Berlin 1961 Part 22

aWho told you to do that?a Clarke protested to Watson.

aGeneral Clay,a Watson responded.

aAl,a Clarke complained, adonat you know who you work for? Donat you know who writes your efficiency report?a Clarke instructed his underlings to take no further orders from Clay and to withdraw their troops from the woods and send them back to their barracks. He then found Clay in his office and, pointing to a red phone on his desk, angrily challenged him to call Kennedy, or to atake your cotton-picking fingers off my troops.a Responded Clay, aWell, Bruce, I can see that we are not going to get along.a Clay was convinced he knew how far to push the Soviets and that he was on safe ground because Moscow acould not allow a minor issue [like Steinstcken] to become an international incident through mishandling by their East German puppets.a A few days later, U.S. troops evacuated seven East Germans who had driven their truck through the mayoras backyard fence while seeking refuge. Military police cut their hair short so they looked like GIs, put them in MP uniforms and helmets, and then evacuated them in a U.S. military helicopter. Although East German authorities threatened to shoot down the helicopter, Clay had gambled right that Moscow would not let them risk it.

The flights to and from Steinstcken became routine practice, usually ferrying MPs back and forth from their base but sometimes ushering out refugees. Clay not only felt he had proved a point to Berliners and his own superiors, but that he had also reinforced his own conviction, born in 1948, that the Soviets would back down when confronted by a determined West.

Emboldened, Clay pressed on. He announced that the U.S. military would resume patrols that Washington had stopped six years earlier along the Autobahn. It was his answer to new East German police hara.s.sment of American vehicles, which were sometimes held up for hours for inspections. The patrols would intervene in any incident involving an American car. Within a short time, the problems ended.

West Berliners were elated. The Berliner Morgenpost splashed a photo on its front page of General Clay kissing his wife, Marjorie, as she arrived in Tempelhof Airport. The caption read: aEvery Berlin child knows the accomplishments of this American for our cityas freedom. His latest actions warm the hearts of Berliners: the stationing of a U.S. commando in Steinstcken and the resumption of military patrols of the Autobahn.a What they couldnat know was that Clayas most dangerous enemies were already planning a counterattacka"in Washington. The last time Clay had exceeded orders in Berlin, President Truman had covered his back. Clay had no way of knowing whether Kennedy would do the same now, but he was about to find out.

HYANNIS PORT, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

SAt.u.r.dAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1961.

The usual ilk of weekend guests were gathering at the Kennedysa Hyannis Port compound, where President Kennedy was working on a speech that he would deliver to the United Nations General a.s.sembly the next day.

They included the presidentas brother Teddy; their brother-in-law, the actor Peter Lawford; Frank Sinatra; and the Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa and his latest wife. Sinatra had arrived with what father Joseph Kennedyas chauffeur Frank Saunders called aa crowd of jet-setters and beautiful people,a among them women who looked liked prost.i.tutes to him. The maids were abuzz about it all.

Saunders would later claim that he heard party noises during the night and wandered to the main house from his cabin to return Joe Kennedyas riding boots to him. He said he had stumbled upon the old man in the back hallway fondling a giggling, buxom female.

aMy riding boots!a Saunders heard him exclaim. aJust in time!a It was all part of the raucous background noise of the Kennedy administration and the barely controlled chaos of Kennedyas personal life and that of those around him. The public image of the workaholic, speed-reading, family-man president was in stark contrast to the reality that would emerge only years later through the eyewitness reports from, among others, his Secret Service agents. They were men who lacked the single-minded motivation of his closest aides and family to burnish the Kennedy imagea"and they worried about the security dangers of Kennedyas womanizing.

Larry Newman, who had joined the Secret Service in 1960, was less worried about the morality issues involved than he was that the presidentas chief procurer of women, Dave Powers, would not allow security checks or searches of any of the women who were escorted past bodyguards. This was at a time when all the agents around the president had been warned that Fidel Castro might be planning a revenge hit over the Bay of Pigs. aWe didnat know if the President the next morning would be dead or alive,a Newman recalled later to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. Newman said agents only half jokingly debated among themselves who would draw the black bean to testify before the appropriate House subcommittee should the president be harmed.

Tony Sherman, a member of the Kennedy security detail from Salt Lake City, would later recall days when Kennedy awould not work at all.a Sherman had not liked the fact that his job responsibilities included alerting Kennedyas aides when his wifeas sudden arrival might uncover his philandering. Agent William T. McIntyre of Phoenix worried that as a sworn law enforcer, he was being asked to look the other way at illegal procurement of prost.i.tutes. Agent Joseph Paolella of Los Angeles adored Kennedy and the fact that he always remembered his security menas names, but he worried that the U.S. president could be blackmailed by an enemy over his in-fidelities. He and other agents referred to one of Kennedyas guests that weekend, Peter Lawford, as aRancid a.s.s,a for his overdrinking and aggressiveness with women.

With all that revelry in the background, Kennedy was putting the final touches on one of the most important speeches of his presidency, and his first important signal to the world of how he intended to handle Moscow and nuclear arms control after the Berlin border closure. It would also come just four days after an airplane crash in Africa had killed United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjld. The Soviets were campaigning to have Hammarskjld replaced by a three-person directorate that would represent the West, the communist world, and aneutrals.a Kennedyas public approval ratings defied gravity, but the president knew that beneath them lay a string of foreign policy setbacks and festering domestic problems that over time could undermine his leadership. Before he left Washington that Friday for Hyannis Port, he had met briefly with Detroit News Washington bureau chief Elie Abel, who had been asked by a New York publisher to write a book on the presidentas first term and was seeking Kennedyas cooperation. Sitting together in the White House living quarters, with Marine Oneas engines roaring in the background, Abel drank a b.l.o.o.d.y Mary while Kennedy tried to dissuade him from the project. aWhy would anyone write a book about an administration that has nothing to show for itself but a string of disasters?a he asked.

Abel found himself in the curious position of trying to convince Kennedy that, despite his rough start, in the end he would do great things, and he and his friends would all be proud of his administration.

On Sunday, Kennedy landed with Lawford at the Marine Air Terminal of New Yorkas La Guardia Airport at 6:35 p.m., where they were greeted by Mayor Robert Wagner, Secretary of State Rusk, and U.S. Amba.s.sador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson. Pierre Salinger, the presidentas portly, bon vivant press secretary, had arrived ahead of them in response to an urgent call from Soviet spy Georgi Bolshakov, who had continued to play his role as unofficial conduit to Khrushchev. Bolshakov had said it was urgent that Salinger meet with Mikhail Kharlamov, the Soviet Foreign Ministry press director, who had an urgent message for the president.

Bolshakov had grown increasingly comfortable in his role, having operated without a leak and to the satisfaction of his superiors for several months. Though he remained a mid-ranking military intelligence agent, he was now custodian of a well-established and frequently employed direct line to Khrushchev. Salinger considered Bolshakov to be aa one-man troika in himselfainterpreter, editor and spy.a Following Salingeras instructions, at 7:15 p.m. on Sunday Bolshakov brought Kharlamov through a little-watched side entrance into the Carlyle, the hotel that served as the presidentas residence in New York. Reporters constantly loitered in the lobby, hoping for presidential sightings, so a Secret Service agent took the two Soviets up a back elevator.

Salinger was taken aback by Kharlamovas opening words: aThe storm in Berlin is over.a By his reckoning, Salinger had told Kharlamov, the Berlin situation couldnat be much worse.

aJust wait, my friend,a he said.

Kharlamov asked whether the president had received a message that Khrushchev had sent to him through New York Times Paris correspondent Cyrus L. Sulzberger, who had conducted an interview with the Soviet leader in early September.

Salinger said he hadnat. The fact was, however, that on September 10 Sulzberger had relayed to Kennedy a personal note that Khrushchev had given him during an interview just five days earlier, although Kennedy had not yet responded.

Khrushchev had told Sulzberger, aIf you are personally able to meet with President Kennedy, I wish you would tell him I would not be loath to establishing some sort of informal contact with him to find a means of settling the [Berlin] crisis without damaging the prestige of the United Statesa"on the basis of a German peace treaty and [the establishment of the] Free City of West Berlin.a He had suggested Kennedy use informal contacts to relay his view on Khrushchevas ideas, and ato figure out various forms and stages and how to prepare public opinion and not endanger the prestige of the United States.a Kharlamov repeated for Salinger the essence of the Khrushchev message, speaking faster and more excitedly than Bolshakov could translate. So Salinger asked him to slow down, explaining that they had time. The president was out for dinner and a Broadway play, he said, and he wouldnat be back at the hotel until past midnight.

Taking a deep breath, Kharlamov said the situation was urgent. Khrushchev considered Kennedyas plans for a U.S. military buildup in Europe to be an imminent danger. That was why the Soviet leader had told Sulzberger about his eagerness to establish a private channel to Kennedy to reach a German settlement.

Khrushchev wanted another summit with Kennedy to consider American proposals on Berlin, Kharlamov said. He would leave the timing to Kennedy because of the presidentas aobvious political difficulties.a But he was in a hurry. Kharlamov talked of the continuing aintense pressurea within the communist bloc on Khrushchev to conclude a peace treaty with East Germany. Beyond that, he said, the danger of a major military incident in Berlin remained far too great to delay a settlement.

Khrushchev also wanted to influence or at least know the content of Kennedyas Monday speech because he wished to avoid anything, at a time of rising tensions, that might give new hope to his opponents ahead of the Party Congress at the end of October. Kharlamov told Salinger that the Soviet leader ahopes your presidentas speech to the UN wonat be another warlike ultimatum like the one on July 25a. He didnat like that at all.a Salinger left a message for Kennedy to call as soon as he returned to his room. He then poured scotch and soda for his Russian guests. When they left nearly two hours later, Salinger promised head give them the presidentas response the next morning at 11:30, ahead of Kennedyas UN speech.

Kennedy called Salinger at 1:00 a.m. and invited him to his thirty-fourth-floor duplex at the Carlyle. It was his New York ahome,a rented by his father and furnished with fine French antiques. With the draperies open as they were that night, the apartment offered a glittering view of New Yorkas skyline. Salinger found Kennedy in bed in white pajamas, chewing on an unlit cigar and reading. At the presidentas request, Salinger repeated the key points of his conversation with Kharlamov several times.

The president told Salinger that Sulzberger had communicated nothing to him from his Khrushchev meeting, so the message had likely not reached Kennedy. Kennedy rose from his bed and looked out over Manhattan. He told Salinger that it was good news aif Khrushchev is ready to listen to our views on Germany,a and it probably meant that he would not unilaterally sign a peace treaty with the Ulbricht regime that year and prompt yet another crisis. Yet Kennedy believed Moscowas continued insistence on a peace treaty recognizing East Germany still raised the specter of war if Khrushchev endangered West Berlin access.

The president called Secretary Rusk at 1:30 a.m., and together they settled on a message that Salinger would deliver to the Soviets the next morning. Salinger scribbled on hotel stationery as the president dictated. He would tell the Soviets that Kennedy was acautiously receptivea to the proposal for an early summit on Berlin, but he wanted the Soviets to demonstrate good faith in achieving Laotian neutrality. Only then would a summit on the more difficult question of Germany be likely to produce asignificant agreement.a The tone was to be cordial but cautious. Though Kennedy and Khrushchev had agreed on a unified, neutral Laos in Vienna, the Soviets had stood by as North Vietnam added to the military capability of the communist Pathet Lao, and Moscow was contributing two-thirds of the cost to maintaining its expanding secret army. Salinger would repeat the presidentas exact words to Kharlamov: aWe would be watching and waiting,a was the message Kennedy wanted Salinger to pa.s.s to the Soviets.

Kennedy reviewed his UN speech with Salinger until 3:00 a.m. The final text was more moderate than the Soviets might have antic.i.p.ated. The language was particularly cautious regarding Berlin.

The president had been agonizing over the speech for weeks. Though the next election was not for another three years, Kennedyas domestic opponents had begun to sense his weakness. Barry Goldwater, the Arizona senator and leading Republican, had abandoned his previous restraint on attacking Kennedy over Berlin and said West German fears of abandonment were aperfectly justified.a Said Goldwater, aAnytime diplomats begin talking of negotiations in a Soviet-created situation where there is nothing to negotiate, it is time for the defenders of freedom to become wary.a He told a conference of Republicans on September 28 that if elections were held the next day, they would win with the largest Republican landslide ever.

Kennedy needed to retake the initiative. Khrushchev ahad spit in our eye three times,a Kennedy complained to his amba.s.sador to the UN, Adlai Stevenson. aHe has had a succession of apparent victoriesa"s.p.a.ce, Cuba, the thirteenth of Augusta. He wants to give out the feeling that he has us on the run.a Vice President Lyndon Johnson argued to the president that he couldnat demand disarmament in New York and then return to Washington and call out more divisions and restart underground nuclear testing, which is exactly what Kennedy planned to do. The president had learned from ten months of dealing with Khrushchev that one could combat the man only in contradictions.

Kennedyas performance at the UN was formidable, fed by his increasing fixation on the prospect of nuclear conflict. That, in turn, had been shaped by secret meetings spent determining with his top advisers the rich detail of exactly how he would execute a nuclear war plan, right down to specific Soviet body counts. Every word of his speech reflected his increasing preoccupation with that burden.

aA nuclear disaster,a Kennedy told the General a.s.sembly, aspread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to wara"or war will put an end to mankind.a He outlined his proposal for ageneral and complete disarmamenta under effective international control. aToday, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable,a he said. aEvery man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.a Buried within the speech was a conciliatory message for Moscow on Berlin. Noticed by only the initiated, it suggested Soviet concerns over East Germany had been justified and repeated Kennedyas view, one that had so distressed veteran diplomats, that U.S. interests in Europe did not stretch beyond West Berlin. Though Salinger would later insist Kennedy had not altered his speech that night, the language would satisfy Khrushchev.

aWe are committed to no rigid formulas,a he said. aWe see no perfect solution. We recognize that troops and tanks can, for a time, keep a nation divided against its will, however unwise that policy might seem to us. But we believe a peaceful agreement is possible which protects the freedom of West Berlin and Allied presence and access, while recognizing the historic and legitimate interests of others in a.s.suring European security.a Kennedy closed with his growing sense of historic moment: aThe events and the decisions of the next ten months may well decide the fate of man for the next ten thousand yearsa. And we in this hall shall be remembered either as part of the generation that turned this planet into a flaming funeral pyre or the generation that met its vow to asave succeeding generations from the scourge of war.aa Though put in poetic terms, he closed again with an offer of talks, without using a word of his speech to reproach Moscow over the August border closure. aWe shall never negotiate out of fear, and we shall never fear to negotiatea. For together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames.a The speechas soaring rhetoric would help establish Kennedyas reputation as a world leader. U.S. Senator Mike Mansfield called it aone of the great speeches of our generation.a Yet those hearing the speech in West Berlin could not miss Kennedyas willingness to compromise further at their expense or his lack of resolve to remove the barrier that divided them.

Perhaps most telling was East German praise for the speech. The Ulbricht regime hailed it as a milestone toward peaceful coexistence. The party newspaper Neues Deutschland called it aremarkable; remarkable because it showed American willingness to negotiate.a West German editorialists focused not on the speechas flourishes but on its wishy-washy language. Bild-Zeitung wondered bitterly whether Kennedyas reference to athe historic and legitimate interests of othersa was suggesting that Moscow had the right ato split Germany or renounce reunification.a West German Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano told a party caucus of his Christian Democratic Union that the country must abrace itself with all its strength against tendencies to get a Berlin settlement at West Germanyas expense.a West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer complained to friends that the president didnat mention German unification once at the United Nations. Kennedy also left out the ritual call for all-German free elections. He seemed to be retreating on all questions of principle regarding Berlin. Kennedy had not even done the bare minimum: demand that free circulation of people return to Berlin. Adenauer set in motion a trip to Washington in hopes of getting Kennedy back on message, if it wasnat already too late.

Adenaueras fears that Kennedy might abandon West Germany had grown so great that on August 29 he had reached out to Khrushchev with a secret message through West German Amba.s.sador Kroll. Despite his public stance against any talks with Moscow, privately he was urging the Soviet to join new negotiations. aThe two greatest dangers,a he said, aare when tanks stand opposite tanks, at a distance of just some meters, as is the case now in Berlin, and the even greater danger of an incorrect a.s.sessment of the situation.a In the Berliner Morgenpost, a readersa debate raged over whether or not one could still trust the Americans to defend Berlinas freedom. One contributor from the city district of Steglitz asked whether the West was writing the Soviet Union a blank check to do what it wanted in West Berlin by the end of that year. Another writer said Marxists had it right that U.S. capitalismas abundance had created an indecisive and indifferent societya"aalthough it is five minutes before midnight.a Beside these letters was one from Raymond Aron, the famous French philosopher, echoing French leader Charles de Gaulleas warning in a television appearance that week. aWhat is at stake,a wrote Aron, aisnat just the fate of two million Berliners. It is the capability of the United States to convince Khrushchev that it has the tenacity not to give in to horse trading.a West Berliners were confused by their guarantoras mixed messages. One day General Clay had landed in Steinstcken and flexed U.S. muscle through his patrols on their Autobahn. The next day Kennedy gave a speech that continued the American retreat. Kennedy had not even mentioned the Wallas existence or the fact that East Germans were further fortifying it every day.

New York Times columnist James aScottya Reston wrote that Kennedy ahas talked like Churchill but acted like Chamberlain.a In the same column, Reston reported on a leaked Kennedy memo regarding Clayas confrontational Berlin measures in which the president asked senior officials why his policy of seeking negotiations on Berlin was being misunderstood.

Reading the tea leaves and intelligence reports, Khrushchev was beginning to sense that Clayas hard line in Berlin was nothing more than a retired generalas bold improvisation that lacked presidential blessing. There was sufficient sign of disagreement in U.S. policy circles that it was time to probe the differences.

So Marshal Konev dispatched a sharp note to General Watson demanding that Clayas aillegala Autobahn patrols end. His letter, he stressed, wasnat a aprotest but a warning.a The Kennedy administration ordered Clayas Autobahn patrols to stop after a week of successful operations. General Konevas allies had been Clayas American enemies.

On September 27, General Clarke flew to Berlin to reprimand his commander again. After a ceremonial lunch with Clay for press purposes, General Clarke again advised General Watson, his Berlin commander, that U.S. forces could no longer be used to counteract Soviet or East German actions without his approval. The East German press got wind of Clayas differences with the Kennedy administration and made much of it.

Clarke then got wind of another secret Clay operation.

Clay had ordered army engineers to construct barriers in a secluded forest on the outskirts of Berlin that would replicate the Wall as closely as possible. U.S. troops then mounted bulldozer attachments on their tanks, and Clay supervised as they crashed through the barriers, using different speeds and height placements for the shovels to achieve maximum efficiency. Clayas purpose was to determine the best way to punch a hole through the barrier should the opportunity or necessity present itself.

aAs soon as I learned of it,a General Clarke would later write in a private correspondence, aI stopped it and got rid of what had been done.a Clarke didnat report the Clay operation or his action against it to Washington, hoping the whole matter would simply disappear.

Kennedy would never know about ita"but Khrushchev would. A Soviet agent hiding in the forest had snapped photos. Khrushchev had no way of knowing that General Clarke had shut down the exercise. He now had what he considered concrete evidence that the Americans might well be planning an operation in Berlin that would challenge or humiliate him during his Party Congress.

17.

NUCLEAR POKER.

In a certain sense there is an a.n.a.logy herea"I like this comparisona"with Noahas Ark, where both the acleana and the auncleana found sanctuary. But regardless of who lists himself with the acleana and who is considered to be aunclean,a they are all equally interested in one thing, and that is that the Ark should successfully continue its cruise.

Premier Khrushchev to President Kennedy, in the first letter of their secret correspondence, September 29, 1961 Our confidence in our ability to deter Communist action, or resist Communist blackmail, is based upon a sober appreciation of the relative military power of the two sides. The fact is that this nation has a nuclear retaliatory force of such lethal power than any enemy move which brought it into play would be an act of self-destruction on his part.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, Hot Springs, Virginia, October 21, 1961 CARLYLE HOTEL, NEW YORK.

SAt.u.r.dAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1961.

Carrying two folded newspapers under his arm, Georgi Bolshakov appeared as arranged at Pierre Salingeras door at the Carlyle at 3:30 p.m., having been escorted up the back elevator by a Secret Service agent.

Concealed inside one of the papers was a thick manila envelope, from which Bolshakov removed a bundle of pages. With conspiratorial flamboyance, the Soviet spy announced that he held before him a personal twenty-six-page letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy, a ma.n.u.script he said he had spent the entire night translating. The bags under Bolshakovas eyes were such a permanent fixture that Salinger could not know if that was true.

aYou may read this,a Bolshakov told Salinger. aThen it is for the eyes of the president only.a It had been only a week since Bolshakov and Salinger had last met in the same room ahead of Kennedyas United Nations speech. Khrushchev was impatient to test Kennedyas conciliatory words and his expressed willingness to open new talks on Berlin, despite French and West German opposition. Bolshakov handed Salinger both the English and Russian versions of the letter so that U.S. government translators could compare them for accuracy.

Thus began what National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy would dub the apen pal letters,a uniquely direct and private correspondence between the two leading adversaries of their time. Over the next two years, Khrushchev would continue to use the cloak-and-dagger means of having Bolshakov and others slip his letters to Salinger, to Robert Kennedy, or to Ted Sorensen on street corners, in a bar, or elsewhere, often in unmarked envelopes slipped out from folded newspapers.

Khrushchev considered the matter of such urgency that Bolshakov had phoned Salinger a day earlier with an offer to charter a plane to deliver the letter to Newport, Rhode Island, where Kennedy had been on a weekas autumn vacation at the home of Jacquelineas mother, Janet Lee Bouvier, and stepfather, Hugh Auchincloss. However, Kennedy and Rusk wanted to avoid a potential amedia sensationa in the event that one of two dozen reporters with the president spotted the Russian agent. So they dispatched Salinger to New York the next day.

aIf you knew the importance of what I have, you wouldnat keep me waiting that long,a Bolshakov had replied.

Salinger would later paraphrase the message in Khrushchevas 6,000-word letter: You and I, Mr. President, are leaders of two nations that are on a collision coursea. We have no choice but to put our heads together and find ways to live in peace.

The man who had so battered Kennedy in Vienna opened on a warm and personal note, explaining that he was resting with his family at his Black Sea retreat in Pitsunda. In the secretive Soviet Union, not even his own citizens knew where he was. aAs a former Naval officer,a Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy, ayou would surely appreciate the merits of these surroundings, the beauty of the sea and the grandeur of the Caucasian mountains.a Khrushchev said it was difficult in such a setting to think that problems lacking solutions acast a sinister shadow on peaceful life, on the future of millions of people.a But because that was the case, Khrushchev was suggesting a confidential exchange between the two men whose actions would determine the future of the planet. If Kennedy was uninterested, the Soviet leader said the president could ignore the letter and Khrushchev would never mention it again.

Salinger was struck by the peasant simplicity of Khrushchevas language, ain contrast to the sterile gobbledygook that pa.s.ses for this level of diplomatic correspondence.a The letter had none of Khrushchevas usual threats and instead solicited Kennedyas alternative proposals should he differ with Khrushchevas suggestions.

Khrushchevas initiative had several possible motivations. Most important, his Party Congress would begin in a little more than two weeks, and engaging Kennedy in such an exchange would give him greater a.s.surance that the U.S. would do nothing to disrupt his painstaking ch.o.r.eography. Second, he hoped to calm the rising tensions that had produced a much larger expansion of U.S. defense spending than he had antic.i.p.ated.

Khrushchev knew the Soviet Union lacked the economic depth to match a sustained arms race with the far wealthier United States. For the first time, he had to worry that the West might challenge his conventional military dominance around Berlin. Kennedyas defense buildup was also inflaming Soviet hard-linersa arguments that Khrushchev was doing too little to combat the West and should have gone further to neutralize West Berlin. In his letter, Khrushchev warned Kennedy that the t.i.t-for-tat military spending, spurred by Berlin, was further reason why Moscow was aattaching such exclusive significance to the German question.a The Soviet leader said he was willing to reexamine positions frozen through fifteen years of cold war. Writing to the Catholic Kennedy, the atheist Soviet compared the postwar world to Noahas Ark, aboard which all parties wanted to continue their voyage, whether they were clean or unclean. aAnd we have no other alternative: either we should live in peace and cooperation so that the Ark maintains its buoyancy, or else it sinks.a Khrushchev also said he was willing to expand on the quiet contacts between Secretary of State Rusk and Foreign Minister Gromyko, whose first meeting had been in New York on September 21. In addition, he was willing to take up Kennedyas suggestion of preparatory talks between the U.S. and Soviet amba.s.sadors to Yugoslavia, Americaas legendary diplomat George Kennan and General Alexei Yepishev, a Khrushchev confidant.

Just a day after the border closure on August 14, the State Department had authorized Kennan to open that channel, but at the time Moscow had shown no interest. Now Khrushchev was eager, though he worried that without clear instructions the amba.s.sadors would aindulge in tea-drinkinga and amooing at each other when they should talk on the substance.a Khrushchev suggested instead the use of U.S. Amba.s.sador Thompson, since he was a trusted and proven interlocutor, though he immediately apologized, saying he understood that this would be Kennedyas choice.

Khrushchev protested at length about Western suspicions that Moscow still intended to seize West Berlin. aIt is ridiculous to even think of that,a he said, arguing that the city was of no geopolitical importance. To show his good intentions, he suggested moving the United Nations headquarters to West Berlin, an idea he had floated earlier that month in separate meetings with Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak and former French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud.

Apart from opening his new channel to Kennedy, Khrushchev was taking other measures to avoid further escalation of tensions with the U.S. Khrushchevas party Presidium had put on ice a far-advanced plan to provide Cuba with more advanced weaponry, including missiles that could reach the U.S. Khrushchev had also warned Ulbricht against a series of measures he was implementing to expand his hold on East Berlin, lecturing his troublesome client that he should be satisfied with his 1961 gains.

In his most important gesture, Khrushchev responded to Kennedyas appeal of the previous week for progress on Laos. He confirmed their agreement of Vienna that Laos would become a neutral, independent state like Burma and Cambodia. However, he disagreed with Kennedyas concern about specifically who should take which leadership positions in Laos, saying that should not be a matter for Moscow and Washington to decide.

With that, Khrushchev closed with best wishes to Kennedyas wife and for his and his familyas health.

HYANNIS PORT, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

SAt.u.r.dAY, OCTOBER 14, 1961.

It would take two weeks before Kennedy was ready to respond.

Working over the weekend on Cape Cod, Kennedy wrote and rewrote a draft that would balance his heightened distrust for Khrushchev with his desire to use all means to avoid war through miscalculation. A negative reply could hasten another Kremlin move on Berlin, but too positive a reply would look naive to his domestic and Allied critics. Both Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer worried that any Kennedya"Khrushchev talks were simply a recipe for new concessions on West Berlin.

Adenaueras concerns would have been even greater if he had known the instructions Kennedy had given Rusk to dramatically reconstruct U.S. positions for a new round of Berlin talks, with a peace conference as their goal. Kennedy had ruled out as a negotiator U.S. Amba.s.sador to West Germany Walter Dowling, because ahe reflects Bonnas opinion too much.a He also wanted Rusk to leave on the table only issues acceptable to Moscow and remove Adenaueras insistence on talks aimed at German and Berlin reunification through free elections. aThese are not negotiable proposals,a he said. aTheir emptiness in this sense is generally recognized; and we should have to fall back from them promptly.a What he was willing to consider were many of Moscowas previously unacceptable ideas, including making West Berlin an internationalized afree citya as long as it was NATO that guaranteed its future and not a foreign troop contingent including the Soviets.

Considering how much he was willing to compromise, Kennedy was disappointed by the Soviet response. Soviet aircraft increasingly buzzed U.S. planes traveling to Berlin, Khrushchev had resumed nuclear testing, and the Soviet leader again was threatening to sign an East German peace treaty. On the other hand, Khrushchev had abandoned earlier threats of war and was promising to preserve West Berlinas independence.

One matter was certain: after having tried to put the Berlin issue on the back burner at the beginning of his presidency, Kennedy was now overwhelmed by it. Unable to get the president to focus any attention on his land conservation agenda, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall complained, aHeas imprisoned by Berlin. Thatas all he thinks about. He has a restless mind, and he likes to roam over all subjects, but ever since August, Berlin has occupied him totally.a Kennedy considered reaching out to his allies to get their advice and buy-in on how to respond to Khrushchev, but experience had taught him that that would only produce muddle and press leaks. He would then lose Khrushchevas trust. But what was that trust worth, anyway? Chip Bohlen, the former U.S. amba.s.sador to Moscow, told Kennedy that his response to Khrushchev amay be the most important letter the President will ever write.a In a letter dated October 16, more than two weeks after Khrushchevas correspondence, Kennedy seized upon Khrushchevas personal tone and wrote about the value of getting away from Washington and spending time on the sh.o.r.e with his children and their cousins. He embraced Khrushchevas offer of confidential correspondence, and said he would not hint at it in public or disclose it to the press. However, Kennedy added to Khrushchev that he would share the letter with Rusk and a few other of his closest a.s.sociates.

Kennedy embraced Khrushchevas Noahas Ark a.n.a.logy. Due to the dangers of the nuclear age, he said, U.S.a"Soviet collaboration to keep the peace now was even more important than their partnership during World War II. Kennedy could not have been clearer in his de facto acceptance of Berlinas border closure. He called his att.i.tude toward Berlin and Germany aone of reason, not belligerence. There is peace in that area nowa"and this government shall not initiate and shall oppose any action which upsets that peace.a Although he had been willing to allow the construction of the Berlin Wall, he was now drawing the line he would not cross regarding Berlin. He rejected Khrushchevas efforts to open negotiations to change Berlinas status to a so-called afree citya where Soviet troops would join the other three Allies in ensuring the cityas freedom and the East Germans would control access. aWe would be abuying the same horsea twice,a he said, aconceding objectives which you seek, merely to retain what we already possess.a But Kennedy expressed willingness to begin exploratory talks through the American whom Khrushchev had suggested for the purpose, Amba.s.sador Thompson.

Kennedy also wanted Khrushchev to give the U.S. more on Laos as a test case for Berlin. Said the president, aI do not see how we can expect to reach a settlement on so bitter and complex an issue as Berlin, where both of us have vital interests at stake, if we cannot come to a final agreement on Laos, which we have previously agreed should be neutral and independent after the fashion of Burma and Cambodia.a Now that it was clear that the neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma would become prime minister, Kennedy said that he and Khrushchev should ensure that the prince ais a.s.sisted by the kind of men we believe necessary to meet the standard of neutrality.a He said the acceleration of communist attacks on South Vietnam, many from Laotian territory, were aa very grave threat to peace.a However, more important to Khrushchev than the content of Kennedyas letter was the fact that the president had taken his bait and replied at all. Now the Soviet leader could be relatively certain that Kennedy was ready to engage in new talks regarding Berlin, and thus would refrain from confrontational speeches or actions that might disrupt Khrushchevas careful planning for his crucial, fast-approaching Party Congress. Only two months after closing the Berlin border, the Soviet was drawing Kennedy into new negotiations on the cityas status, without having suffered even the modest hand-slap of economic sanctions.

What Kennedy would get out of the exchange was less satisfying. Khrushchevas next communication would come in the form of a fifty-megaton hydrogen bomb.

PALACE OF CONGRESSES, MOSCOW.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1961.

Sunlight glimmered through the morning mist off the golden domes of the Kremlinas fifteenth- and sixteenth-century churches. The red flags of the fifteen Soviet republics fluttered in front of the modern, gla.s.s-walled red and gold Palace of Congresses, just finished for the 22nd Soviet Party Congress.

The ma.s.sive auditorium was filled to capacity. Not one of its red seats was vacant. Never had so many communists met in one place at the same time. Some 4,394 voting delegates and 405 nonvoting delegatesa"nearly 5,000 in alla"had gathered from eighty communist and noncommunist countries. That was three and a half times more delegates than in the preceding three congresses.

The numbers were a reflection of the partyas growth, now reaching the 10 million mark in membership, after having added nearly 1.5 million members since the 21st Party Congress in 1959. Khrushchev wanted a record crowd for his 1961 show, so he had ent.i.tled each party organization to send additional delegates.

The Palace of Congresses was unique, if only because everything worked so much better than in most Soviet government buildings. It had escalators with nearly silent motors, the latest stereophonic sound, West Germana"made central air-conditioning, British-manufactured refrigerators, and hot and cold running water in marble lavatories. Western correspondents gathered for drinks and food on the seventh floor, which they called the aTop of the Marx.a Time magazine a.s.sessed the crowd: acomrades from small Russian villages, caf-sophisticated Parisians, bamboo-tough agitators from Asia.a The stars included the Viet Minhas Ho Chi Minh; Red Chinaas Chou En-lai; Americaas seventy-one-year-old labor activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; the Spanish Civil Waras famed aPasionaria,a Dolores Ibrruri; and Jnos Kdr, the leader who had helped put down the 1956 rebellion in Hungary. They filed in beneath a giant silver bas-relief of Lenin on a purple background.

Western reporters habitually called Khrushchev the aabsolute leadera of the Soviet Union, but the truth was more complicated. After only a year in power, Khrushchev had narrowly survived a coup in 1957. After the G-2 incident and the Paris Summit failure in May 1960, Stalinist remnants began to rally against Khrushchev. In particular, they seized upon what they considered his irresponsible reduction of Soviet armed forces, his alienation of communist China, and his embracing of the imperialist Americans. Through early votes on prefabricated resolutions, Khrushchev monitored potential rivalries that could be his undoing.

Kennedyas three leading American political opponentsa"Republican Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and former Vice President Richard Nixona"were meek compared with Khrushchevas less visible and more dangerous opponents, men bred in Stalinas bloodiest times.