to JFK, Special correspondence, January 24, 1961, Box 29a; Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Vintage Books, 1996, 35–36; Time, 01/27/1961, 10; Perret, Eisenhower, 599–600; DDEL, Memcon, January 19, 1961; Harry S. Truman Library. Memo, Clark Clifford to LBJ, November 29, 1967; DDEL, Major General Wilton B. Persons OH (Columbia Oral History Project); Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 302–305; Hugh Sidey, John F. Kennedy, President. New York: Atheneum, 1964, 37; Parmet, JFK, 80.

Eisenhower made no reference to: Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars, 47–48; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 258.

“You have an invaluable asset”: Perret, Jack: A Life Like No Other, 278.

Eisenhower picked up a special phone: Perret, Jack: A Life Like No Other, 278. “Kennedy Given Example of Fast Helicopter Service,” Washington Post, 01/20/1961; Times Herald, “The Unusual and the Routine Fill Eisenhower’s Final Day at the White House,” New York Times, 01/20/1961.

Two-thirds of the sold-out crowd: Christian Science Monitor, 01/21/1961.

The skies opened: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 48; Charles C. Kenney, John F. Kennedy: The Presidential Portfolio: History as told through the collection of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. New York: Public Affairs, 2000; Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Warner Books, 1979, 23; Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy. New York: HarperCollins, 1965, 240–242.

Dean Acheson, who had been President Truman’s: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 19.

On December 1, 1960, Kennedy: Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997, 81–82; JFKL, RFK Pre-Administration Political Files, 1960 telephone log, Box 54; Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 166–167; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 349–351.

Less encouraging to Khrushchev: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 81–82, quoting Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Shelepin to N. S. Khrushchev, December 3, 1960.

A few days later, on December 12: Sidey, JFK, 39; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 32.

The ambassador, whom U.S. officials: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 32; Adlai E. Stevenson Papers, Stevenson memo: Tucker conversation, January 16, 1960.

Menshikov argued to Bobby: JFKL, Memo, Robert F. Kennedy to Rusk, Robert F. Kennedy Papers, December 12, 1960.

Two days after meeting with: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 42; JFKL, Harriman Memcon, Harriman Papers, November 21 and December 14, 1960.

“I think it’s important to find out”: Martin, Adlai Stevenson, 571.

Beyond that, West German Chancellor: Baltimore Sun, 10/20/1960.

After much eating and drinking: David K. E. Bruce diary entry, January 5, 1961, Department of State, Bruce Diaries, Lot 64, D 327, Secret; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 10.

Just nine days before his inauguration: George F. Kennan and T. Christopher Jespersen, eds., Interviews with George F. Kennan. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002, 56–57.

Yet Kennan now opposed: JFKL, George Kennan OH.

During the campaign, Kennan told Kennedy: David Mayers, George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, 208.

Asked by Kennedy why Khrushchev was so eager: Kennan and Jespersen, Interviews with Kennan, 59.

A first version read: Sorensen, Kennedy, 242.

Just as important as his words: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 176, 317, 322, 342; Lincoln Papers, Evelyn Lincoln Diary, January 2, 4, 11, 16, 20, 1961; JFKL, Janet Travell OH.

It quoted his physicians: New York Times, 01/17/1961.

The article listed adult health issues: New York Times, 01/21/1961.

David Murphy: David E. Murphy, Sergei A. Kondrashev, and George Bailey, Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997, 343–349, 359; Cable, Berlin, January 4, 1961, in Dispatch, Berlin, February 15, 1961, CIA-HRP (Historical Review Program); “Goleniewski’s Work with the Soviets,” Memo, January 4, 1964, CIA-HRP.

Murphy had warned the CIA: David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors: Intrigue, Deception, and the Secrets That Destroyed Two of the Cold War’s Most Important Agents. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2003, 97–98.

The CIA also needed: Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors, 91.

4. KENNEDY: A FIRST MISTAKE

“The United States Government”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 12.

“Each day, the crises”: Brian R. Dirck, The Executive Branch of Federal Government: People, Process, and Politics. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007, 457–459 (457).

Nikita Khrushchev summoned the U.S. ambassador: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 54–55; JFKL, Thompson to Rusk, January 21 and January 24, 1961.

Khrushchev then nodded: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 9–10, Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, Moscow, January 21, 1961, 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Khrushchev had carefully calculated: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 149; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 290, 338; David Knight, The Spy Who Never Was and Other True Spy Stories. New York: Doubleday, 1978.

Back in November: JFKL, National Security Files NSF, Harriman to JFK, November 12 and November 15, 1960, Box 176; also see FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 10–11.

The aide-mémoire said: JFKL, POF, Telegram, Thompson to JFK, January 21, 1961, Box 125a.

When Khrushchev’s offer to release: JFKL, Rusk to Thompson, January 23, 1961; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 55, 56; Philip A. Goduti Jr., Kennedy’s Kitchen Cabinet and the Pursuit of Peace: The Shaping of American Foreign Policy, 1961–1963. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009, 20–21.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 11, Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union, January 23, 1961, 5:57 p.m.

In the meantime, Khrushchev: Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War.

Eager to be useful to Kennedy: JFKL, POF, Telegram, Thompson to JFK, January 19, 1961, Box 125a.

The president had initially responded: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 487; JFKL, Memo, Bundy to JFK, February 27, 1961.

Kennedy radiated calm self-satisfaction: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 12.

But among friends and advisers: JFKL, JFK to Bundy, February 6, 1961; JFKL, McNamara to Bundy, February 23, 1961, Box 328 NSF/NSWTB; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 303–306, 344, 346–347. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993, 40–41.

“You’ve got to understand”: JFKL, Robert F. Kennedy OH; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 61; Ralph G. Martin, A Hero of Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years. New York: Macmillan, 1983, 351; Saturday Evening Post, 03/31/1962.

The text: For text of Khrushchev’s January 6 speech, see Pravda, January 24, 1961; extracts printed also in American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1961, 555–558; CIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Review, January 26, 1961, Job 79-S01060A; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 15.

The text spoke of Kremlin support: JFKL, NSF, Box 176; “Khrushchev Report on Moscow Conference of Representatives of Communist and Working Parties,” Papers of President Kennedy: NSF, Countries, Box 189.

With its timing just ahead of: JFKL and DDEL, Thompson–Herter, January 19, 1961; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 61.

Then Secretary of State Christian A. Herter had told: Digital National Security Archive (DNSA). Memo for the President, Christian A. Herter, December 9, 1960, Subject: Analysis of the Moscow Statement of Communist Parties.

He began by listing: JFKL, John F. Kennedy, January 30, 1961.

Four days after that, McNamara: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 65–66. Andrew Bacevich, “Field Marshal McNamara,” The National Interest online, May 1, 2007.

On February 11, Khrushchev returned: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 78–79; Alexander Rabinowitch, ed., Revolution and Politics in Russia: Essays in Memory of B. I. Nicolaevsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972, 281–292.

Twelve days after his State of the Union: JFKL, NSF, N. S. Khrushchev speech, Thompson telegrams, Buildup to 02/11/1961 meeting, and Preparation for Thompson trip to Moscow, Box 176.

The long-awaited meeting: Sidey, JFK, 164; Sorensen, Kennedy, 164, 542; JFKL, NSF, Notes on Discussion, February 11, 1961, Countries Series, USSR, Top Secret, “The Thinking of the Soviet Leadership,” Cabinet Room; Bundy drafted.

At age fifty-six, Thompson: David Mayers, “After Stalin: The Ambassadors and America’s Soviet Policy, 1953–1962,” Diplomacy and Statecraft, 5, no. 2 (July 1994), 213–247; David Mayers, The Ambassadors and America’s Soviet Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, 201.

He agreed with Khrushchev’s view: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 399.

“We have refused these overtures”: DNSA, Relationship of Berlin Problem to Future of Germany and Overall Relations with Soviet Union, Secret, Cable, 1773, March 9, 1959.

“He is the most pragmatic”: JFKL, Memcon, February 11, 1961; JFKL, Kennan, Bohlen, Thompson OHs; JFKL, Thompson–DFR, February 13, 1961, BOX 176, Documents for Thompson Telegrams; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 69.

Pointing to Khrushchev’s Kremlin opposition: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 20.

He said the Soviets were “deeply concerned”: JFKL, Thompson–Rusk, February 4, 1961, also in Declassified Documents, 1977/74B; Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991, 172.

Thompson said Khrushchev would be influenced: JFKL, Thompson–Rusk, February 4, 1961, also in Declassified Documents, 1977/74B; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 175.

Walter Dowling, the U.S. ambassador: Department of State, Telegram 1218 from Bonn, Central Files, 762.00/2-861, also in Declassified Documents, 1977/74C.

“I am sure we would err”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 20.

The February 11 meeting: JFKL, Charles Bohlen OH, May 21, 1964; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 26, Notes on Discussion, drafted by Bundy, “The Thinking of the Soviet Leadership,” Cabinet Room, February 11, 1961; Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 342, 546.

The men arrayed before him: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 68–70; JFKL, Memcon, February 11, 1961; JFKL, Kennan, Bohlen, Thompson OHs; JFKL, Thompson–DFR, February 13, 1961; New York Times, 02/10/1961, 02/12/1961, 02/19/1961; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 303–306; Sorensen, Kennedy, 510, 541–542.

Thompson argued that the U.S. “hope for the future”: JFKL, NSF, Notes on Discussion, February 11, 1961, Countries Series, USSR, Top Secret, “The Thinking of the Soviet Leadership,” Cabinet Room; Bundy drafted; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 26.

Bohlen opposed Khrushchev’s suggestion: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 26.

As he had told his aide: Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers, with Joe McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972, 286.

Beyond that, other countries: Sidey, JFK, 164.

“It is my duty to make decisions”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 542–543.

On February 27, Bundy instructed: DNSA, Crisis over Berlin, February 27, 1961, vol. 7.

But by the time Thompson phoned: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 80.

Khrushchev delivered a speech: New York Times, 03/07/1961.

5. ULBRICHT AND ADENAUER: UNRULY ALLIANCES

“Whatever elections show”: John F. Kennedy, “A Democrat Looks at Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, 36, no. 1 (October 1957), 49.

“West Berlin is experiencing a growth”: SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/2/743. “Stichwort Protokoll der Beratung des Politbüros am 4. Januar 1961 über ‘Die Gegenwärtige Lage und die Hauptaufgaben 1961,’” Politbüro, “Reinschriftenprotokoll Nr. 1 vom 4.1.1961.”

At age sixty-seven: Mario Frank, Walter Ulbricht: Eine Deutsche Biographie. Berlin: Siedler, 2001, 282.

“Our task was to dispel”: Konrad Adenauer, Memoirs, 1945–1953. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1966, 41, 79.

Speaking to his subjects: Berliner Zeitung, 01/01/1961.

Ulbricht had never been: SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/2/743. “Stichwort Protokoll der Beratung des Politbüros am 4. Januar 1961 über ‘Die Gegenwärtige Lage und die Hauptaufgaben 1961,’” Politbüro, “Reinschriftenprotokoll Nr. 1 vom 4.1.1961.”

Ulbricht’s party lieutenants: Frank, Walter Ulbricht, 344–345.

Like his mentor Stalin, Ulbricht: Frank, Walter Ulbricht, 287; Thomas Grimm, Das Politbüro Privat—Ulbricht, Honecker, Mielke & Co. aus der Sicht ihrer Angestellten. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 2004, 203; Wolfgang Weber, DDR—40 Jahre Stalinismus: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der DDR. Essen: Arbeiterpresse, 1993, 63; Catherine Epstein, The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and Their Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003, 20–22.

Ulbricht was also a man: Grimm, Das Politbüro Privat, 203.

At six in the morning: Weber, DDR—40 Jahre Stalinismus, 159.

Wolfgang Leonhard, the youngest member: Wolfgang Leonhard, Child of the Revolution. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1958, 300, 303.

Ulbricht snapped: Leonhard, Child of the Revolution, 312.

One example came in 1946: Weber, DDR—40 Jahre Stalinismus, 16–17.

As late as April 1952: “Record of Conversation of Leaders of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany W. Pieck, W. Ulbricht, and O. Grotewohl with J. V. Stalin,” April 7, 1952, reprinted in Christian F. Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany 1953: The Cold War, the German Question, and the First Major Upheaval Behind the Iron Curtain. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2001, 38.

Though the chancellor: Henning Köhler, Adenauer: Eine politische Biographie. Frankfurt am Main: Propyläen, 1994, 730.

Yet Kennedy’s undisciplined: Terence Prittie, Konrad Adenauer, 1876–1967. London: Tom Stacey, 1972, 283.

Nevertheless, the chancellor smiled: Der Spiegel, 01/11/1961.

Adenauer’s young country: Eric Owen Smith, The West German Economy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983, 18.

For all that accomplishment: Charles Williams, Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000, 177; Hans-Peter Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction. Vol. 1: From the German Empire to the Federal Republic, 1876–1952. Trans. Louise Willmot. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1995, 154, 160, 357, 402, 602, 604.

Dean Acheson, President Truman’s: Dean Acheson, Sketches from Life of Men I Have Known. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961, 169–170.

An automobile accident: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 108–109.

Some likened his profile: Valentin Falin, Politische Erinnerungen. Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1993, 328.

Just eight years after: “Man of the Year: We Belong to the West,” Time, 01/04/1954.

“The aim of the Russians”: Adenauer, Memoirs, 78–79.

In Adenauer’s view: Adenauer, Memoirs, 1945–1953, 79.

Over the two days: Anneliese Poppinga, “Das Wichtigste ist der Mut”: Konrad Adenauer—Die letzten fünf Kanzlerjahre. Bergisch Gladbach, Germany: Gustav Lübbe, 1994, 282.

During his election campaign: Prittie, Konrad Adenauer, 283.

Kennedy had been born: Frank A. Mayer, Adenauer and Kennedy: A Study in German-American Relations, 1969–1963. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Eisenhower’s National Security Council: DDEL, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (OSANSA), Records, 1952–1961, NSC, Policy Papers Subseries, Box 23, Folder NSC 5803, “U.S. Policy Toward Germany (1),” Operations Coordinating Board, Report on Germany (The Federal Republic, Berlin, East Germany: NSC 5803), November 2, 1960, printed in FRUS, 1958–1960, vol. IX, Berlin Crisis, 1959–1960, p. 697; Adrian W. Schertz, Die Deutschlandpolitik Kennedys und Johnsons: Unterschiedliche Ansätze innerhalb der amerikanischen Regierung. Cologne: Böhlau, 1992, 47.

U.S. ambassador to Bonn: DNSA, The German Scene at the Turn of the Year. Confidential, Dispatch, 1122, February 8, 1961, Berlin Crisis, Item Number: BC01991.

With France’s de Gaulle: Eckart Conze, Die gaullistische Herausforderung: Die Deutsch-Französischen Beziehungen in der Amerikanischen Europapolitik 1958–1963. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1995, 91–94.

Kennedy’s election had fed: Köhler, Adenauer, 1094.

Adenauer was painfully aware: Walter Stützle, Kennedy und Adenauer in der Berlin-Krise 1969–1962. Bonn and Bad Godesberg: Neue Gesellschaft, 1973, 19–20; Mayer, Adenauer and Kennedy, 7; John Fitzgerald Kennedy, A Compilation of Statements and Speeches Made During His Service in the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964, 979–980.

Schumacher, who had lost: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 596–603.

Acheson had considered Schumacher: Acheson, Sketches, 171.

Even after his death: Die Zeit, 12/15/1955.

“Went to bed early”: JFKL, JFK Personal Papers, Diary of European Trip, ms., Box 1; Herbert S. Parmet, Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy. New York: The Dial Press, 1983, 51.

“We should be ready”: John F. Kennedy and Allan Nevins, The Strategy of Peace. New York: Harper & Row, 1960, 7, 11, 12, 30; Mayer, Adenauer and Kennedy, 8, citing his interview with McGeorge Bundy, August 25, 1988, on “chancellor’s veto.”

Nothing in Adenauer’s life: Rolf-Dietrich Keil, Mit Adenauer in Moskau—Erinnerungen eines Dolmetschers. Bonn: Bouvier, 1997, 79, 95, 97.

Adenauer had been shaken: Anneliese Poppinga, Meine Erinnerungen an Konrad Adenauer. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1970, 166.

Khrushchev got the better: Henry Ashby Turner, The Two Germanies Since 1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987, 87.

“The freedom of 10,000”: Guido Knopp, Die Gefangenen. Munich: Goldmann, 2005, 370.

Having never forgotten: Mayer, Adenauer and Kennedy, 8, quoting Georg M. Schild, “John F. Kennedy and Berlin,” Paper Presented at the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, June 17–20, 1993; Kennedy and Nevins, The Strategy of Peace, 212–213.

Adenauer even sent Nixon: Köhler, Adenauer, 1093; Stiftung Bundeskanzler-Adenauer-Haus, III, 6.

The morning began: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 01/05/1961.

The official explanation: Williams, Adenauer, 340.

Born Herbert Frahm: Williams, Adenauer, 488.

The SPD’s shift: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 524; Bonner Rundschau, 01/06/1961; SPD Press Service, January 4, 1960, P/XV/2.

Still, Adenauer did not trust: Williams, Adenauer, 488; Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 487.

“Whoever wants to be”: Köhler, Adenauer, 1090; Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik, VIII-001-1503/3; Willy Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsichten. Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, 1976, 49.

He was convinced Khrushchev: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 645.

Waving his hand, Adenauer: Poppinga, Meine Erinnerungen an Adenauer, 41–42, 51.

Friedrich Brandt was hiding: Erika Von Hornstein, Flüchtlingsgeschichten: 43 Berichte aus den frühen Jahren der DDR. Nördlingen, Germany: F. Greno, 1985.

6. ULBRICHT AND ADENAUER: THE TAIL WAGS THE BEAR

“We are a state”: SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/202/129, 1–2. Letter from Ulbricht to Khrushchev, January 18, 1961; SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA, J IV, 2/202/129.

“The probe which”: SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA, J IV, 2/202/129, Letter from Khrushchev to Ulbricht, January 30, 1961, in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, Appendix C.

“Since Comrade Khrushchev’s statement”: SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/202/129, 9-2. Letter from Ulbricht to Khrushchev, January 18, 1961; SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA, J IV, 2/202/129.

“The booming economy”: Hope M. Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet–East German Relations. 1953–1961. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003, 163–164; SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/202/129, January 18, 1961, “Möglichkeiten des taktischen Vorgehens in der Frage Friedensvertrag und Westberlin” and “Massnahmeplan zu organisatorischen Fragen im Zusammenarbeit mit der Vorbereitung des Abschlusses eines Friedensvertrages mit der DDR und der Einberufung einer Friedenskonferenz,” English translation in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, Appendix B.

An East German worker: “ West Berlin Shows Progress, Enjoys Best Year Since War,” New York Times, 01/10/1961; “German Reds Say Production Is Up—but Reported Increase Falls Short of Plan; Lags Seen in Vital Industries,” New York Times, 01/10/1961.

Because of all that: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 150.

Ulbricht did not seek Khrushchev’s: Donald S. Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956–1961. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962,396.

Yuri Andropov: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 164–165; Zagoria, The Sino-Soviet Conflict; Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001; Vladislav M. Zubok, “‘Look What Chaos in the Beautiful Socialist Camp!’: Deng Xiaoping and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1956–1963,” CWIHP-B, No. 10 (1998), http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/ACF185.pdf, 152–162; Chen Jian, “Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s ‘Continuous Revolution,’ and the Path Toward the Sino-Soviet Split: A Rejoinder,” CWIHP-B, No. 10 (1998), 162–164, 165–183; Joachim Krüger, “Die Volksrepublik China in der Aussenpolitischen Strategie der DDR (1949–1989),” in Kuo Heng-yue and Mechthild Leutner, eds., Deutschland und China. Beiträge des Zweiten Internationalen Symposiums zur Geschichte der deutsch-chinesischen Beziehungen Berlin 1991 (Berliner China-Studien 21), Munich: Minerva, 1994, 49.

But everything about: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 165. Harrison draws on a one-page report that was sent by Yuri Andropov to the Central Committee on January 18, 1961, written by I. Kabin, chairman of the German section in the CPSU CC Department on Relations with Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries, TsKhSD, R. 8978, F. 5, Op. 49, D. Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries; TsKhSD, R. 8978, F. 5, Op. 49, D. 377; SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/2/745.

The Chinese view: “Vermerk über den Antrittsbesuch Botschafter Hegens bei Ministerpräsident der VR China, Genossen Tschou En-lai am 9.6.1961,” written by Hegen, June 12, 1961, Staatsekretär Winzer, MfAA A17879, 2–3, 6.

“We aren’t China”: AVP-RF, “‘Zapis’ besedy tovarischcha N.S. Khrushcheva s tovarishchem V. Ul’brikhtom, 30 noiabria 1960 goda,” F. 0742, Op. 6, Por. 4, Pap. 43, 14.

During the Fourth Congress: James S. O’Donnell, A Coming of Age: Albania Under Enver Hoxha. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs (distributed by Columbia University Press), 1999, 52–53.

Khrushchev’s response landed: SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA, J IV, 2/202/129, Letter from Khrushchev to Ulbricht, January 30, 1961, in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, Appendix C.

The clouds were already gathering: Köhler, Adenauer, 1081.

The West German foreign office: Auswärtiges Amt—Politisches Archiv (AA-PA), 3, Betreff: Political Relations of BRD with United States, 1961.

In exasperation: Boston Herald, 03/13/1961.

“The Germans are acutely aware”: DNSA, Discussion with Foreign Minister von Brentano, Position Paper, Washington, February 16, 1961; retrieved from Honoré Marc Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis: A Case Study in U.S. Decision Making. Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 1980, 302: Appendix III: Secret Position Paper for visit by Heinrich von Brentano to Washington, February 16, 1961, with anticipated German position and recommended U.S. position.

Detractors said that Brentano: “Gentleman in Politics: Heinrich von Brentano,” New York Times, 02/18/1961.

Rusk had supported: JFKL, POF, Memo, Visits of Chancellor Adenauer and Mayor Brandt, Confidential, February 21, 1961, Box 117, Countries. Germany-Security. January–June 1961.

Kennedy reassured Brentano: Rolf Steininger, Der Mauerbau: Die Westmächte und Adenauer in der Berlinkriese 1958–1963. Munich: Olzog, 2001, 168; FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 5.

Brentano described to Kennedy: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Doc. 5; JFKL, POF, Memo, Discussion with German Foreign Minister, February 15, 1961, Secret, Box 117, Countries. Germany-Security. January–June 1961.

More often than not: Prittie, Konrad Adenauer, 255–256; “West Germany: In the Master’s Footsteps,” Time, 10/31/1960.

“‘An entirely abnormal situation’”: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Docs. 9–31, January–May 1961; Documents on Germany, 1944–1985, 723–727; Documents on International Affairs, 1961, 272–277; Bundesministerium für Innerdeutsche Beziehungen, ed., Dokumente zur Deutschlandpolitik, IV. Reihe, Band 6, Erster Halbband, 1. Januar–30. Mai 1961, Frankfurt am Main, 1975, 345–350. See also Aide-mémoire der Regierung der UdSSR an die Regierung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 17. Februar 1961: http://www.chronik-dermauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Detail/id/758537/page/0).

7. SPRINGTIME FOR KHRUSHCHEV

“West Berlin is a bone”: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 8.

“It seems more likely”: National Security Archive, Memo, Acheson to the President, April 3, 1961, “April 1961 Folder,” Nuclear History Box 12.

The Soviet leader’s face: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 42; Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963. New York: HarperCollins, 1991, 80–81; William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, 489.

It had taken Thompson: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 8; Hugh Sidey, John F. Kennedy, President. New York: Atheneum, 1964, 163–165; New York Times, 03/04/1961, 03/08/1961, 03/10/1961.

Just that week: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 81.

Moscow’s ally in the Congo: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 81.

Facing such an array: New York Times, 03/04/1961.

Khrushchev’s adviser Oleg Troyanovsky: “Who’s Who with Khrushchev,” Time, 09/21/1959; Troyanovsky, Cherez godi, 233–236; New York Times, 04/03/1955.

A new Soviet statistical: V. M. Kudrov, “Comparing the Soviet and US Economies: History and Practices,” in Nicholas Eberstadt and Jonathan Tombes, eds., Comparing the US and Soviet Economies: The 1990 Airlie House Conference. Vol. 1, Total Output and Consumption. Washington, DC: The American Enterprise Institute, 2000, 58–59; Alexander Chubarov, Russia’s Bitter Path to Modernity: A History of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras. New York: Continuum, 2001, 139; Hannes Adomeit, Imperial Overstretch: Germany in Soviet Policy from Stalin to Gorbachev; An Analysis Based on New Archival Evidence, Memoirs, and Interviews. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1998, 103.

In confessing his inadequacy: Stenographic account, February 16, 1961, Declassified Materials from CPSU Central Committee Plenums (TsK KPSS), Meeting of the CC CPSU Presidium, Protocol No. 328 (February 16, 1961), Information from comrade Khrushchev of the meeting on agriculture in the regions of Ukraine, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus and Central Black Earth area, in Aleksandr Fursenko et al., eds., Archivii Kremlya: Prezidium TsK KPSS, 1954–1964 Chernoviie protokolnie zapisi zasedanii. Stenogrammi. Postanovlenia, vol. 1 [Archives of the Kremlin: Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1954–1964, Notes of State Meetings, Stenographic Accounts], Moscow: Rosspen, 2004.

At one local Communist Party: Stenographic account, March 25, 1961, TsK KPSS, Meeting of the CC CPSU Presidium, Protocol No. 321 (March 25, 1961), TsK KPSS; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 344–345.

The Soviet public’s awareness: Harrison E. Salisbury, A New Russia. New York: Harper & Row, 1962, 120–121.

Speaking calmly and wearily: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 8.

The American ambassador warned: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 8.

Because Berlin lacked political: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 8.

To further illustrate West Berlin’s: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 44.

He said the U.S.: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 43.

Instead of embracing: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 8; FRUS, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 43.

Khrushchev complained: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 8.

Thompson returned by plane: New York Times, 03/10/1961.

“All my diplomatic colleagues”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 46; vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 11.

A week later, Thompson: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 11.

With uncanny clairvoyance, Thompson: Telegram from U.S. Embassy (Moscow) to State Department, March 16, 1961, cited in Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 62, FN 15, 240–241.

The best minds: DNSA, Berlin Situation [Summary of Report by U.S. Intelligence Board Berlin Sub-Committee Report], Memorandum, March 7, 1961.

Acheson’s paper: Department of State, Memo for the President, April 3, 1961, 4 pp; JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH, no. 1, April 27, 1964.

With a gaggle: James Chace, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998, 382.

Acheson then helped dissuade: Douglas Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953–1971. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994, 113.

Even at almost age sixty-eight: Robert L. Beisner, Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, 7, 89–95.

Shortly after Kennedy’s election: Acheson letters, 11/22/1960, from Democratic Party 1960 Campaign, Truman Correspondence (courtesy David Acheson). Also in David S. McLellan and David C. Acheson, eds., Among Friends: Personal Letters of Dean Acheson. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1980, 199.

Acheson listed for Kennedy: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH.

Acheson conceded that reducing: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 141.

The French and Germans: Fred M. Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983 / Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991, 283, 338; Andreas Wenger, Living with Peril: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nuclear Weapons. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997, 201; Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 130–131.

He advised Kennedy: JFKL, POF, Memo, Bundy to the President, March 27, 1961, “Bundy, McGeorge 2/69-4/61 Folder,” Box 62, Staff Memoranda; DDRS (Declassified Document Reference System), “Bundy to Kennedy, April 4, 1961,” 1986/2903; Nigel Fisher, Harold Macmillan: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982, 257; Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965, 380–382; Victor Lasky, JFK: The Man and the Myth. New York: Macmillan, 1963, 6–7; Alistair Horne, Harold Macmillan. vol. 2, 1957–1986. New York: Viking, 1989, 289–290.

British Prime Minister Macmillan was taken aback: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 14, Memcon, The President’s Meetings with Prime Minister Macmillan, Washington, April 1961, “East–West Issues: Berlin,” April 5, 1961, 3:10 p.m.; Fisher, Harold Macmillan, 261.

But the two men: Chace, Acheson, 174.

A keen student of history: Anthony Sampson, Macmillan: A Study in Ambiguity. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Press, 1967, 65–66.

Macmillan had worried to columnist: JFKL, Henry Brandon OH; Henry Brandon, Special Relationships: A Foreign Correspondent’s Memoirs from Roosevelt to Reagan. New York: Atheneum, 1988, 155.

Eisenhower’s ambassador to London: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 282; Harold Macmillan Archives, Harold Macmillan, Diaries, 17 November 1960 (scheduled publication date: 04/03/2011).

“I wonder how it is”: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 290.

Perhaps the most disliked: Lord Longford, Kennedy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976, 79–81; Corey Ford, Donovan of OSS: The Untold Story of William J. Donovan. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970, 89.

To further influence Kennedy’s: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 282; Harold Macmillan Archives, Letter of November 9, 1960; Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 1959–1961. London: Macmillan, 1972, 308.

De Gaulle in Paris: Constantine A. Pagedas, Anglo-American Strategic Relations and the French Problem, 1960–1963: A Troubled Partnership. London: Frank Class, 2000, 124.

When they met in London: Harold Macmillan Archives. Harold Macmillan, Diaries, February 23, 1961.

Ahead of Macmillan’s White House: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 286, from interview with the economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

To the prime minister’s relief: Horne, Harold Macmillan, 287–290, 295.

Macmillan had been taken by: Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 352–353: diary entry for April 12, 1961.

Yet that positive beginning: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 14, 15; Fisher, Harold Macmillan, 261.

Acheson crisply listed: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 380.

With the return of Acheson’s: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 15.

A final internal: Rolf Steininger, Der Mauerbau: Die Westmächte und Adenauer in der Berlinkrise 1958–1963. Munich: Olzog, 2001, 184.

In the brisk spring: New York Times, 04/09/1961; Washington Post, 04/09/1961.

British officials surprised: Steininger, Der Mauerbau, 182–185, 183; New York Times, 04/09/1961; Washington Post, 04/10/1961; JFKL, POF, CO: United Kingdom Security, 3/27/69-4/61, Box 127a, Item 7a.

8. AMATEUR HOUR

“The European view”: Dean G. Acheson, Remarks at Foreign Service lunch, Washington, D.C. (transcribed June 29, 1961), S 3, B 51, F62, DGA-Yale. The speech was delivered sometime between June 13 and 25, 1961; retrieved from Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 127.

“I don’t understand Kennedy”: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita S. Khrushchev: Krizisy i Rakety, vol. 1, 102–106.

It was Washington’s first: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH, no. 1; Douglas Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953–1971. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994, 127.

Truman’s former secretary: Chace, Acheson, 386–388; Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 127.

Acheson said he would not: Richard J. Walton, Cold War and Counterrevolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy. New York: Viking, 1972, 44.

The two men talked: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH; Walton, Cold War and Counterrevolution, 44.

The eighty-five-year-old: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 57.

Acheson spent much of the day: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH; New York Times, 04/10/1961; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 58–60.

Beyond that, Adenauer: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 130–131.

So Acheson instead focused: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 129.

For the moment, Kennedy: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 97; Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 129; James Chace, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World. New York: Simon & Schuster, 199, 383–384.

Instead, Kennedy would put: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/New+York+Times+Chronology/1961/May 10; David E. Murphy, Sergei A. Kondrashev, and George Bailey, Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War. London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997, 359.

In short, Kennedy’s evolving: Murphy, Kondrashev, and Bailey, Battleground Berlin, 360.

When Acheson was near victory: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 130; Chace, Acheson, 388.

On the day of Adenauer’s flight: Norman Cousins, The Improbable Triumvirate: John F. Kennedy, Pope John, Nikita Khrushchev. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972, 83–87.

Khrushchev would later explain: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 111; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 5.

It was a measure: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 490; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 110–111.

With the schedule for the space launch: Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Boston and Torento: Little, Brown, 526–527.

Khrushchev had accelerated: Gerhard Kowalski, Die Gargarin-Story: Die Wahrheit über den Flug des ersten Kosmonauten der Welt. Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 1999, 55; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 113.

Lippmann savored his access: Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, 419, 445; Barry D. Riccio, Walter Lippmann: Odyssey of a Liberal. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994, 46–47.

During a lunch break: Washington Post, 04/19/1961.

A German solution: Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, 527–528.

Khrushchev laid out his Berlin: Walter Lippmann Papers. Soviet transcript of conversation between Khrushchev and Lippmann, 10 April 1961, New Haven, CT: Yale University, Sterling Memorial Library, Series VII, Box 239; Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, 3, 203; Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis (1958–1962),” CWIHP Working Paper No. 6, May 1993, 21–23; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 490–491.

Khrushchev told Lippmann: Zubok, “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis (1958–1962),” CWIHP Working Paper No. 6, 22; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 111.

Khrushchev said he was ready: Walter Lippmann Papers. Soviet transcript of conversation between Khrushchev and Lippmann, April 10, 1961, Yale University; Taubman, Khrushchev, 490–491; Deborah Welch Larson Anatomy of Mistrust: U.S.–Soviet Relations During the Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000, 287.

Khrushchev had only one question: Pravda, April 13, 1961, 2; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, 432; Taubman, Khrushchev, 490–491; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Krizisy i Rakety, vol. 2, 100–101.

Yes, Korolyov declared: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfz5B2uERcE.

Khrushchev exulted to: Taubman, Khrushchev, 491; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Krizisy i Rakety, vol. 2, 100–101; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 432–433.

The Soviet leader ordered: Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006, 346. (At a Presidium meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev discussed the problem of collapsing balconies. See stenographic account, June 16, 1961, TsK KPSS); Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 433–434.

From atop the Lenin: Taubman, Khrushchev, 492.

Kennedy had told Brandt: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 10; JFKL, Memcon, Meeting Kennedy–Brandt at White House, Washington, March 13, 1961, 3–3:40 p.m., Subject: Germany and Berlin, National Security Files (NSF), Germany, Confidential, drafted by Foy Kohler and approved by the White House on March 23, 1961.

Brandt joined the list: Ibid.; Briefing Paper for meeting, transmitted by Rusk to the President on March 10, 1961, in Department of State, Central Files, 762.00/3–1061; Memcon, Brandt–Rusk covering similar topics, March 14, 1961, in Department of State, Central Files, 762.0221/3-1461. For Brandt’s account of his conversation with the president and visit to Washington, see Willy Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsichten, Die Jahre 1960–1975. Hamburg: Hoffmann u. Campe, 1976, 17–18, 80–83.

Brandt had used his forty minutes: Willy Brandt, Begegnungen mit Kennedy. Munich: Kindler, 1964, 49–45.

Brandt was relieved: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, 03/14/1961.

A month later, Kennedy’s conversations: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 17.

Adenauer delivered an elderly man’s: New York Times, 2/17/1961.

Kennedy said he was concerned: FRUS, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/kennedyjf/xiv/15854.htm 9. Memorandum of Conversation/1/Washington, March 10, 1961; Source: JFKL, NSF, Germany, Confidential, drafted by Kohler and approved by the White House on March 20; ibid., Doc. 10: Memcon, Washington, March 13, 1961, 3–3:40 p.m.; Bundesarchiv, Kabinettsprotokolle Online “1. Deutsche Maßnahmen zur Entlastung der US Zahlungsbilanz” retrieved from http://www.bundesarchiv.de.

The communiqué: Williams, Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany, 490; FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 9, 10; Konrad Adenauer, Erinnerungen 1959–1963. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968, 91–97.

The correspondent of the German magazine: Der Spiegel, 04/12/1961, 04/19/1961.

At the end of the visit: Christian Science Monitor, 04/14/1961.

Little noticed was Adenauer’s: Washington Post, 04/14/1961.

Johnson’s central Texas: Christian Science Monitor, 04/17/1961.

When Adenauer visited: Poppinga, “Das Wichtigste ist der Mut”: Konrad Adenauer, 297.

With star German reporters: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 519.

On their drive to the airport: Poppinga, “Das Wichtigste ist der Mut”: Konrad Adenauer, 297; Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1, 519–520.

With Adenauer safely back: “The Presidency: Interlude,” Time, 04/28/1961; Sidey, JFK, 131; Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979, 269–270.

Two days earlier, eight B-26 bombers: Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 184–185; Howard Jones, The Bay of Pigs. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, 76–77, 100–102; also see for chronology of events: National Security Archive, “The Bay of Pigs—40 Years After,” April 15–18, 1961: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/chron.html.

Castro’s fighters sank: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. X, Cuba, 1961–1962, Doc. 109, 119; The National Security Archive, “The Bay of Pigs—40 Years After,” April 15–18, 1961.

Most of the military brass: Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 76–77, 96;

Most important at the meeting: JFKL, Richard M. Bissell OH; JFKL, POF, Bundy to JFK, February 25, 1961, Staff Memoranda, Box 62; Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, 237, 240; “Nation: When It’s in the News, It’s in Trouble” and “Cuba: The Massacre,” Time, 04/28/1961; Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 124–126; Harris Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980, 362.

Now working for Kennedy: Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 139; Richard M. Bissell, Jonathan E. Lewis, and Frances T. Pudlo. Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996, 190.

Kennedy had never questioned: Gus Russo, Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK. Baltimore: Bancroft Press, 1998, 13–15; Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 38, 76–78, 96, 100–102.

Also, leaks had been: Russo, Live by the Sword, 16.

The April 17 invasion: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 9.

Khrushchev wasn’t buying Kennedy’s: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 9.

Kennedy had responded: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 10.

With that exchange: Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 189; Laurence Leamer, The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963. New York: HarperCollins, 2001, 501, 508.

Just six days earlier: Thomas, The Very Best Men, 253; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 114; Leamer, The Kennedy Men: 1909–1963, 501, 508; “Nation: Bitter Week,” Time, 04/28/1961; Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980, 347–348.

If the president: E. B. Potter, Admiral Arleigh A. Burke. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2005; Gordon M. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam. New York: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2008, 39; Sidey, JFK, 110; Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 270–271.

Kennedy ended the three-hour: Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 271; https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/agency-andthe-hill/12-The%20Agency%20and%20the%20Hill_Part2-Chapter9.pdf: chapter 9, Oversight of Covert Action, 268.

Acheson immediately grasped: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH; Chace, Acheson, 387.

Speaking before diplomats: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 127.

With a tone of dismay: Acheson Letter to Truman, May 3, 1961 (courtesy David Acheson), in David S. McLellan and David C. Acheson, eds., Among Friends: Personal Letters of Dean Acheson. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1980, 206–207.

He had known in advance: Vladislav M. Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, 243.

Though Kennedy had avoided: Taubman, Khrushchev, 492; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 121.

“I don’t understand Kennedy”: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Krizisy i Rakety, 102–106.

That said, Khrushchev was concerned: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 348–349.

Paris’s Left Bank: Jörn Donner, Report from Berlin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961.

Donner considered the difference: Donner, Report from Berlin, XI.

Like West Berlin: Interview with Vern Pike, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2008.

9. PERILOUS DIPLOMACY

“The American government”: Archive of the Main Intelligence Administration of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU), “Kratkoye Soderzhanye: Besed G. Bolshakova s R. Kennedi (9 Maya 1961 goda-14 Dekabria 1962 roga)” [Summary: Meeting of G. Bolshakov with R. Kennedy, May 9, 1961–December 14, 1962].

“Berlin is a festering sore”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 24, Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, Moscow, May 24, 1961.

Wearing a white shirt: GRU, “Kratkoye Soderzhanye: Besed G. Bolshakova s. R. Kennedi.”

Bolshakov was just one of two: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 65.

Thompson put down the phone: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Docs. 65, 66.

After a day of reflection: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 67.

Special envoy Averell Harriman: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XXIV, 199–200, 209–210.

Beyond that, Rusk told: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 67.

It suited Bolshakov: Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy J. Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997, 119–123; interview with Frank Holeman, August 6, 1995, Washington, D.C.; Georgi Bolshakov, “Goryachaya Linaya” (Hot Line), Novoye Vremya, no. 4 (1989), 38–40; Pravda, Bolshakov Meetings; GRU, “Kratkoye Soderzhanye: Besed G. Bolshakova s. R. Kennedi.”

What gave Bolshakov: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 119–113, citing GRU, Biography of Georgi Bolshakov; Dino Brugioni and Robert F. McCort, eds., Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Random House, 1991, 176–178; Zvezda, no. 7 (1997); Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975, 194; James W. Symington., The Stately Game. New York: Macmillan, 1971, 144–145.

However, Bolshakov’s most important: Washington Times, September 27, 1996.

Bolshakov had worked Holeman: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 111, citing interview with Frank Holeman, August 6, 1995.

When Bolshakov returned: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 111; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 153–154; interview with Frank Holeman; Richard Nixon Papers, National Archives, Rose Mary Woods–Nixon, 12/18/1958.

When Bolshakov replaced Gvozdev: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 109–112; Brugioni and McCort, Eyeball to Eyeball, 176–177; Foreign Broadcast Information Service, USSR, International Service, “Kennedy Sees Soviet Journalists,” Daily Report No. 12327, June 1961; Bolshakov, “Goryachaya Linaya,” 38–40.

With Guthman’s blessing: Bolshakov, “Goryachaya Linaya,” 38–40.

At the Justice Department: Bolshakov, “Goryachaya Linaya,” 38–40.

“The American government”: GRU, “Kratkoye Soderzhanye: Besed G. Bolshakova s. R. Kennedi.”

The two countries: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VII, Arms Control and Disarmament, Doc. 4.

Behind Bobby’s proposal: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VII, Arms Control and Disarmament, Doc. 19, 31.

And Moscow wanted any verification: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 351.

In Geneva, Soviet officials: Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars, 302–304; Roger Kershaw, Monarchy in South-East Asia: The Faces of Tradition in Transition. New York: Routledge, 2001, 39–40; Timothy N. Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: U.S. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government 1955–1975. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 40–42, 46–48.

On the same day, Khrushchev delivered: New York Times, 05/13/1961; Memo, Lucius Battle–Bundy, May 25, 1961.

The letter made no mention: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 15.

Kennedy sent cables: JFKL, Kennedy–Adenauer, May 16, 1961.

On May 17, State Department: JFKL, Henry Owen, National Security Council, May 17, 1961, NSF Box 81, Germany, Berlin, General, 5/61.

He suggested putting more money: DNSA, Memorandum, May 17, 1961, Secret, Berlin Crisis, BC02046.

Western European and U.S. commentators: “Kennedys welker Lorbeer,” Die Zeit, 5/26/1961; Wall Street Journal, 06/01/1961.

In its review of European: Wall Street Journal, 06/01/1961.

Although Vienna was technically: Wall Street Journal, 06/01/1961.

“Our friends,” said the ambassador: AVP-RF, Letter from Ambassador Pervukhin to Foreign Minister Gromyko, 19 May 1961, Top secret file, Fond: referentyra po GDR, Opis 6, Por 34, Inv. 193/3, vol. 1, Papka 46, retrieved from Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, 90–95, Appendix D; Murphy, Kondrashev, and Bailey, Battleground Berlin, 362.

Two weeks ahead of the summit: Mikhail Boltunov, Nevidimoe Oruzhie GRU [Invisible GRU Weapon]. Moscow: Olma-Press, 2002, 281–283; Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 122–123.

Bobby made clear: Boltunov, Nevidimoe Oruzhie GRU, 281–283; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 156; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 349–350, 354.

One of Bolshakov’s Moscow bosses: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 112.

Thompson did not take notes…Thompson probed, asking: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 24, Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, Moscow, May 24, 1961.

Khrushchev responded calmly: DNSA, Thompson’s Conversation with Khrushchev on Berlin, Prior to the Vienna Summit, Secret, Cable, 2887, May 24, 1961.

Thompson’s later cable to Washington: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 28, Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, Moscow, May 27, 1961, 1 p.m.

On the same day, Kennedy: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 27, Telegram from the Mission at Berlin to the Department of State, Berlin, May 25, 1961, 7 p.m.

Kennedy called for a defense: New York Times, 05/26/1961.

Directly responding to what: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 355–357; AVP-RF, Kuznetsov, May 26, 1961, 3.66.311, 58–61; Stenographic account, May 26, 1961, and Protocol No. 331, May 26, 1961, TsK KPSS.

Khrushchev ended his war council: Anatoly Fedorovich Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962–1986). New York: Times Books/Random House, 1995, 44–45; AVP-RF, Kuznetsov, May 26, 1961, 3.66.311, 58–61; Stenographic account, May 26, 1961, and Protocol No. 331, May 26, 1961, TsK KPSS; AVP-RF, List Commemorative Gifts and Souvenirs for Possible Delivery at the Time of N. S. Khrushchev’s Stay in Austria, May 27, 1961.

Kennedy lifted off: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 178; Edward M. Kennedy, The Fruitful Bough: A Tribute to Joseph P. Kennedy. Privately printed, 1965, 264; Sidey, JFK, 173.

He was using crutches: “1961 Man of the Year—John F. Kennedy,” Time, 01/05/1962; Goduti, Kennedy’s Kitchen Cabinet: Shaping of American Foreign Policy, 1961–1963, 102.

10. VIENNA: LITTLE BOY BLUE MEETS AL CAPONE

“So we’re stuck”: Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers, with Joe McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972, 292.

“The U.S. is unwilling”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 87, Memcon, p. 219.

“God, we ought”: Edward Klein, All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy. New York: Pocket Books, 1997, 267.

So began what the three men: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 292; Seymour M. Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot. Boston: Little, Brown, 1997, 10, 228.

Between 500,000 and 1 million people: Klein, All Too Human, 266–268.

At Orly Airport: New York Times, 06/01/1961.

The cheers grew: Washington Post, 06/01/1961.

Abroad, Kennedy’s failure: Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993, 60.

It seemed just another of his presidency’s: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003, 397–399; Janet G. Travell, Office Hours: Day and Night—The Autobiography of Janet Travell, M.D. New York: World, 1968, 3, 6, 385.

Kennedy’s personal physician: JFKL, Janet G. Travell OH, Dr. Janet Travell medical records; Parmet, JFK, 118–123; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 188–191; Janet G. Travell, Office Hours: Day and Night.

Known as “Dr. Feelgood”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 398–399; Hersh, Dark Side of Camelot, 5, 235–236; Klein, All Too Human, 239.

Kennedy was so pleased: Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 147; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 187–191.

On the night of their grand: Klein, All Too Human; 271.

“You feel like Superman”: Klein, All Too Human, 240.

“acute and chronic intravenous amphetamine poisoning”: Robert H. Ferrell, Ill Advised: Presidential Health and Public Trust. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992, 156.

At Bobby’s urging: Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 147, 243, 699n; John Whitcomb and Claire Whitcomb, Real Life at the White House: Two Hundred Years of Daily Life at America’s Most Famous Residence. New York: Routledge, 2000, 359.

Eisenhower had warned Kennedy: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 662; Otis L. Graham Jr. and Meghan Robinson Wander, eds., Franklin D. Roosevelt: His Life and Times: An Encyclopedic View. Boston: Da Capo Press, 1985, 94–96; DDEL, Herter Papers, Meetings with the President, 1961; in FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XXIV, Laos Crisis, Doc. 1, Memo of Conference with President Eisenhower, January 2, 1961.

In contrast to his predecessors: Klein, All Too Human, 268; New York Times, 06/01/1961; O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 289; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 184; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 350–351; JFKL, Charles E. Bohlen OH.

Safely back: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 289.

While Kennedy endured: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 440.

Communist Party cells: Washington Post, 06/28/1961.

“I believe Khrushchev”: Department of State, Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, May 27, 1961, Central Files, 611.61/5-2761, Secret, Priority, Limit Distribution, in FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 79.

Without confidence, Thompson: New York Times, 06/28/1961.

Khrushchev swelled with pride: TASS Dispatches. N. Novikov, in Pravda, May 31 and June 2, 1961.

De Gaulle recalled how he had told the Soviet leader: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 30, Memcon, Paris, May 31, 1961.

Kennedy doubted dealing: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 30, Memcon, Paris, May 31, 1961.

In his comments, Kennedy: John F. Kennedy. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy—Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, 1961–1963. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962–1964, vol. 1, 423.

The view through long: Washington Post, 06/02/1961.

Yet the star that evening: New York Times, 06/02/1961.

During their “tub talk”: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 292.

Kennedy’s advance team: Monika Sommer and Michaela Lindinger, eds., Die Augen der Welt auf Wien gerichtet: Gipfel 1961 Chruschtschow–Kennedy. Innsbruck and Vienna: Katalog Wien Museum, 2005, 68; Die Illustrierte Krone, 06/03/1961, 06/04/1961; Österreichische Neue Tageszeitung, 06/03/1961, 06/04/1961.

The bald top: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 292–293; Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 404.

In chronicling the first: New York Times, 06/04/1961.

The German intellectual paper: “Die Gefangenen von Wien: Das Treffen der Zwei,” Die Zeit, 06/02/1961.

Viennese teenager: Sommer/Lindinger. Augen der Welt auf Wien: Gipfel 1961.

Anticipating two long days: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 83, Memcon, Vienna, June 3, 1961; 12:45p.m.

In pre-summit conversations: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 76.

Continuing to disregard his experts’: JFKL, Robert F. Kennedy OH.

“‘Miscalculation’! ‘Miscalculation’! ‘Miscalculation’!”: Khrushchev’s reaction according to Kennedy’s own account, as quoted in Donald Kagan. On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. New York: Anchor Books, 1996, 468–469; O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 295.

Khrushchev remained in full voice: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 197.

Khrushchev boasted about: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 84, Memcon, Vienna, June 3, 1961, Luncheon.

At the end of the lunch: “Contest of Wills,” Time, 06/16/1961.

The two men’s after-meal: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 84, Memcon, Vienna, June 3, 1961, Luncheon.

“Don’t spread that story”: Paul F. Boller, Presidential Anecdotes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 302–303; O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 294.

Khrushchev raised his glass: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 84; Taubman, Khrushchev, 494; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 189–191; Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 42–43, 669n; Hersh, Dark Side of Camelot, 234–237.

After lunch, Kennedy invited: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 406; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 85, Memcon, Vienna, June 3, 1961, 3 p.m.

Kennedy’s friends O’Donnell: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 198–199; O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 296.

When the two men: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 85.

After a Soviet limo: JFKL, Llewellyn E. Thompson OH; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 205; Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 408.

Kennedy had reinforced: Oleg Troyanovsky, Cherez godi i rasstoiania: Istoriia odnoi semyi. Moscow: Vagrius, 1997, 234.

In the years that followed: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (HHL). H. Hoover Papers, Oral History Transcripts, Washington Tapes, 1965–1971: William L. Stearman OH.

Mercifully, the U.S. embassy: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 293–294.

Dave Powers told the president: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 296.

“What did you expect”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 406.

Kennedy told his friends: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 199, 205; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 497; O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 296.

On the one hand, Khrushchev: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 34.

It was Austria’s coming-out: Die Presse, 06/01/1961; Das Kleine Volksblatt, 06/04/1961.

Aside from the fact: Sommer and Lindinger, Augen der Welt auf Wien: Gipfel 1961, 73; “First Lady Wins Khrushchev Too,” New York Times, 06/04/1961.

“Mr. Khrushchev”: Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 166.

Kennedy’s performance: Washington Post, 06/04/1961; Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 166.

11. VIENNA: THE THREAT OF WAR

“The U.S. is unwilling”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 87, Memcon, p. 219.

“I never met a man”: Hersh, Dark Side of Camelot, 253.

“I greet you”: Sidey, JFK, 196.

After some nine minutes: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 209–211.

In the conference room: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 87, Memcon, Vienna, June 4, 1961, 10:15 a.m.

However, the Soviets would doctor: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 294.

Khrushchev said that even: Norman Davies, No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939–1945. New York: Viking, 2007, 24.

With an actor’s sense: U.S. Department of State, Documents on Germany, 1944–1985. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, 729–732; also in Department of State Bulletin, August 7, 1961, 231–233.

Reuters correspondent Adam Kellett-Long: Interview with Adam Kellett-Long, London, October 15–16, 2008.

From the upstairs window: New York Times, 06/05/1961.

The two men conversed: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 88, Memcon, Vienna, June 4, 1961; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 220.

The gift Kennedy: Sidey, JFK, 200.

With their two days of talks: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 297; Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 412.

When the president’s staff: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 220; O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 297; Sidey, JFK, 200.

Kennedy opened their last: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. V, Soviet Union, Doc. 88, Memcon, Vienna, June 4, 1961, 3:15 p.m.

The Berlin newspapers: Tagesspiegel, 06/04/1961.

Fewer refugees registered: New York Times, 06/04/1961; Kurier; Österreichische Neue Tageszeitung; Neues Deutschland.

Khrushchev knew he had won…The Soviet leader: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 499.

After seeing off Kennedy: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 500–501.

As he drove away: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 224.

Kennedy carried with him: DNSA, Soviet Translation of the Aide-Mémoire on Germany and Berlin, For Official Use Only, Cable, June 5, 1961, Berlin Crisis: BC02081.

No. Kennedy decided to leave: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 297; Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966, 182.

“How was it?”: John F. Stacks, Scotty: James B. Reston and the Rise and Fall of American Journalism. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003, 4, 198, 200.

Reston rightly concluded: New York Times, 06/04/1961, 06/05/1961, 06/06/1961; Stacks, Scotty, 199.

Kennedy told Reston: James Reston, JFK interview, New York Times, 06/05/1961; “Vienna Talks End,” New York Times, 06/05/1961; Salinger, With Kennedy, 181–182; David Halberstam, The Best and Brightest. New York: Modern Library, 2001, 85–86; O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 298; Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 495.

On the flight to London: Heymann, C. David. A Woman Named Jackie: An Intimate Biography of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. New York: Carol, 1994, 306.

“All wars start”: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 299.

Those who had worked: Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Interview with Kempton B. Jenkins, Foreign Affairs OH. Interview conducted February 23, 1995 (copyright 1998 ADST), Box: 1 Fold: 34 Jenkins, Kempton B. (1951–1980): http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/cl999.htm.

Speaking with O’Donnell: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 299–300.

British Prime Minister Macmillan: Macmillan, Harold. Pointing the Way, 1959–1961, 355–359, 400; O’Brien, JFK, 550.

While they talked, U.S. officials: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 34, Record of Conversation, London, June 5, 1961.

The British prime minister called off: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 226; O’Brien, JFK, 551, 888; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 374–377; Alistair Horne. Harold Macmillan: 1957–1986. vol. 2, 303–305.

“For the first time in his life”: Macmillan. Pointing the Way, 1959–1961, 357.

Macmillan told Kennedy: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 34.

Kennedy and Macmillan agreed to step up: DNSA, Note of Points Made during the Private Conversation between Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan, June 8, 1961.

While flying back to the U.S.: “1961 Man of the Year—John F. Kennedy,” Time, 01/05/1962.

Kennedy told his secretary: Evelyn Lincoln, My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy. New York: D. McKay, 1965, 274.

Bobby sat with his brother: Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot, 383.

Journalist Stewart Alsop: New York Herald Tribune, 04/06/1961.

“I had the sense”: JFKL, Joseph W. Alsop OH, no. 1, June 18, 1964.

East German leader: Cate. The Ides of August, 24.

After badgering Khrushchev: SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA, J IV, 2/202/129, Letter from Ulbricht to Khrushchev, June 1961, in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, 96–97, Appendix E.

Upon Khrushchev’s return: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 365–366.

“What liberals you’ve become”: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 365–366.

While Kennedy headed home: Washington Post, 06/07/1961.

But on this occasion, Khrushchev: Washington Post, 06/07/1961.

12. ANGRY SUMMER

“The construction workers”: Neues Deutschland, June 16, 1961.

“Somehow he does succeed”: Acheson Letter to Truman, June 24, 1961 (courtesy David Acheson); Harry S. Truman Presidential Library (HSTL), Dean G. Acheson Papers, Acheson–Truman Correspondence File (1947–1971), 1961, Box 161.

“The issue over Berlin”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 49, Report by Dean Acheson, Washington, June 28, 1961.

The problem was that Ulbricht: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 97.

By the time Ulbricht marched in: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 98.

Timed to coincide with Khrushchev’s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLhYIqiJlEA; Neues Deutschland, June 16, 1961; DNSA, Summary of Walter Ulbricht’s Press Conference in East Berlin of June 15, Limited Official Use, Airgram, June 16, 1961, Berlin Crisis, BC02090.

It was Ulbricht’s first public mention: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 180.

At six o’clock that evening: Curtis Cate, The Ides of August: The Berlin Wall Crisis, 1961. New York: M. Evans, 1978, 64–65.

The term increasingly used: “Newsfronts: In Berlin ‘Torschlusspanik,’” Life, July 28, 1961, 25.

The Acheson relationship to Kennedy: Brinkley, Dean Acheson, 108–109.

Acheson regarded his job: FRUS, 1969–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1969–1962, Doc. 42, Record of Meeting of the Interdepartmental Coordinating Group on Berlin Contingency Planning, Washington, June 16, 1961; Robert Slusser, The Berlin Crisis of 1961: Soviet–American Relations and the Struggle for Power in the Kremlin, June–November 1961. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973, 29; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 138, 141.

Acheson’s hard line: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 42.

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.

Acheson had grown: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 182.

At the second key NSC: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 77, Memo of Minutes of the National Security Council Meeting, Washington, July 19, 1961, prepared by Bundy on July 25, 1961.

Ambassador Thompson wasn’t in the room: Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy. New York: HarperCollins, 1965, 589.

Kennedy told the NSC: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 180; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 257.

Just the previous day at lunch: Cate, The Ides of August, 108–111; author interview with James O’Donnell.

“For West Berlin, lying exposed”: 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.

O’Donnell suggested an easy: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 118.

“There was an ‘Oh, my God!”: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 118; author’s interview with Karl Mautner.

The emphasis on West Berlin: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 264; New York Times, 08/03/1961; Der Tagesspiegel, 08/02/1961; Neues Deutschland, 08/02/1961; JFKL, Bundy–JFK, August 4, 1961; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 201–203.

Fulbright’s interpretation of the treaty: Ann Tusa, The Last Division: A History of Berlin, 1945–1989. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997, 257; Washington Post, 07/31/1961; New York Times, 08/03/1961.

Early in August, Kennedy: JFKL, Walt W. Rostow OH; Rostow, Diffusion of Power, 231; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 265; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 394; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 201.

On a sweltering Moscow morning: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 192–194; SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, DY, 30/3682; Uhl and Wagner, “Another Brick in the Wall,” CWIHP Working Paper, published under “Storming On to Paris,” in Mastny, Holtsmark, and Wenger, War Plans and Plliances in the Cold War, 46–71; Aleksandr Fursenko, “Kak Byla Postroena Berlinskaia Stena,” in Istoricheskie Zapiski, no. 4 (2001), 78–79.

The two men had been closely: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 377, 379–380.

“When would it be best”: Fursenko, “Kak Byla Postroena Berlinskaia Stena,” 78.

Noting that the thirteenth: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 506.

“In those homes”: Fursenko, “Kak Byla Postroena Berlinskaia Stena,” 79.

“When the border is closed”: RGANI, Khrushchev–Ulbricht, August 1, 1961, Document No. 521557, 113–146. Document and citation graciously provided by Dr. Matthias Uhl.

He even spoke nostalgically: Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 502; Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev’s Secret Speech on the Berlin Crisis, August 1961,” CWIHP-B, No. 3, Fall 1993, 58–61; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 50. The conference of first secretaries of Central Committee of Communist and Workers Parties of socialist countries for exchange of views on the questions related to preparation and conclusion of German peace treaty, 3–5 August 1961 [Transcripts of the meeting were found in the miscellaneous documents of the International Department of the Central Committee, TsKhSD], 11, 142–144, 156–157.

Wismach left East Berlin: Bundesministerium für Gesamtdeutsche Fragen, ed., Die Flucht aus der Sowjetzone und die Sperrmassnahmen des kommunistischen Regimes vom 13. August 1961 in Berlin. Bonn/Berlin, 7. September 1961, vol. 2, Doc. No. 95, 81–82; Archiv Deutschlandradio. Sendung: Die Zeit im Funk, Reporter: Hans-Rudolf Vilter, RIAS-Interview mit dem nach West-Berlin geflüchteten Kurt Wismach, der Walter Ulbricht während seiner Rede im Kabelwerk Oberspree am 10. August 1961 mehrfach unterbrach, 17. August 1961: http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Index/id/631935/item/34/page/0.

14. THE WALL: SETTING THE TRAP

“The GDR had to cope”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970, 454.

“In this period”: Bernd Eisenfeld and Roger Engelmann, 13.8.1961: Mauerbau—Fluchtbewegung und Machtsicherung. Bremen: Temmen, 2001, 48; Behörde der Bundesbeauftragten für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der Ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (BStU), MfS, ZA, ZAIG No. 4900, Aus dem Protokoll über die Dienstbesprechung im MfS am 11. August 1961, Bl.3–6.

With only three weeks: Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, 187–188; Uhl and Wagner, “Another Brick in the Wall,” CWIHP Working Paper, published under “Storming On to Paris,” in Mastny, Holtsmark, and Wenger, War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War, 46–71; SAPMO-BArch, ZPA, J IV 2/202–65; Klaus Froh and Rüdiger Wenzke, eds., Die Generale und Admirale der NVA: Ein biographisches Handbuch. Berlin: Christoph Links, 2007, 198; Peter Wyden, Wall: The Inside Story of Divided Berlin. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989, 88.

Furious activity had filled: Cate, The Ides of August, 222.

Several hundred police: Wyden, Wall—The Inside Story of Divided Berlin, 134, 140.

From the moment that police: Eisenfeld, 13.8.1961, 49.

Ulbricht cleared the final language: William I. Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945–2002. New York: Doubleday, 2003, 218.

Without emotion, Ulbricht: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 380; AVP-RF, Pervukhin to Khrushchev, August 10, 1961, 3-64-745, p. 125; Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 505.

Khrushchev received the news: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 454, 456–457.

At age sixty-three, Konev: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 382; Cate, The Ides of August, 178–182.

Near World War II’s end: Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. New York: Viking, 2002, 16.

Khrushchev had constructed the plan: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 458.

At age twenty-six, Adam Kellett-Long: Christopher Hilton, The Wall: The People’s Story. Stroud, England: Sutton, 2001, 25; Cate, The Ides of August, 236–238.

Kellett-Long would later recall: Interview with Adam Kellett-Long, London, October 15–16, 2008.

Kellett-Long returned to his office: Peter Wyden, “Wir machen Berlin dicht—Die Berliner Mauer (III) Der. 13. August,” Der Spiegel, 10/16/1989.

Mielke exuded self-confidence: Henning Köhler, Adenauer: Eine politische Biographie. Frankfurt am Main: Propyläen, 1994, 39.

Back in 1931: Heribert Schwan, Erich Mielke: Der Mann, der die Stasi war. Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1997, 31, 58.

“Today we begin a new chapter”: Eisenfeld, 13.8.1961, 47–49; BStU, MfS, ZA, ZAIG Nr. 4900, Aus dem Protokoll über die Dienstbesprechung im MfS am 11. August 1961, Bl. 3–6.

One neighborhood near Berlin’s: Cate, The Ides of August, 207; interview with Klaus Schulz-Ladegast, Berlin, October 12, 2008.

The Severin + Kuhn company: Cate, The Ides of August, 3, 68–69, 208, 211, 230.

In a raspy, emotional voice: Rede des Regierenden Bürgermeisters von Berlin, Willy Brandt, auf dem Kongress anlässlich des Deutschlandtreffens der SPD (Brandt speech at SPD congress), August 12, 1961, in Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ed., Tatsachen—Argumente, no. 21, 08/21/1961, 4–11; chronik-der-mauer.de; Chicago Daily Tribune, 08/13/1961.

While Brandt was in Nuremberg: Rede von Bundeskanzler Dr. Konrad Adenauer auf einer CDU-Wahlkampfkundgebung in Lübeck (Adenauer speech at Lübeck CDU election campaign rally), August 12, 1961, Stiftung Bundeskanzler Adenauer-Haus, www.chronik-der-mauer.de.

Walter Ulbricht appeared: Frederick Taylor, The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1969–1989. New York: HarperCollins, 2007, 159; Grimm, Politbüro Privat, 161; Klaus Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer,” Der Spiegel, 08/06/2001, 64–65.

His guests speculated: Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer.”

Only a handful of Ulbricht’s: Erich Honecker, From My Life. New York: Pergamon, 1981, 121; Hilton, The Wall, 31, 34–35.

Apparently unaware: Los Angeles Times, 08/13/1961.

Khrushchev had given a speech: DNSA, Analysis of Khruschev’s Speech at a Soviet–Romanian Friendship Rally on August 11, Confidential Cable, August 12, 1961.

Secretary of State Rusk had sent: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 103, Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Germany, August 12, 1961, 6:26 p.m.

Hoffmann briefed officers: Cate, The Ides of August, 229–224; Wyden, Wall, 137–138; Lt. Col. Martin Herbert Löffler’s description, made in Bonn on September 21, 1961, Berliner Morgenpost, 09/22/1962; Foreign Broadcast Information Service, DPA Dispatch (English version), September 24, 1962; Washington Post, 09/22/1962; New York Times, 09/22/1962; Rheinische Merkur, Christ + Welt, 09/28/1962; Wiegrefe, “Die Schandmauer.”

By 10.00 p.m., Honecker: Honecker, From My Life, 211.

The little information: Norbert F. Pötzl, Erich Honecker: Eine Deutsche Biographie. Stuttgart and Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2nd ed., 2002, 71; Die Welt, 06/08/2001; Armee für Frieden und Sozialismus, Geschichte der Nationalen Volksarmee. Berlin: Militärverlag der DDR, 1985, 244, 246.

In all, some 8,200 People’s Police: Pötzl, Erich Honecker, 72.

Ulbricht looked at his watch: Honecker, From My Life, 210; Pötzl, Erich Honecker, 72.

No one protested: Kvitsinsky, Vor dem Sturm; Berliner Zeitung, 03/22/1993.

Kellett-Long was worried: Wyden, Wall—The Inside Story of Divided Berlin, 140–141; Kellett-Long interview.

Three long, penetrating wails: Michael Mara, Rudi Thurow, Eckhardt Schaller, and Rainer Hildebrandt, eds., Kontrollpunkt Kohlhasenbrück—Die Geschichte einer Grenzkompanie des Ringes um West-Berlin. Bad Godesberg, Germany: Hohwacht-Verlag, 1964; Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 151–153.

Witz, who said: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 153.

Shortly before 1:00 a.m.: Interview with Adam Kellett-Long, London, October 15–16, 2008.

In response, Warsaw Pact: Statement by Warsaw Treaty Member, August 13, 1961, in Pravda, August 15, 1961; for extract, see Harry Hanak, Soviet Foreign Policy Since the Death of Stalin. Boston: Routledge, 1972, 113.

“Earlier today, I became”: Adam Kellett-Long, “Demonstrators Defy Armed Policemen: Tense Atmosphere in East Berlin,” Manchester Guardian, 08/14/1961; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1961/aug/14/berlinwall.germany.

The trucks belched out: Cate, The Ides of August, 248–249.

Senior officials of the U.S., British: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 158–159, 162–163.

During an hour’s drive: William R. Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall: “A Hell of a Lot Better Than a War,” Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, 101–103, 174; “Wir machen Berlin dicht—Die Berliner Mauer (III) Der. 13. August,” Der Spiegel, 10/16/1989; Mara et al., Kontrollpunkt Kohlhasenbrück.

The diplomats had gathered: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 161–162.

At 11:00 a.m. Berlin time: DNSA, East German Regime to Seal East Berlin from West, Confidential, Cable 176, August 13, 1961, 1 a.m.; DNSA, Summary of Events in Berlin from Early Morning to Mid-Afternoon, Confidential, Cable 186, August 13, 1961, 10 p.m.; Department of State, Central Files, 862.181/8-1361, in FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 104.

West Berliners’ mood: Interview with Klaus-Detlef Brunzel, Berlin, October 23, 2008.

Before long, the West Berlin fury: Interview with Klaus-Detlef Brunzel, Berlin, October 23, 2008.

General Watson: “Commandant in Berlin,” New York Times, 08/14/1961.

There were also times: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 165.

Early that morning, Watson: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 165; Cate, The Ides of August, 301–302, 275.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas McCord: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 229–230, 232.

All eyes had then turned: Letter from Colonel Ernest von Pawel to Catudal, August 3, 1977, in Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 234.

The deputy chief: Wyden, Wall, 92, from Pawel interview; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 229–230, 232–235.

“The Soviet 19th Motorized”: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 160.

Adam recalled a more innocent: Interview with Adam Kellett-Long, London, October 15–16, 2008.

Under four-power agreements: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 106; Howard Trivers, Three Crises in American Foreign Affairs and a Continuing Revolution. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972, 24–25.

When he first heard: Cate, The Ides of August, 162–163.

Then he set off: Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Stimmen des 20. Jahrhunderts CD—Berlin, 13 August 1961, produced by Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin and Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv Frankfurt am Main and Potsdam-Babelsberg: http://www.dra.de/publikationen/cds/stimmen/cd25.html.

Lochner the next day showed: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 115–116; Wyden, Wall, 166–167; Lothar Kettenacker, Germany 1989: In the Aftermath of the Cold War. London: Pearson Longman, 2009, 51.

From noon on Saturday: Washington Post, 08/14/1961, 08/15/1961; Chicago Daily Tribune, 08/14/1961.

Honecker phoned Ulbricht: Washington Post, 08/14/1961.

Khrushchev would reflect: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 455.

15. THE WALL: DESPERATE DAYS

“Why would Khrushchev”: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 303.

“The Russians… feel”: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1978/2002, 430.

Until August 13, Litfin: “Erstes Maueropfer Günter Litfin—‘Tod durch fremde Hand,’” Der Spiegel (online), 09/02/2007; Hans-Hermann Hertle, Die Todesopfer an der Berliner Mauer 1961–1989: Ein biographisches Handbuch. Berlin: Christoph Links, 2009, 37–39.

The two brothers then reflected: Christian F. Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany 1953: The Cold War, the German Question, and the First Major Upheaval Behind the Iron Curtain. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2001, 169.

He closely followed: “Scores Flee to West Despite Red Guards,” Washington Post, 08/15/1961.

Günter Litfin would be the first: Tagesspiegel, 08/25/1961.

By comparison, the East Berliner: Cate, The Ides of August, 399.

A little more than two days: Wyden, Wall, 221.

CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr: Wyden, Wall, 220; Daniel Schorr Papers, Library of Congress.

A fluke of prewar planning: Taylor, The Berlin Wall, 186–187.

As a result, Berlin’s Cold War: Regine Hildebrandt, oral history interview, Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer; also see www.dradio.de: Hörbeispiel: Erinnerungen an den Bau der Berliner Mauer vor 40 Jahren: Regine Hildebrandt (SPD), Berlinerin.

Like many of the soldiers: Jürgen Petschull, Die Mauer: August 1961: Zwölf Tage zwischen Krieg und Frieden. Hamburg: Gruner + Jahr, 1981, 149–152.

The young man raced off: Peter Leibing, oral history interview, October 8, 2001, www.jungefreiheit.de, Moritz Schwarz, “‘Na, springt der?’ Peter Leibing über die spektakuläre Flucht des DDR-Grenzers Conrad Schumann und das Foto seines Lebens.

So while Brandt prepared: Horst Osterheld, “Ich gehe nicht leichten Herzens…” Adenauers letzte Kanzlerjahre: Ein dokumentarischer Bericht. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1986, 59–60; Konrad Adenauer, Teegespräche 1959–1961 (Rhöndorfer Ausgabe), ed. Hanns Jürgen Küsters. Berlin: Siedler, 1988, 541, 546.

Within forty-eight hours: Donald P. Steury, ed., On the Front Lines of the Cold War: Documents on the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946 to 1961. Washington, D.C.: CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999; Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, August 17, 1961, 576–582: VII-6: CIWS: Berlin, August 17, 1961 (MORI No. 28205), 582.

British Prime Minister Macmillan, the ally: London Times, August 26, 1961.

However, Adenauer’s response: Heinrich Krone, Tagebücher. Vol. 2: 1961–1966. Ed. Hans-Otto Kleinmann. Düsseldorf: Forschungen und Quellen zur Zeitgeschichte, 2003, 15; Konrad Adenauer, Erinnerungen 1959–1963 (Fragmente). Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968, 122.

Only at that point: Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik, Aufzeichnung der Unterredung Adenauer’s mit Smirnow, August 16, 1961, N. L. Globke Papers, I-070-(2/1.1); Hans-Peter Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer. Vol. 2: The Statesman, 1952–1967, trans. Geoffrey Penny. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1997, 540–541 (English trans. of Adenauer. Vol. 2: Der Staatsmann: 1952–1967. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1991).

Less than forty-eight hours: Prittie, Konrad Adenauer, 286; Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, New York Times, 08/16/1961; New York Times, 08/30/1961.

Brandt, who until then: Peter Merseburger, Willy Brandt 1913–1992: Visionär und Realist. Stuttgart and Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2002, 406–407; Die Zeit, 08/18/1961.

Brandt realized that perhaps: New York Times, 08/17/1961; Washington Post, 08/17/1961; Bild-Zeitung, 08/16/1961.

After wiping the sweat: Archiv Deutschlandradio, Die Zeit im Funk, RIAS, Rede von Willy Brandt auf einer Protestkundgebung vor dem Rathaus Schöneberg, Ausschnitte (excerpt of Willy Brandt speech to protesters at Schöneberg/West Berlin city hall), August, 16, 1961: www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Media/VideoPopup/day/16/field/audio_video/id/15023/month/August/oldAction/Detail/oldModule/Chronical/year/1961.

He considered the letter from Mayor: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 117, Telegram from the Mission at Berlin to the Department of State, Berlin, August 16, 1961, midnight.

“Trust?” Kennedy spat: Petschull, Die Mauer, 157; Wyden, Wall, 224; Jean Edward Smith, The Defense of Berlin, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963, 283–284; Washington, D.C., Daily News, 08/17/1961; Washington, D.C., Evening Star, 08/18/1961.

The State Department: Washington, D.C., Daily News, 08/17/1961; Washington, D.C., Evening Star, 08/18/1961.

Brandt would later take credit: Petschull, Die Mauer, 159; Hermann Zolling and Uwe Bahnsen, Kalter Winter im August. Die Berlin-Krise 1961–1963. Ihre Hintergründe und Folgen. Oldenburg and Hamburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1967, 147.

Kennedy came to accept: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 120, Letter from President Kennedy to Governing Mayor Brandt, Washington, August 18, 1961; JFKL, NSF, Germany, Berlin, Brandt Correspondence, Secret.

Brandt read Kennedy’s response: Willy Brandt, Erinnerungen. Frankfurt am Main: Propyläen, and Zurich: Ferenczy, 1989, 58, 63; Merseburger, Willy Brandt, 405.

“Why would Khrushchev put up”: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 303.

Kennedy had little sympathy: James Reston, “Hyannisport—A Cool Summer Visitor from Washington,” New York Times, 09/06/1961.

In the first days: JFKL, Dr. Wilhelm Grewe OH, November 2, 1966, Paris; Reston, “Hyannisport—A Cool Summer Visitor from Washington.”

Khrushchev also reflected later: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, 170.

Khrushchev believed: Taubman, Khrushchev, 506; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Krizisy i Rakety, vol. 1, 132–135.

Khrushchev concluded beyond any doubt: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 502–505, 509.

More dramatic yet: “Russia Exhibits Atomic Infantry,” New York Times, 08/18/1961; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 385.

“Fucked again”: Wyden, Wall, 246; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 459; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 291.

Bobby recalled what Chip: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 429–430, citing RFK Papers, RFK, dictated September 1, 1961.

It was not the first time Vice President: Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy. New York: HarperCollins, 1965, 594.

Johnson grew all the more: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 427; Petschull, Die Mauer, 161–162; O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 303.

During their overnight flight: Cate, The Ides of August, 405–407; JFKL, Lucius D. Clay OH; Lucius D. Clay OH (Columbia Oral History Project).

Speaking to the West Berlin: Wyden, Wall, 229; “Text of VP Johnson’s Address in West Berlin,” Washington Post, 08/20/1961; New York Times, 08/22/1961.

“The city was like”: “300,000 Applaud,” New York Times, 08/20/1961.

For Kennedy, the troop: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 395; Sorensen, Kennedy, 594.

British Prime Minister: Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 1959–1961, 393.

The operation’s commander: William D. Ellis and Thomas J. Cunningham, Clarke of St. Vith: The Sergeants’ General. Cleveland: Dillon/Liederbach, 1974, 260–261.

For all the details his superiors: Wyden, Wall, 230–232.

Colonel Johns had never seen: New York Times, 08/21/1961.

The Soviet response: “Berlin Is Called a G.I. ‘Mousetrap,’” New York Times, 08/26/1961.

“We took offense”: Interview with Vern Pike, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2008.

At 5:30 on Sunday: Interview with Lucian Heichler, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, initial interview date February 2, 2000, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mfdip:@field(DOCID+mfdip2004hei01); interview with James. E. Hoofnagle, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, initial interview date March 3, 1989, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mfdip:@field(DOCID+mfdip2004hoo01).

“I returned from Germany”: Report by Vice President Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Vice Presidential Security Files, VP Travel, Berlin, Secret. The vice president also reported on his trip to Kennedy on August 21. The memo for the record of this meeting is in JFKL, NSF, Germany, Berlin.

On August 22, Ulbricht: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 385, quoting MFA, Gromyko and Malinovsky to the Central Committee, July 7, 1962 (recounting 1961 events), 0742, 7/28/54, 10–13.

Swelling with confidence: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 385, citing Ulbricht letter to Khrushchev, October 31, 1961, AVP-RF.

Chancellor Adenauer finally surfaced: “Kanzler Besuch: Keen Willydrin,” Der Spiegel, 08/30/1961.

Many West Berliners: “Foes Taunt Adenauer in Berlin,” Washington Post, 08/23/1961; Die Zeit, 03/25/1961.

Adenauer visited the king: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer. Vol. 2: The Statesman, 1952–1967, 542; Cable, Adenauer an Springer, 16.08.1961; Adenauer, Teegespräche 1959–1961, 546.

West Berlin police officer: Doris Liebermann, “‘Die Gewalt der anderen Seite hat mich sehr getroffen’: Gespräch mit Hans-Joachim Lazai,” in Deutschland Archiv No. 39/2006, 596–607; “Wall Victim” Ida Siekmann: http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Detail/id/593816/page/1.

It was nearly eight: “Wall Victim” Bernd Lünser: http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Detail/id/593816/page/5.

“Jörg Hildebrandt (Hg.), Regine Hildebrandt. Erinnern tut gut. Ein Familienalbum, Berlin 2008, S. 56.

Eberhard Bolle was so focused: Interview with Eberhard Bolle, Berlin, October 10, 2008.

16. A HERO’S HOMECOMING

“We have lost Czechoslovakia”: Teleconference, Clay and Department of the Army, April 10, 1948; communication recounted in Lucius D. Clay, Decision in Germany, reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970, 359–362 (361).

“Why would anyone write”: JFKL, Elie Abel OH, March 18, 1970, 3–4; Elie Abel, “Kennedy After 8 Months Is Tempered by Adversity,” Detroit News, September 23, 1961.

Berliners still spoke: Andrei Cherny, The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008, 253.

Clay’s determination to keep: Teleconference, Clay and Department of the Army, April 10, 1948; communication recounted in Lucius D. Clay, Decision in Germany. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970, 361.

Clay’s appointment: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 115.

Kennedy had even rewritten: Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay: An American Life. New York: Henry Holt, 1990, 651–652.

Whatever his dilemmas: “Public Backs Kennedy Despite ‘Bad Breaks,’” Washington Post, 08/25/1961.

Unlike Kennedy, Clay spoke: RIAS, General Clay’s statement upon arrival in West Berlin, September 19, 1961: http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Media/VideoPopup/field/audio_video/id/40514/oldAction/Index/oldId/955454/oldModule/Start/page/0.

The Christian Democrats: Prittie, Konrad Adenauer, 288–291.

Clay’s limited job description: Smith, Lucius D. Clay, 654.

The State Department’s Martin Hillenbrand: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 246.

Clay had launched: http://www.uniprotokolle.de/Lexikon/Berliner_Luftbrücke.html.

The East German newspaper: Washington Post, 09/18/1961; Taylor, The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 263–265.

At age twenty-one: Interview with Albrecht Peter Roos, Berlin, October 13, 2008.

As a result of August 13: Honoré M. Catudal, Steinstücken: A Study in Cold War Politics. New York: Vantage Press, 1971, 15.

East German authorities threatened: New York Times, 09/22/1961; 09/23/1961; Washington Post, 09/22/1961; 09/23/1961; Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 139–135; Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 131.

Without divulging his plans: Catudal, Steinstücken, 15–16, 106.

General Clay spent: Smith, Defense of Berlin, 309–310; Interview with Vern Pike, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2008.

By coincidence, European Commander: Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis, 133–134.

A few days later, U.S. troops: Interview with Vern Pike, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2008.

They included the president’s brother: Frank Saunders, Torn Lace Curtain. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1982, 82–85.

Larry Newman: Hersh, Dark Side of Camelot, 226–230, 237–246.

Kennedy’s public approval ratings: JFKL, Elie Abel OH, March 18, 1970, 3–4; Detroit News, September 23, 1961.

On Sunday, Kennedy landed: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 312–313; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 500–501.

Following Salinger’s instructions: Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966, 191–192.

Khrushchev had told Sulzberger: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence, Lot 77 D 163. Also printed in Cyrus L. Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants. New York: Macmillan, 1970, 801–802.

Taking a deep breath: Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants, 788–806; C. L. Sulzberger, “Khrushchev Says in Interview He Is Ready to Meet Kennedy,” New York Times, 09/08/1961.

Khrushchev also wanted to influence: Salinger, With Kennedy, 192; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 390, 397.

Kennedy called Salinger at 1:00 a.m.: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 314–315; Salinger. With Kennedy, 192–194.

Though Kennedy and Khrushchev had agreed: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 395.

Kennedy reviewed his UN speech: Christian Science Monitor, 09/26/1961.

The president had been agonizing: Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 314; New York Times, 09/26/1961, 09/29/1961; Christian Science Monitor, 10/09/1961; Washington Post, 10/11/1961.

Kennedy needed to retake: Ralph G. Martin, A Hero of Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years. New York: Macmillan, 1983, 661; Sidey, JFK, 245.

“A nuclear disaster”: “Text of Kennedy Speech to U.N. Assembly,” Wall Street Journal, 09/26/1961; “Kennedy Meets Presidential Test, Shows Nobility of Thought, Concilliatory Mood,” Washington Post, 09/26/1961. For text of speech: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03UnitedNations09251961.htm.

Perhaps most telling was East German: Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 314; Neues Deutschland, 09/26/1961.

West German editorialists: Bild-Zeitung, 09/26/1961.

West German Foreign Minister: Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 314.

Adenauer’s fears: AVP-RF, Memcon, Kuznetsov, Meeting with Kroll, 3-64-746, August 29, 1961; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 389.

In the Berliner Morgenpost: Berliner Morgenpost, 09/26/1961.

The New York Times columnist: Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 313.

So Marshal Konev dispatched: Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 315.

On September 27, General Clarke: Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 315.

Clay had ordered army: Raymond L. Garthoff, “Berlin 1961: The Record Corrected,”

Foreign Policy, no. 84 (Fall 1991), 142–156; Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars, 90; Donald P. Steury, “On the Front Lines of the Cold War: The Intelligence War in Berlin,” presented at “Berlin: The Intelligence War, 1945–1961.” Conference at the Teufelsberg and the Alliierten Museum, September 10–12, 1999; excerpts from conference speeches and panel discussions: Ambassador Raymond Garthoff on the tank confrontation of October 1961; retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/summer00/art01.html.

17. NUCLEAR POKER

“In a certain sense”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 21, Letter from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, Moscow, September 29, 1961; Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 77 D 163; also JFKL, NSF, Countries Series, USSR, Khrushchev Correspondence.

“Our confidence in”: Address by Roswell L. Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense, before the Business Council at the Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia, October 21, 1961, 9:00 p.m. (EST), 10:00 p.m. (EDT): http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB56/BerlinC6.pdf; “Our Real Strength,” Time, 10/27/1961.

Carrying two folded newspapers: Salinger, With Kennedy, 198–199.

The man who: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 21, Letter from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, September 29, 1961.

Salinger was struck: Salinger, With Kennedy, 199.

Khrushchev also said he was willing: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 137.

Apart from opening his new channel: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 396.

Khrushchev had also warned Ulbricht: SED Archives, IfGA, ZPA, J IV 2/202/130, Letter from Khrushchev to Ulbricht, January 28, 1961, in Harrison, “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” CWIHP Working Paper No. 5, 131, Appendix J.

Adenauer’s concerns: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 147, Memo from President Kennedy to Secretary of State Rusk, Berlin Negotiations, Washington, September 12, 1961.

One matter was certain: Quoted in James N. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006, 2nd ed., 82; O’Brien, JFK, 552; Sidey, JFK, 218.

Kennedy considered reaching out: Sorensen, Kennedy, 553.

In a letter dated October 16: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VI, Kennedy–Khrushchev Exchanges, Doc. 22, Letter from President Kennedy to Chairman Khrushchev, Hyannis Port, October 16, 1961; Thomas Fensch, ed., Top Secret: The Kennedy–Khrushchev Letters. The Woodlands, TX: New Century Books, 2001, 69–81.

The numbers were a reflection: New York Times, 10/16/1961, 10/17/1961, 10/18/1961; Slusser, The Berlin Crisis of 1961, 294.

The Palace of Congresses was unique: Washington Post, 10/18/1961.

Time magazine assessed: “Communists: The Khrushchev Code,” Time, 10/20/1961.

Though he owed his position: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 44, 53, 461, 583; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 202.

It seemed to party colleague Pyotr Demichev: Taubman, Khrushchev, 514.

Still, Khrushchev looked leaner: See for Khrushchev’s entire speech at the opening session of the 22nd Party Congress: The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 13, no. 49 (1962); New York Times, 10/18/1961, 10/19/1961, 10/22/1961.

During an otherwise genial: David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. New York: Free Press, 2007, 75; New York Post, 11/08/1961; New York Times, 11/05/1961.

By the time the plan: Carl Kaysen to General Maxwell Taylor, Military Representative to the President, “Strategic Air Planning and Berlin,” September 5, 1961, Top Secret. Source: National Archives, Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Records of Maxwell Taylor: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB56/BerlinC1.pdf; also see FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VIII, National Security Policy, Doc. 43, Memo from the President’s Military Representative (Taylor) to President Kennedy, Strategic Air Planning and Berlin, Washington, September 19, 1961.

Kaysen conceded the need: Carl Kaysen to General Maxwell Taylor, Military Representative to the President, “Strategic Air Planning and Berlin,” September 5, 1961, Top Secret, excised copy, with cover memoranda to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Lyman Lemnizer, Released to National Security Archive, National Archives, Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB56/BerlinC1.pdf.

In a White House that: Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983, 299–300; Marcus G. Raskin, Being and Doing. New York: Random House, 1971, 62–63.

Kennedy didn’t have the same misgivings: Memo from General Maxwell Taylor to General Lemnitzer, September 19, 1961, enclosing memo on “Strategic Air Planning,” Top Secret. Source: National Archives, Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Records of Maxwell Taylor, Box 34, Memorandums for the President, 1961. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB56/BerlinC3.pdf.

The following day’s National Security Council: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. VIII, National Security Policy, Doc. 44, Memo of Conference with President Kennedy, Washington, September 20, 1961.

Power had directed the firebombing: Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, 246; Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organization, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993, 150; U.S. Air Force, General Horace M. Wade OH, October 10–12, 1978, 307–308, K239.0512–1105, Air Force Historical Research Center; JFKL, NSF, Memo Bundy to Kennedy, January 30, 1961, Box 313.

Martin Hillenbrand, director: JFKL, Martin J. Hillenbrand OH, Interviewed by Paul P. Sweet, American Consul General, Stuttgart, August 26, 1964, 8; Martin J. Hillenbrand, Power and Morals. New York: Columbia University Press, 1949, 30.

Cool and rational, at age fifty-four Nitze: See Nitze himself in the foreword to William R. Smyser, From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle over Germany. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999, xiv–xv; Strobe Talbott, The Master of the Game: Paul Nitze and the Nuclear Peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988, 37, 70, 72–73.

As Truman’s chief of policy: Paul H. Nitze, with Ann M. Smith and Steven I. Rearden, From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decisions—A Memoir. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1989, 91–92; Talbott, Master of the Game, 52, 58, 112.

Like Acheson, Nitze considered: David Callahan, Dangerous Capabilities: Paul Nitze and the Cold War. New York: HarperCollins, 1990, 216–218.

On August 13, Nitze: Callahan, Dangerous Capabilities, 223; Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, 199–200.

To safeguard Berlin access: Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, 202–204; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 173, Minutes of Meeting, Berlin Build-up and Contingency Planning, Washington, October 10, 1961; Doc. 185, Enclosure, U.S. Policy on Military Actions in a Berlin Conflict, Washington, October 20, 1961.

The Washington Post reported on efforts: Washington Post, New York Times, Tagesspiegel, Der Kurier, 10/29/1961; Christian Science Monitor, 09/05/1961; New York Times, 09/17/1961.

Time magazine ran: Time, 10/20/1961.

It seemed that only Macmillan: Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 1959–1961, 398–403; Nigel J. Ashton, Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War: The Irony of Interdependence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, 60–61.

With the Allies deeply at odds: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 184, Minutes of Meeting, Washington, October 20, 1961; also JFKL, NSF, Memo of Meeting, Washington, October 20, 1961, 10 a.m., Meetings with the President, Top Secret, drafted by Bundy.

As so often: National Defense University, Taylor Papers, Box 34, Items for Cables to Taylor; in FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 184.

A few hours after the meeting: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 185, Letter from President Kennedy to the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers Europe (Norstad) and Enclosure, U.S. Policy on Military Actions in a Berlin Conflict, Washington, October 20, 1961.

Bruce said that through Kennedy’s: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 183, Telegram from the Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Department of State, London, October 20, 1961, 4 p.m.

It was an unlikely audience: Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 329; Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy. New York: W.W. Norton, 1975, 230.

Knowing nothing of the Bolshakov: Wyden, Wall, 258.

“We have responded immediately”: Address by Roswell L. Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense, before the Business Council at the Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia, October 21, 1961: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB56/BerlinC6.pdf; “Gilpatric Warns U.S. Can Destroy Atom Aggressor,” New York Times, 10/22/1961; “Our Real Strength,” Time, 10/27/1961.

Khrushchev would later recall that Konev: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 459.

18. SHOWDOWN AT CHECKPOINT CHARLIE

“I do not believe”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 181, Letter from the President’s Special Representative in Berlin (Clay) to President Kennedy, Berlin, October 18, 1961.

“In the nature of things”: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 193, Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission at Berlin, Washington, October 26, 1961, 8:11 p.m.; Department of State, Central Files, 762.0221/10-2661.

E. Allan Lightner Jr.: Slusser, The Berlin Crisis of 1961, 377–378; Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 319–320.

Lightner knew there was a slim chance: Bruce W. Menning, “The Berlin Crisis of 1961 from the Perspective of the Soviet General Staff,” in William W. Epley, ed., International Cold War Military Records and History. Proceedings of the International Conference on Cold War Military Records and History held in Washington, D.C., March 21–26, 1994, 10–13; Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 135; Gerhard Wettig, Chruschtschows Berlin-Krise 1958 bis 1963: Drohpolitik und Mauerbau. Munich and Berlin: R. Oldenbourg, 192.

Ulbricht had apparently approved: Cate, The Ides of August, 476; Slusser, The Berlin Crisis of 1961, 353–358.

Encouraged by Clay: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 189, Telegram from the Mission at Berlin to the Department of State, Berlin, October 24, 1961, 1 p.m., drafted by Lightner.

Clay disagreed: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 181, Letter from the President’s Special Representative in Berlin (Clay) to President Kennedy, Berlin, October 18, 1961; Smith, Lucius D. Clay, 642–643; 651–654; JFKL, Lucius D. Clay OH, July 1, 1964.

Unlike Clay, Lightner: Cate, The Ides of August, 476; Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 319; Raymond L. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations From Nixon to Reagan. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1994; Smith, Lucius D. Clay, 659; HSTL, E. Allan Lightner OH, October 26, 1973.

Lightner told friends: Interview with Vern Pike, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2008; Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 250–253; HSTL, E. Allan Lightner OH, October 26, 1973.

As that night’s script: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 186, Telegram from the Mission at Berlin to the Department of State, Berlin, October 23, 1961, 2 p.m.; Cate, The Ides of August, 476–480.

“Look,” Lightner said to the policeman: Cate, The Ides of August, 477.

About then, four American tanks: “U.S. Protests to Soviet,” New York Times, 10/24/1961.

By the time Lightner’s VW: The Atlantic Times, October 2005: William R. Smyser, “Tanks at Checkpoint Charlie. In October 1961, the World Faced a War”: http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=319; Cate, The Ides of August, 479–480, 484.

Once East German radio: Cate, The Ides of August, 479–480; Howard Trivers, Three Crises in American Foreign Affairs and a Continuing Revolution, 41–44.

Back in Washington, Kennedy: Ashton, Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War, 62; Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 249; Norman Gelb, The Berlin Wall: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and a Showdown in the Heart of Europe. New York: Dorset Press, 1986, 253; Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 137.

National Security Advisor Bundy had warned: Ann Tusa, The Last Division: A History of Berlin, 1945–1989. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997, 330; JFKL, NSF, Memo from Bundy to the President, August 28, 1961, Box 86, Berlin; Wyden, Wall, 264.

Though in his letter Clay: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 181, Letter from the President’s Special Representative in Berlin (Clay) to President Kennedy, Berlin, October 18, 1961; also in JFKL, NSF, Germany, Berlin, General Clay, Top Secret.

What followed was the general’s resignation: Smith, Lucius D. Clay, 662–663.

At a time when Kennedy badly wanted: Frédéric Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and the Atlantic Alliance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001, 70, 71; Ashton, Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War, 62.

De Gaulle had disapproved: Charles de Gaulle, Lettres, notes et carnets (1961–1963). Paris: Plon, 1986, 155–158; William R. Smyser, “Zwischen Erleichterung und Konfrontation. Die Reaktionen der USA und der UdSSR auf den Mauerbau,” in Hans-Hermann Hertle, Konrad Hugo Jarausch, and Christoph Klessmann, eds., Mauerbau und Mauerfall: Ursachen—Verlauf—Auswirkungen. Berlin: Christoph Links, 2002, 147–158 (151).

As harsh as it was, de Gaulle’s letter: JFKL, POF, De Gaulle–Kennedy Letter Exchange, Box 116A.

Despite two months of U.S. diplomatic: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 176, Telegram 1025 from the Department of State to the Embassy in Germany, Washington, October 13, 1961; a similar letter was sent to de Gaulle: Telegram 2136 to Paris, October 13, 1961, in Department of State, Central Files, 762.00/10-1361.

With that as prelude: Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day: June 6, 1944. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994, 107.

De Gaulle told Gavin: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 187, Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State, Paris, October 23, 1961.

Emboldened by the success: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 189, Telegram from the Mission at Berlin to the Department of State, Berlin, October 24, 1961, 1 p.m.

The White House staff considered: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 127–128; Cate, The Ides of August, 101.

Given Ambassador Gavin’s failure: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 188, Memcon, Delivery of Letter to the President from Chancellor Adenauer, Washington, October 24, 1961; New York Times, 10/25/1961, 10/26/1961.

Grewe knew Adenauer: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 164; also see for Rusk–Gromyko meeting, Memcon, September 30, 1961, in Department of State, Central Files, 611.61/9-3061.

Speaking to Lightner, Kohler: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 190, Memo from the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Kohler) to Secretary of State Rusk, Washington, October 24, 1961, in Department of State, Central Files, 762.00/10-2461.

United States Army first lieutenant: Interview with Vern Pike, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2008. Also see his unpublished book Checkpoint Charlie’s Angels (written with Edward W. Plaisted).

A policeman blocking her path: Der Kurier, 10/28/1961, 10/29/1961.

U.S. commanders had placed: “U.S. Tanks Face Soviet’s at Berlin Crossing Point,” New York Times, 10/28/1961.

Even as the Soviets: Gelb, The Berlin Wall, 248; Smith, The Defense of Berlin, 324; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 193, Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission at Berlin, Washington, October 26, 1961, 8:11 p.m.

Clay had never been more convinced: Department of State, Central Files, 762.0221/10-2661: Telegram 835 (Clay to Rusk), October 26, 1961, 1 p.m., mentioned in FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 193.

He outlined how: Department of State, Central Files, 762.0221/10-2561: Telegram 824 (Clay to Department of State), October 25, 1961, 12:34 p.m.; Secretary Ball discussing General Clay’s plan: ibid., Doc. 178: Memo from Acting Secretary of State Ball to President Kennedy, Action for Dealing with the Possible Closing of the Friedrichstrasse Entry Point into East Berlin, Washington, October 14, 1961; ibid., Doc. 180, Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission at Berlin, Washington, October 18, 1961; National Security Archive, Berlin, Norstad, dated 10/26/1961: Norstad to Clarke (CINCUSAREUR), 36.

“Take our tanks”: Oleg V. Volobuev and Alexei Serov, eds., Nikita Khrushchev: Life and Destiny. Moscow: Novosti Press, 1989, 27; Wyden, Wall, 264.

That said, the Soviets were nervous: Menning, “The Berlin Crisis of 1961 from the Perspective of the Soviet General Staff,” 141.

Clay’s view: Wyden, Wall, 263.

By late October, Bobby: James W. Symington, The Stately Game. New York: Macmillan, 1971, 144; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 499–500.

The president’s brother made arrangements: JFKL, Robert F. Kennedy OH, Interview by John Bartlow Martin, March 1, 1964.

Bobby Kennedy recalled: Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 403–404.

The attorney general: JFKL, Robert F. Kennedy OH, Interview by John Bartlow Martin, March 1, 1964; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 500.

On Friday night, October 27: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962, Doc. 197.

After an evening of tension: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 507.

Shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Saturday: Interview with Adam Kellett-Long, London, October 15–16, 2008; NPR interview: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102618942.

EPILOGUE: AFTERSHOCKS

“I recognize fully”: Harold Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 1961–1963. New York: Harper & Row, 1973, 182–183.

“There are many people”: JFKL, Kennedy Speech to Berliners, Rudolph Wilde Platz, West Berlin, June 26, 1963: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03BerlinWall06261963.htm.

The first scene unfolded: http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Detail/id/593928/page/5; Berliner Morgenpost, 08/13/2006; Hilton, The Wall, 164–168.

At the same time…Soviet ships: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 412–415; Taubman, Khrushchev, 549–551; Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 451; Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1987, 18–22, 208 (table showing type and numbers of missiles).

Fechter’s murder snapped something: “City’s Mood: Anger and Frustration,” New York Times, 08/26/1962.

Meanwhile, over Cuba: Anatoli I. Gribkov and William Y. Smith, “Operation Anadyr”: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chicago: Edition Q, 1994, 5–7, 24, 26–57; Taubman, Khrushchev, 550; Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 188–189, 191–193.

On August 22, the CIA: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. X, Cuba, January 1961–September 1962, Doc. 383, Memo from the President’s Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy), Washington, August 22, 1962, CIA, Office of Current Intelligence (OCI), No. 3047/62, Current Intelligence Memo, August 22, 1962: “Recent Soviet Military Aid to Cuba.”

Though history would celebrate Kennedy: Arnold L. Horelick, “The Cuban Missile Crisis: An Analysis of Soviet Calculations and Behavior,” World Politics, 16 (April 1964), 363–389; Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971, 40–56, 102–117.

With that, the Arkansas senator: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 90; JFKL, Bundy–JFK, August 4, 1961; Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 264; Larson, Deborah Welch. Anatomy of Mistrust: U.S.–Soviet Relations During the Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000, 134.

Without any countervailing presidential statement: Larson, Anatomy of Mistrust, 134.

“When the border is closed”: RGANI, Khrushchev–Ulbricht, August 1, 1961, Document No. 521557, 113–146. Document and citation graciously provided by Dr. Matthias Uhl.

Critics called Khrushchev’s scheme: Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985, 117–118.

Regarding Cuba: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 536.

Despite all his first-year setbacks: John C. Ausland, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Berlin-Cuba Crisis, 1961–1964. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996, 43–45; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XV, Berlin Crisis, 1962–1963, Doc. 34, Memcon, Bonn, April 13, 1962; also in Department of State, Central Files, 740.5/4-1362, Top Secret, Limit Distribution; Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars, 112–113.

Adenauer no longer could conceal: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer. Vol. 2: The Statesman, 608; Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik, Krone Diary, April 14, 1962.

He then shot off a brusque note: JFKL, NSF, Germany and Europe, Box 78; Rudolf Morsey and Hans-Peter Schwarz, eds., Adenauer: Briefe, 1961–1963 (Rhöndorfer Ausgabe), ed. Hans Peter Mensing, Stiftung Bundeskanzler-Adenauer-Haus, Paderborn, Germany: Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2006, 111.

Even as he put in place: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XV, Berlin Crisis, 1962–1963, Doc. 73, Message from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, Moscow, undated, but handwritten note: “Received at White House July 5, 1962”; also see Doc. 76: Memcon Rusk–Dobrynin, July 12, 1962; Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 77 D 163.

On September 4, Kennedy: Department of State Bulletin, vol. 47 (September 24, 1962), “U.S. Reaffirms Policy on Prevention of Aggressive Actions by Cuba: Statement by President Kennedy,” 450; also National Security Archives, Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy’s Statement on Soviet Military Shipments to Cuba, September 4, 1962.

Two days later, on September 6: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XV, Berlin Crisis, 1962–1963, Doc. 112, Memcon between Secretary of the Interior Udall and Chairman Khrushchev, Pitsunda, Soviet Union, September 6, 1962.

On October 16, 1962: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XV, Berlin Crisis, 1962–1963, Doc. 133, Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, Moscow, October 16, 1962.

Khrushchev told his new ambassador: “The Cold War in the Third World and the Collapse of Detente in the 1970s,” “The Mikoyan–Castro Talks, 4–5 November 1962: The Cuban Version,” CWIHP-B, No. 8–9 (1996/1997), 320, 339–343: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/ACF199.pdf.

“My thinking went like this”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 493–494.

Of all Khrushchev’s moves linking: John R. Mapother, “Berlin and the Cuban Crisis,” Foreign Intelligence Literary Scene, 12, no. 1 (January 1993), 1–3; Ray S. Cline, “Commentary: The Cuban Missile Crisis,” Foreign Affairs, 68, no. 4 (Fall 1989), 190–196.

Said Khrushchev, “The Americans knew”: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 500.

“Let me just say a little”: Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997, 175.

“I recognize fully”: Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 182–183.

Kennedy repeated his Berlin concern: FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, Doc. 39, Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom, Washington, October 22, 1962, 12:17 a.m.; Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 186.

In 1962, Kennedy also rejected: May and Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, 309.

National Security Advisor Bundy wondered: May and Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, 144, 183.

At one point, General Curtis E. LeMay: May and Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, 177.

In his October 22 speech: JFKL, Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba, The White House, October 22, 1962: http://www.jfklibrary.org/jfkl/cmc/j102262.htm; May and Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, 280.

In his meeting with U.S. ambassador to London: Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 187.

“That’s really the choice”: Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 182, 199; May and Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, 385.

When Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister: Sergei N. Khrushchev, Creation of a Superpower, 560.

Khrushchev also rejected: Telegram from Soviet Ambassador to the USA Dobrynin to the USSR MFA, October 23, 1962, reproduced in “The Cuban Missile Crisis,” CWIHP-B, No. 5 (Spring 1995), 70–71; Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, 582.

On October 27, the president’s brother: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 192, 274, n. 18.

De Gaulle famously told: JFKL, Dean G. Acheson OH, no. 1, April 27, 1964, 26.

Adenauer said he would throw his lot: Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, 629–630; Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 199.

Tellingly, Kennedy rejected the dovish: May and Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, 256, 283–286, 388–389.

General Clay suggested to diplomat: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 203, citing Smyser’s conversation with General Clay, Links Club, New York City, November 1962.

Perhaps another million Berliners: Reeves, Kennedy: Profile of Power, 537; New York Times, 06/26/1963, 06/27/1963.

some in the Kennedy: O’Donnell and Powers, with McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” 360; Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 624; Robert G. Torricelli and Andrew Carroll, eds., In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century. New York: Kodansha America, 1999, 232.

“There are many people”: JFKL, Kennedy Speech to Berliners, Rudolph Wilde Platz, West Berlin, June 26, 1963: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03BerlinWall06261963.htm.

Years later, amateur linguists: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 217, 221, from conversation with Heinz Weber, July 10, 2006; and Andreas W. Daum, Kennedy in Berlin. Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 133–135.

As Kennedy told Ted Sorensen: Sorensen, Kennedy, 601.