the other half go to towns such as stillwater and norman and guthrie which will be the territorial capital. oklahoma city, this little town in the bend of the north canadian river. that night every part and parcel of the land was claimed. so the land run was this experiment in a way to settle the american west. was there cheating? yes. were there people who came in early? yes. were there marsh lds who took advantage of their opportunity? yes. were there court cases? yes. so the government did not work too well and social darwinism only worked partially. yes the fastest riders, the cowboys who knew the territory

because they had been driving cattle across the land. the farmers if they were in a wagon and had a family incumbered by a lack of knowledge maybe did not get land. both of those philosophies of government were only partially true. that day part of the american west was settled. after 1889 other parts of the indian territory were taken away from tribes and put into the public domain. the federal government would negotiate. and so the other tribes are picked off one at a time. big parcels. 1893 the biggest of the land runs just on the kansas border was open by land run. 100,000 people made that run. the old lands in the southwestern part of the state,

all of this was open by lottery. this time they realized land runs were not working. they put their name into a hopper. the fifth homestead goes to john smith and they celebrate when they get their land. then with the five civilized tribes there are so many members of the tribes generally the land is divided in several. the indian people get their individual lands. by 1906 the process is completed. and in 1907 oklahoma becomes a state. this is a land of contrast and diversity and for a historian like me and i have been studying oklahoma history for 32 years, 18 books i never cease to be amazed at the pieces of this puzzle that fit together at odd and unique ways that make oklahoma unlike any other state in the union.

stay tuned as american history tv features. you're watching american history tv on c-span 3 mpt in october 2011, the national archives and the cia historical review program co-hosted a symposium on the berlin crisis of 1961. next a panel that examines historians and cia personnel. their discussion revolves around the berlin crisis of 1961 which saw soviet and u.s. tanks facing off at the berlin wall. the discussion is just shy of two hours.

so before we begin the panel, i was in listening to the doctor's presentation and the speech in berlin, one of my favorite documents as i travel around and get to know my collection, there are favorite documents that i identify in each of the sites. at the jfk, there was a little piece of paper that was in jfk's pocket during that speech and this is the facsimile to it. and this is the pronunciation. for you. >> thank you.

[ applause ] >> kennedy library is a great place. >> i certainly hope everybody enjoyed that. as a declassifying reviewer, it's always interesting to hear how the stories and the documents come together. i'm going to turn this over to dr. steury from the cia and we'll have a historical panel and then there will be time for q&a afterwards. don is a historian currently working in the national declassification center. so you want to get that feel of having multiple folks with us at the national archives. he was a soviet military analyst, he worked on the history staff from 1992 to 2007, he's written widely on intelligence history in world war ii and the cold war and publications include documentary

histories on the front lines of the world war 1946 to 1961. intentions and capabilities, estimates on soviet strategic forces. he's taught at the university of southern california and the george washington university. he presently teaches at the university of maryland university college. he also serves as the -- i should have looked that the before i started. i think my german wife would kill me if i butcher this. a museum in berlin. i don't want to have a problem with our german guests. he has a doctorate from the university of california irvine and it is my pleasure to introduce don steury. [ applause ] >> thank you, neil. it is my pleasure to be the moderator of this panel. but because there are several

federal employees on this panel, i have to start by reading the following. and i quote. all statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position or views of the central intelligence agency, the department of the army, or any other u.s. government agency. nothing in the content should be construed as a certainty or implying u.s. government authentication of information or endorsement of the author's view. the material has been reviewed to prevent the disclosure of classified information. [ speaking german ] we are here on the 50th anniversary of the tank confrontation at check point charlie, the end of a bitter crisis over berlin which began with the vienna summit and came to the head with the construction of the berlin wall the following august. looking back, it is possible to see this as the turning point of the cold war. no nation, no society, no system which can survive only by walling in its citizens can

possibly hope to achieve credibility or permanency. the building of the berlin wall ensured that the german democratic republic would only last so long as the wall remained. the construction was a sign of defeat. once built, it was doomed sooner or later to come down. it did not seem so at the time. the berlin wall was built in a period of soaring tension between the u.s. and the ussr. it was the climax of nearly three years of crisis precipitated in the november 1958 when khrushchev threatened to sign a separate peace treat ae to put an end to the treaty. in may 1960, he walked out of

the paris summit and later that year conducted a stormy appearance at the united nations. which produced the famous shoe pounding episode. a peace treaty was raised again and soviet/american tensions increased even as khrushchev prepared to deal with john fitzgerald kennedy. and to those events that we return. i'll start by introducing our panelists at once. we'll have a steady flow from o one presentation to another. my immediate right is mr. lou mehrer, retired cia officer who served in senior assignments in washington and abroad. most recently featured in the production "spies beneath berlin." scheduled for commercial release later this summer. he holds a bachelor of arts in modern european history and continued his education at the university of frankfurt. later he earned a master's of arts degree in history.

he's currently senior review officer at the cia classification center. dr. hope harrison is associate professor of history at george washington university. she's on leave from gw and is at the woodrow wilson international center for scholars here in washington. she's author of driving soviets up the wall, among other things. published by princeton university press in 2003 and recently published in german this year. dr. gregory w. pedlow has been chief of the historical office nato supreme headquarters, allied powers europe since 1989. previous positions have included staff historian for the cia and assistant professor of history at the university of nebraska. he received his ph.d. from the johns hopkins university in 1979 and is author of a number of books and articles on german history, nato and the cold war and waterloo campaign of 1815.

dr. donald a. carter is currently historian. for u.s. army military history. he's been an assistant professor instructor at the university military academy at west point and at the u.s. army field artillery school. fort sill, oklahoma. he's a graduate of the u.s. military academy and holds a doctorate from ohio state university in military history. he's written articles for a number of publications such as the journal of military history, the army review and field artillery. and we'll proceed in that order. so mr. mehrer, would you join us. >> thank you, don. let me begin by saying what a privilege it is to be here today to share our experiences, our knowledge with this group and to be part of this panel. you know, there is an old german song about berlin. there's a refrain that says --

[ speaking german ] in translation, it says i still have a suitcase in berlin. i think all of us who served in germany or were involved in the cold war and witnessed both building and later the fall of the wall feel at least to some extent we still have a suitcase in berlin. our thoughts often go back to those days. today we heard several references to the remarkable anniversary that we are here to honor and that is on this day exactly this day 50 years ago, the 27th of october, 1961, we had the famous tank confrontation at check point charlie. berlin was strategically one of the most valuable pieces of real estate. during the cold war. and could be described as ground zero in the confrontation between east and west. it's good to keep in mind, and

i'll give some background on the wall here, and what led up to the building of it. it's good to keep in mind that the wall had been built in august of 1961 and the tank confrontation took place 2 1/2 months later. this illustrates that before the wall and after the wall, berlin remained the flash point between east and west. could potentially have gotten out of control. thank god it didn't. the wall had its roots in the allied division of berlin. and more important and probably equally so, the failures of the communist system in east germany, that's what the wall really reflected. how was this expressed, the reality of the situation in the east and in east berlin, west berlin?

nothing reflects this more than the movement of people. the greatest events in history often involve demographics. the movement of large numbers of people from one area to the other. resettlement in the u.s., and what we have now in the 20th century is this mass exodus of people from one country to another. statistics are useful. between 1949 and 1961, in a nation of 17 million people, one of every six individuals left east germany. so that by 1961, 2.8 million people had abandoned their country. to borrow a phrase from lenin, these east germans were voting with their feet. driving this exodus was not only the brutality of the communist

system, but not only economically, they did not make their country what they wanted it to be, a viable competitor with the west and in particular west germany. they could not keep up about so that by 1960, the per capita income of the east germans was half of that enjoyed by the west germans. another point to be made is the question of legitimacy. i think in the eyes of many germans, the regime never had the that legitimacy that the west german government enjoyed. it rode in on red army tanks. they were maintained in power by soviet bayonets. so nobody in east germany had a chance before the fall of the wall to vote on the government they really wanted.

it is a very interesting thing and the german mentality, we go back a few years before east germany, adolf hitler through the years he grew power, many of his closest followers urged him to seize power. they said you have the men, you have the support, why not go through berlin and take you power. why are we going through these elections? and hitler always stood firm, he says when i get to power, i want to be legitimate. because when you have legitimacy, that gives you everything you need to do what you want. anyway, just a small digression. the origins of the wall. there's no doubt that east germany was the earliest and strongest advocate of a building of some barrier between east and west berlin. as early at 1952, he had

mentioned to stalin his decision to put up something to stem the flow of refugees. stalin turned him down. he had other ideas at that time, but among those was hoping that germany would agree to remain neutral or become neutral and not be within -- and in exchange for which, he would give german unity. in any case, stalin said no. and it's also interesting in another context. in commenting on the possibility of germany becoming communist, he made the remark making germany communist is like trying to saddle a cow. then by 1953, stalin died in march of '53, the work uprising was brutally suppressed. the flow of refugees increased.

and the exodus weakened east german's economy as the refugees, the best and brightest were leaving their country. in 1960 again and even before, east germans had a real problem because west germany was like a magnet that said we're right here next door, we're your neighbors, and when you come here, you will have everything you want and more. that proved irresistible. in 1960, there were 32% increase in the number of refugees over 1959. that is from 140,000 refugees in a year to 1960, 185,000.

or roughly 500 refugees per day were leaving east germany. keep in mind that every refugee that left east germany became a contributor to the economic miracle in west germany. so west germany's gain was east germany's loss clearly. the situation became desperate because he could not ignore the fact, and he probably knew this earlier than most, that he would be presiding over a people of states if this continued. and we heard about the offers of setting up a peace treaty with east germans, west berlin would become a u.n. controlled free city. those proposals went nowhere. largely because of the opposition on our part. but again, we heard about the vienna summit. and i think this is seminal.

i don't want to be repetitive. but it clearly determined the events as they occurred in 1961. it was a bad year for the u.s. and a pretty good year for khrushchev. he thought he could bully jfk. he recalled the bay of pigs. khrushchev could build his wall he determined and then ultimately he'd go to the party contest as the real victor in the contest between east and west. when you read about the summit, the human aspects i think is what's also impressive. not only psychologically did khrushchev dominate this situation, but we should remember that physically our president was in bad shape. he did a lot of his official correspondence sitting in his

warm bathtub and he lamented that he wished he had the bathtub in paris that was much larger, much warmer, but this is where he found some relief from the pain. he also was very aware that things were not going well and he worried about this. and the reference to miscalculation, you know, one of the reason has khrushchev took such umbrage at being told we don't want to have miscalculation, he took umbrage to that in part because khrushchev in his own mind said everything i do is calculated. and what kennedy was trying to say, and this is a quote from kennedy, that all wars start from stupidity and he didn't want yet another war to start from that level. and it's interesting. the chancellor of germany once remarked isn't it interesting that god placed a limit on the

intelligence of human beings, but not on their stupidity. there's another interesting episode surrounding the vienna summit. evelyn lincoln, kennedy's secretary, was organizes the papers after the summit was completed and she saw a small piece of paper fall on the floor. she immediately recognized it was written in jfk's handwriting. she picked it up and this is what he had written. "i know there is a god. and i see a storm coming. if he has a place for me, i believe i'm ready." wow. if we think the situation is serious, you can imagine what must be going through this man's mind. so that was the setting.

the refugee problem remained paramount and he continued to press hard on khrushchev to approve the building of the wall and stop the hemorrhaging from east to west. again, right before the wall was built, the flow of refugees from east berlin to west reached 10,000 per week. which meant that more than 2,000 people a day on the eve of the wall were abandoning east germany and abandoning communism. finally, my data is a little different than yours, but finally from one source, khrushchev on 6 july 1961 before the meeting of the warsaw pact members gave him the go ahead to build the wall. so it's interesting that he was

finally able to get from khrushchev what he could not get from stalin. and he was well prepared to execute what was called operation rose. this was the code name for building the wall and on the night saturday at 12 to sunday 13th of august, the barbed wire went up to be followed by bricks, mortar and all the rest. it's interesting that some observed in looking at the blueprints of the wall for berlin, they observed isn't it interesting, this looks like the blueprint for a concentration camp. that's pretty good. you have the barbed wire going up. you have the guard dogs. watch towers. all those things were elements of a concentration camp. and in fact what he was doing in many ways was making almost his

whole country into a concentration camp. the wall itself was not only the 27 mile strip between east and west berlin but was in fact an iron ring around all of west berlin. 97 miles. so you had not only the iron curtain dividing east and west, but you had another iron ring around berlin. the effects of the wall. east german prisons were shut. the wall solved an immediate problem. it stopped the exodus of people from the east. stabilized the situation in the gdr. i think we can make an analogy that the east berlin -- access to the west was like a vent on the old fashioned pressure cooker. you let it steam, but if you

turn off that vent and keep the heat going, you will have an explosion. and this is really what happened. although he had a period of stability, it didn't solve the basic problems of the communist state. and so it led to the explosion that i think was inevitable. in 1989 when the wall -- when the east german government was finally forced to open the wall and communism came down. now, what was the reaction to the building of the wall? we've already had this alluded to. incredible anger and disappointment particularly on the part of the west berliners. perhaps all. that we had not countered the building of the wall. did nothing. as we said, kennedy's reaction, comment was on hearing about the wall, he said, you know, i'll be more crass than you were, professor, he said it's a hell of a lot better to have a wall than to have a morgue. also he pointed out the wall is

well within the boundaries of east germany. they are careful not to violent the borders. i think, though, that this was a fateful decision to build a wall for the east germans, but also i think the disappointment, and here again i will emphasize this is my opinion, my interpretation. i feel that with the mayor of west berlin, he shared this anger and he was incredulous that the allies did nothing. it's my opinion that the seeds for detente were planted at that moment. that he saw, yes, we had to maintain a strong alliance, but the germans would also have to take initiative to address their own interests and they couldn't

sit back and leave everything to big brother uncle sam. and so when he became chancellor, he began the policy which he referred to as politics in small steps. first and foremost aimed at recognizing some things cannot be changed, but within the framework that the communist system imposed, there could be certain humanitarian things that could be taken. families were divided. people couldn't attend funerals. all these things that the wall brought about to the berliners and the germans, he felt could be lessened. as chancellor, what he said, and how can we ever forget him kneeling at the war memorial in

warsaw, and so the wall did have its consequences, very negative at the beginning, but it also let loose other forces, produced other thoughts that in the end i think made what the wall produced a matter of history and really something that was not going to be permanent. the wall so long as it stood in it 28 years was a constant reminder to the world, the failures of communism and foremost the brutality of the east german system and the soviet system. i'd like to finish by sharing a personal thought here, experience. i was a student in germany in 1966 and went, traveled to berlin. my wife was not my wife then was with me. and i went to a theater one evening in east berlin. it was dark. i was a little bit disoriented. i came out and there was hardly anybody there.