Authors: Frederick Taylor
Ulbricht, watching the confusion in West Germany and in the Western Alliance from his perch in East Berlin, could be very satisfied. He had got most of what he wanted. The GDR was now locked firmly into the Soviet Bloc; the border situation had been stabilised at a stroke, and with it East Germany’s demographic and economic situation. There
could now be no possibility that the state he had struggled to build would suddenly collapse.
Nevertheless, being the practised and devious salami-slicer he was, Ulbricht was not about to sit on his hands and wait for Khrushchev to hand him the rest of what he wanted—a separate peace treaty, full control over the GDR as a sovereign state, and, last but not least, rights over access to and from beleaguered West Berlin.
In September, two British MPs visited the Leipzig Trade Fair in East Germany. They were treated to lunch with Ulbricht—and to a relentless tirade that showed how strong was the East German leader’s lust to turn West Berliners into virtual prisoners of his border police. The MPs’ report on their trip was passed on to the British Prime Minister’s office:
Ulbricht said that a Peace Treaty would be signed before the year was out and that it would be based on the Potsdam Agreement. Thereafter, no one could fly over or enter East German national territory without a visa from East Germany. Such visas would not be given to ‘undesirables’. BEA {British European Airways} would not be allowed to overfly the East German territory without a special agreement. He did not think that Tempelhof would be a suitable aerodrome for Berlin, but if its use was continued there would have to be East German control there.
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It was this relentless inability of Ulbricht to leave well alone that led to a direct American-Soviet military confrontation on the streets of Berlin, and once more threatened to bring the world to the brink of war.
On Sunday 22 October 1961, ten weeks after the border closure, Deputy Leader of the American Mission Allan Lightner and Mrs Lightner approached the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint in a car bearing American occupation-force plates. They planned to attend the performance of a Czech theatre company in East Berlin. It was 7.15 p.m.
Military and civilian representatives of Western authorities in Berlin had been accustomed over the past sixteen years to come and go between East and West Berlin at will. The pragmatic British placated the East German officials with an airy wave of their ID cards (though they would not get out of their vehicles), but the Americans stubbornly refused to
show any documents. This routine was about to be challenged. When the Lightners slowed down at the East German guard post, instead of waving them through, the
Grepos
stopped them and demanded proof of identity.
Something similar had happened a few days before to a less high-status group of American officials, so Lightner was forewarned. He refused to show any documents. If Lightner’s status were to be questioned, it must be by a representative of the appropriate occupation power, not by an East German policeman whose authority he did not recognise. Lightner demanded a Soviet officer be summoned in order that the situation be resolved.
Thirty-five minutes passed, and still no Russian appeared. Lightner decided to drive on into East Berlin, steering his car around the crude barriers put in place to stop escape vehicles. He had driven forty yards into the Soviet sector when he was stopped by an East German patrol. He sat in his car, surrounded by armed border guards, and did not move.
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General Clay, the President’s personal representative in Berlin, had by now been alerted. In the two months since his arrival as Kennedy’s personal representative, Clay had bombarded Washington with calls for tougher action. He had also authorised ‘Wall-busting’ exercises involving American military vehicles, training troops for the possibility that the newly built sector border might need to be breached. However, he had remained primarily a figurehead, a rallying point. Many in Washington had expressed fears about Clay’s gung-ho tendencies before he was dispatched to the beleaguered city. Their fears were about to be confirmed. Or so it seemed.
At nine p.m., an hour and three-quarters after Lightner first arrived at the border, eight American MPs, led by Lieutenant Claude L. Stults, were ordered by the US army provost-marshal in Berlin, Lt-Colonel Robert Sabolyk, to cross into East German territory.
With bayonets fixed, the escort party crossed the white line into East Berlin. They marched past the barriers and over to where Mr Lightner sat in his car. They escorted him on foot as he drove slowly past the speechless East German guards and a short way further into East Berlin. Then they returned to the Western side.
But the diplomat wasn’t finished. Dropping Mrs Lightner off at the guard post, he drove back into the Eastern sector. He was stopped. Again the
Grepos
were forced to watch as Stults and his MPs marched with
Lightner as far as the Leipziger Strasse, a couple of hundred yards into the Soviet sector, and back again. A few minutes later, a Soviet officer finally appeared on the East German side of the border. It was to him that Lt-Colonel Sabolyk issued an official protest. At around 10.20, Lightner passed through again, unchallenged, and did his circuit to the Leipziger Strasse and back. He was followed by several other Allied civilian vehicles, which also went unmolested.
Mr Lightner never got to the theatre, but principle had been (some-what theatrically) preserved. He considered himself entitled to enter East Berlin unchecked, and, with the aid of American military might, that is what he had done, albeit to take no more than a short evening constitutional or three. To reinforce the point, Clay also had four tanks appear on the American side of Checkpoint Charlie.
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The Soviets immediately declared through their spokesman that the whole business with Lightner had been a mistake on the part of the East Germans.
End of story? No. It was a worry—and perhaps a first indication of a certain dissonance between Soviet and East German priorities—when, the following day, the East German news agency ADN made an announcement on behalf of the GDR Ministry of the Interior. In future, all foreigners in civilian clothes would be required to show identity documents to East German officials when crossing the border.
Clay made no public statement about this, but privately fired off a sharp telegram to the Secretary of State, in which he emphasised the importance of not giving in to East German machinations.
I am convinced {he wrote} that the GDR will require identification at Friedrichstrasse for all US licensed cars not driven by soldiers in uniform as a first step in requiring identification for all allied personnel. This would of course eliminate any special allied rights in East Berlin as all foreigners have these rights.
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In other words, an American occupation official would have no more right of access to East Berlin than, say, a Belgian tourist, thus negating the entire notion of privileged four-power occupation rights in the former German capital.
Clay expressed ‘serious doubts that Khrushchev really wants to leave to the GDR the full responsibility for control over access to Berlin with the risks of war which this involves’—a shrewd appraisal, as events would show. Unlike most officials in Washington, however, he saw this not as a lead to be followed in East/West discussions but as a reason for refusing to negotiate with the Russians ‘under the present atmosphere’. Negotiations should only be resumed if the Soviet Union agreed to recognise the current status quo in Berlin as a basis. Only in this way, he suggested, would Khrushchev be ‘forced to show his hand’.
Clay wanted this put to the Soviet ambassador in Washington immediately. Meanwhile, he said, he would not test the East Germans that same day (24 October) but felt that it was important to do so the next day (25 October).
So there was a 24-hour hiatus. The general was not starting from nothing on this issue. On 18 October, following the earlier incident where Americans were refused access to East Berlin, he had sought and been granted new instructions in case of possible Communist action to close the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint:
As approved by White House following course of action by USCOB {United States Commanding Officer Berlin} authorized in event Friedrichstrasse entry point closed either by unacceptable demands for documentation or erection physical barriers by GDR.
(1) Two or three tanks would be used to force barrier and demolish any obstacle barring entry;
(2) Tanks used for purpose would be withdrawn immediately after accomplishing mission and stationed nearby
inside
West Sector.
(3) Commandant in Chair for month, or alternatively, USCOB would then call Karlshorst immediately to protest GDR action and demand urgent meeting with Soviet Commandant, as well as assurance safe conduct through sector boundary for purposes of this meeting.
Press statement would be issued soonest Berlin, explaining Allied forces had destroyed barrier illegally erected by East Germans; matter was being protested to Soviet Commandant; Allies continue to hold Soviets responsible for assuring unrestricted Allied circulation in East Berlin.
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And if the Soviets refused to do anything about the East Germans’ salami-slicing? The answer to that question was left unclear, probably deliberately. Clay, that rare creature—a gung-ho realist—would have been the first to realise this.
Meanwhile, however, it was not just the statesmen of the West from whom the Berlin situation was an unwelcome and dangerous distraction. Hundreds of miles to the east, the Communist world was splitting apart.
The XXII. Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union began on 17 October 1961 in Moscow. More than 5,000 delegates from all over the USSR and representatives of four score international Communist parties attended to pay homage or, in one or two cases, make less flattering feelings clear.
The XXII. Congress appeared to represent the apogee of Khrushchev’s power. It opened in a huge, new marble-and-glass building, the Palace of Congresses, that had been completed just days previously after a frantic race against time.
Since the defeat of the ‘anti-party’ group four years earlier, Khrushchev had consolidated his rule throughout the Soviet imperium.
Sputnik
, and the flights of the cosmonauts, had greatly increased Russian prestige. The Soviet Union itself was less repressive, and its citizens a little more well provided with consumer goods, than had been the case under Stalin. In the Third World, socialism seemed to be on the march. The Soviet Union’s influence had even, thanks to its recently acquired protégé, Fidel Castro, arrived on the very doorstep of the United States. Just a few months earlier, in April 1961, the rookie US President’s attempts to foment counter-revolution in Castro’s Cuba had been a humiliating failure. In his introductory speech, Khrushchev proclaimed the ambitious plan of ‘creating Communism’ in the Soviet Union by 1980 and reasserted his support for ‘national liberation’ movements all over the world.
Russia’s leader was therefore riding high. But he had problems. There was the growing rift with Mao’s China, which disapproved of Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin and was constantly pushing for a more aggressive policy against the West. Khrushchev held back from direct attacks on the Chinese, whose delegation was led by Foreign Minister
Chou En-lai; instead all the aggression was levelled against China’s solitary ally in the European Communist movement, the Albanian party led by the tiny country’s savagely eccentric dictator, Enver Hoxha. At the congress, Khrushchev all but called for Hoxha’s overthrow. In the background, there also lurked questions about Khrushchev’s wayward and highly personal agricultural policy, based on his attachment to maize-growing as a farming cure-all.
And then there was the continuing crisis in Germany.
The world had long assumed that the XXII. Congress would see a triumphant announcement on Germany. The construction of the border barrier in Berlin on 13 August had been achieved without conflict. It was now widely expected that the Soviet leader would give the German question another hefty, possibly conclusive shove in front of the assembled Communists from all over the world, and finally stymie the West by announcing a separate peace treaty with East Germany.
Those who believed this were wrong. And most wrong of all was Comrade First Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the GDR Walter Ulbricht, who until now had been getting everything he wanted.
On 17 October, the opening day of the congress, Khrushchev announced matter-of-factly that he was rescinding his ultimatum to the West. He did not now envisage signing a separate peace treaty with East Germany before the end of 1961. He denied abandoning this goal altogether, and heaped fulsome praise and support on Ulbricht and his regime, but the message was clear.
Kvitsinsky, the Russian Foreign Ministry insider who had first informed Ulbricht of Khrushchev’s assent to the Wall, explained the Soviet leader’s logic:
The Wall itself was the way with a lot of fuss and ceremony to bury the idea of a separate German peace treaty, in the sense of a separate treaty with the GDR. After the building of the Wall, the signing of a separate peace treaty with the GDR was not necessary. All issues that needed to be resolved were resolved. Ulbricht saw in a peace treaty a way to receive international recognition. For us, international recognition of the GDR was important, but not the most important [thing]. We saw that this
would happen no matter what; it was a question of time. After the borders were closed, there would be no other choice than for the West to recognise the GDR. And that is what happened.
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