and then i heard the tapping of a man with a cane. there's someone. and i walked up to this elderly gentleman and i said -- [ speaking german ] -- how do i get to west berlin. and he looked at me and says -- [ speaking german ] -- i wish i knew. and then he said just go to the corner and turn right, you know. so anyway, well, i'll give up the rest of my time. and i guess we have some questions to be asked. but thank you very much. you've been a great audience. [ applause ] >> thank you very much for inviting me to join you and to all of for you coming. it's very fitting that we start this panel on the wall with two presentations on east germany since not only was it an east

german initiative leadership to close the border, but it was of course the east germans who suffered the most for 28 years behind that wall. lou mentioned -- [ speaking german ] -- i always have two suitcases because i'm there so often working in the archives and interviewing people. most people in the united states and who grew up during the cold war assume that this berlin wall, the icon of the cold war period, was a product of moscow, that it was the long arm of moscow, it was the kremlin who had the initiative to build this wall. what's been so fascinating as lou referred to in my extensive research in the archives in moscow and berlin was to find out that in fact the soviets resisted this for eight years.

the east german leader asked to seal off the border in berlin just as the border between east germany and west germany had been closed in 1952. that meant the only place left for free movement in germany was in berlin and he did not like this loophole and wanted to close it. shortly after stalin died, his successors refused the request on multiple grounds. they said sealing the border in berlin would be politically unacceptable and grossly simplistic. it would ruin life in this unified city of berlin. they said this is one city. it's one economy. you have to be crazy, we can't do this. and besides, it would call for bitterness on the part of all berliners in east and west and all germans in east and west

against us, the communists in moscow and in east berlin. and finally, they said if we can this, it would complicate relations with the u.s., great britain and france, the three allied powers. it would complicate our relations with the west which we can and must avoid. as khrushchev later wrote in his memoir, i knew this would be seen as a failure. what kind of workers and peasants' paradise was it when we needed to wall in the people? so from the beginning, the soviets did not want to do this. and instead, they urged him to find another way to keep his people from fleeing the country. between 1949 and 1961 as you've heard, almost 3 million east germans fled. the soviets were well aware of this.

wrote many reports which i've seen in the archives in moscow analyzing the reasons for all these people fleeing. and they knew a big part of it was his hard line stalinist regime. and they kept telling him he had to modify his policies with regard to all parts of east german society. they gave him details on how he needed to moderate his policies toward young people, toward religious people, toward skilled laborers and the intelligence. all sorts of parts of the population that they knew were under the harsh rule. but he refused. and again, this is what was so interesting to me in reading these documents. even though the soviets had about 500,000 troops in east germany, it just didn't affect his behavior.

it didn't make him do what the soviets wanted him to do. it didn't change him from his own hard line in east berlin. when they urged for reforms in domestic policies and in his relations with west germany, they wanted him to have better relations with west germany, as well, he said no experiments. we can't do that. we are on the border, we are on the western most border of the socialist block. you can experiment with that in moscow because you're far away. we can't. we're on the border with west germany, we're on the border with nato, we're not reforming our policies. what was very evident in letters he wrote to khrushchev in memorandum of conversations that i've read between the two leaders was that he was arrogant in dealing with khrushchev and condescending. this was the biggest surprise

for me in reading the documents. he felt khrushchev was a peasant, an uneducated peasant who knew nothing about how to run a socialist country and definitely not how to run socialist east germany. he also didn't like khrushchev's criticism of stalin and criticism of khrushchev's reforms. an example of his self-confidence and arrogance in his relations with khrushchev was a 15 page letter he wrote to khrushchev in january of 1961 about particularly the economic difficulties in east germany. he lectured khrushchev about history.

he said in the first ten years after world war ii, we in the eastern part of germany had to pay massive reparations to the soviets. while in contrast, the u.s. was getting millions ultimately in the form of the marshall plan. this meant that west german recovery, west german productivity and standard of living were much higher than in east germany. so as he wrote to khrushchev, this was obvious to every citizen of east germany since the border was open and they could go to west berlin and they could look in the shop windows and they could see all the goods that were there that weren't in the east. so he said these economic differences due to the fact of how harsh soviet policy was toward us in comparison to how helpful u.s. policy was toward west germany is the reason for

all of our problems. it is the reason everyone is leaving. so it's your fault. you have to fix the problem. you have to give us more economic aid and we really need to close this border and stop more people from leaving. khrushchev's aide later said there were times when moscow was literally bombarded with letters and phone calls from east berlin. and this 15 page didactic in january of 1961 was one of them. once khrushchev launched the berlin crisis in november 1958 where he was threatening the west, trying to get the west out of west berlin, trying to get the west really to recognize east germany, once he launched that crisis, he increasingly lost control over it to his

overeager worried unilateral ally on the ground in berlin. remember the map you've seen and the fact that west berlin, capitalist democratic west berlin, was an island surrounded by a sea of east german communism. khrushchev and ubrecht hated that there was this place in the middle of communism where people could see the other world and by the way, there were of course a lot of spies. berlin was spy central which is partly why we have so many cia documents. the kgb hasn't been as forthcoming on their documents. this special location was very important to the west. we knew we had a listening post and it was the greatest show window as we called it of

capitalism. and democracy. so we wanted to keep it and they wanted to take it away from us. khrushchev started this crisis in november of 1958 and quickly developed sort of broader aims. as is common between a great power and small power, the super power has a far broader agenda than the local smaller power namely east germany. and once khrushchev got on the world stage and was meeting with western leaders, he really liked it. this guy from the sticks sort of was suddenly meeting with president eisenhower at camp david, although he was initially really worried and asked his

intelligence people what is this camp david, are they going try to trap me there or something? i never heard of it, what is this place, should i go? and they said, mr. general secretary, this is an honor to be invited to camp david, yes, you should go to camp david. so initially khrushchev's threats to the west about handing over to ubrecht the access routes to west berlin, initially that got him somewhere. he got negotiations. he got foreign ministers conference in geneva in 1959 at the four powers, he got invited to the u.s. by president eisenhower in september of 1959. and then in 1960, the four leaders in paris until the u.s. overflight, the u-2 piloted was shot down over the soviet union and khrushchev stormed out in anger that eisenhower didn't apologize and promise he would never do it again.

but in the first into years of the crisis, khrushchev thought he was getting somewhere. he was getting talks with the west. ubrecht on the other hand never had faith in these talks with the west. never thought the west was going to give up west berlin, didn't think khrushchev was going to get anywhere. and meanwhile he's got an increasing problem at home because the more there were these international negotiations about berlin and germany which were front page news for everyone to read, the more east germans got what they called fear of the door closing. if this meeting doesn't work, maybe they're going to make it impossible for us to leave. so the refugee numbers increased. and the final year before closing the border, ubrecht increasingly took unilateral measures on the border to make it harder to go back and forth between east and west berlin. and he did this without soviet

permission, without soviet knowledge in some cases such that soviet embassy officials went into see ubrecht and were astounded that he was changing policies on the ground in berlin with regard to the western allies entering east berlin. the soviet embassy between september of 1960 and the summer of 1961 sent increasingly alarming reports back to moscow saying ubrecht practices impatience and unilateral behavior with regard to the refugee exodus from east berlin. he's trying to stop free movement between east germany and east berlin with west berlin as soon as possible by any means. khrushchev kept telling ubrecht

don't change anything in berlin, i'm negotiating with the west. and in particular, leading up to the vienna summit with president kennedy, he told him again don't change anything on the border. now, i don't know if there's anything new in the cia documents about this, but from what i know, the cia wasn't deeply aware of the differences between khrushchev and ubrecht. they knew there were some differences and they certainly knew ubrecht had a personal problem with all these refugees leaving. but the depth of the conflict between the two leaders, i don't think was completely clear at the time. and in terms of what the u.s. and the west thought would be done, my understanding, and again i don't know if this changes with the new documents, my understanding is that we expected another berlin blockade.

if anything, like stalin launched, making it hard to get in and out of west berlin for the western powers, not sealing the border in the center of berlin between east and west berlin and not building some sort of barricade all around west berlin. so ubrecht kept pushing and kept waiting. and in january of 1961, set a pilot bureau commission to look into ways to stop the exodus. he wanted to have everything ready for when he would finally get the green light from khrushchev. after the failed summit between khrushchev and kennedy in vienna, ubrecht had a very famous press conference. a little over a week later on june 15th. in which he really sought to add pressure on khrushchev to finally act. not just talk about it. and his most famous words at that press conference when

various journalists from the west asked him what's going to happen, what's going happen at the border in berlin, and out of the blue with no one ever saying anything about this, out of the blue ubrecht said no one has an intention of building a wall. no one had even said the word wall. no one noticed it at the time until a wall went up two months later, then suddenly those words became very important. that was part of ubrecht's strategy of pressing khrushchev. and he knew that if he said no one has the intention of building a wall, he knew more refugees would leave the next day. and sure enough, the day after that press conference, there were even more people who fled the country. only about three weeks before the border closing did khrushchev agree.

and in fact it wasn't on july 6th which is a date from the memoirs. it was closer to sometime between july 20th and 25th. as of july 25th, east german and soviet military officials in berlin were working on detailed plans to close the border. ubrecht flew to moscow and met with khrushchev before the warsaw pact meeting. this had all been decided before the warsaw pact meeting that it was going to happen. and when ubrecht and khrushchev met on august 1st in a document that i have translated and published, khrushchev asked i have a technical question. how will the border control be realized on streets in which one side is in east germany and the other side is in west berlin?

ubrecht answered, we have a specific plan. in houses with exits into west berlin, they will be walled up. in other places, barbed wires will be erected. the barbed wire has already been delivered. it can happen very quickly. and indeed it did. on the night of august 12th to 13th, a weekend, saturday night in berlin when many people were outside of the city, very quickly they sealed off the border. as khrushchev later said to the western ambassador, i ordered the wall due to ubrecht's urgent wish. and the soviet general in charge of drawing of the specific plans later said it was fairly easy to carry out the plans to close the border since ubrecht had already raised this issue many times with khrushchev, but for a long time khrushchev didn't want to take this step.

the east germany authorities were on their way to repertory work. brilliantly the west german intelligence, the bnd, said there was an atmosphere of euphoria among the leadership in east germany that they had carried this off. and by the way, there was a reference by professor smyser to lessons of the cuban missile crisis. i feel strongly that khrushchev learned from this crisis with the berlin wall. i can do something against the west. i can catch them by surprise and they won't do anything. it worked with the wall, but as we know it did not work with the missiles in cuba. khrushchev had been very concerned by ubrecht's unilateral behavior which was also evident at the checkpoint charlie incident which had been started by east german

officials. so after this, khrushchev wanted to make darn sure that his local east german ally couldn't have such influence, so he did not end up turning over to ubrecht control over the access routes in closing, let me say that for us here in the united states, of course this is history. it happened 50 years ago. but i spent a summer in berlin because it's the 50th anniversary of the building of the wall and because my book on this had just come out in berlin. and this is living history still in berlin. and in fact it's still being debated. was the wall necessary. was it good. whose initiative was it. a survey this summer of berliners which asked them was it proper and necessary to close the border and build the wall to

stop the skilled workers from leaving east germany, a third of the berliners said yes. most of them living in what used to be east berlin. former military and political leaders from east germany have made testimony in courts and it came out with books this summer saying it was necessary, it saved the peace, besides which it wasn't us, don't blame us, it was the soviets. some of them in the party that's the successor to the old communist regime, some of them refused to participate in the moment of silence on the 50th anniversary that was throughout berlin, some pointedly refused to do that. so this is still a living issue and there are still many people who are mourning the loss of loved ones. only recently have the germans undertaken to figure out exactly how many people were killed by germans.

the germans killing germans at the berlin wall. so far they have found 136 cases. they are continuing to do research. victims of the wall have now been commemorated. there is a special berlin wall memorial in berlin that pays particular attention to the victims of the wall. and so while we here look back at what seems very old history, this is painful history in berlin. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> all right. a lot of us here are technologically challenged, but i think i'll master it. i'm going to talk to you today about two crises that occurred in 1961 over berlin. the first is the one we're all familiar with, the crisis between the west and the soviet union. but the second crisis was one within nato over who would control the alliance's response to this berlin crisis. quick review. the situation, of course, is

that berlin had been divided into four allied sectors and the three western allies of britain, france and the united states only had guaranteed rights of access, using the three air corridors through eastern germany. there was no guarantee of ground access to berlin. and so in 1948 when the soviets blockaded the ground access, the west turned to using the air corridors in the famous berlin air lift of 1948-1949. when the new crisis arose, as we heard in the fall of 1958 with kruschev's ultimatum, this time the allies decided differently. if the soviets again blockaded access they would not immediately respond with an air lift but would attempt to respond with actions on the ground to test the soviet's intentions.

they, therefore, set up mechanisms to coordinate the response of the three allies. first of all, at the top, the washington ambassadorial group. for political consultation and oversight. there was also a military group, tripartite and then the bond group, providing specialized advice, which existed since 1954 on the very specialized questions of access to berlin. and then in april 1959, they created a new military contingency planning and organization with a cold name of live oak commanded by general norstad alongside his nato allied commander hat. two subordinate headquarters,

proceeded to draw a series of contingency plans. you will not be tested on these, but i just want to give you an overview. the plans begin with a tripartite probe, they called it, of not more than one company to test the soviet's willingness to stop allied access to berlin by using force. then a plan, if that one failed, to raise the stakes a bit and send a battalion down the audubon. there's also a plan to assemble a tripartite division, but yet not a plan to actually employ it. they developed a series of air contingency plans known as jack pine to be used if the soviet's attempted to block allied access through the guaranteed three air corridors.

these ranged from simply substituting military pilots for civilian pilots or using military aircraft instead of civilian aircraft or putting fighters either at ready to escort the planes, entrance or actually in the corridors and finally even attacking hostile radar and missile sites, threatening allied aircraft in the corridors. too far. yes. all right. the berlin crisis, as we heard, had faded in the autumn of 1959 only to return again after the john f. kennedy took office. and renewed threats at the summit in 1961. this renewed threat was taken very seriously by the kennedy administration, which was worried that if the soviets blocked access to berlin, the crisis would quickly escalate to a nuclear confrontation after only small actions had been taken on the ground.

they, therefore, began considering plans for employing much larger forces to reopen access to berlin on the ground. general norstad was skeptical of such plans and informed robert mcnamara, quote, a large probe, one of several divisions, could be stopped almost as easily as a small one. he also warned that nothing would impress the soviets less than wasting in the corridor the forces that are known to be essential to our overall defense. this was the great dilemma of larger contingency plans for berlin. they endangered the overall defense of the nato area by placing substantial forces in a position that was completely untenable from a military point of view. for the kennedy administration, the only way out of this dilemma, which otherwise would have the use of nuclear weapons,

would be those of nato forces but also those of allies in europe. secretary of state dean rusk addressed the north atlantic council and called for a buildup of forces. second, norstad strongly approved this request and on august 11th proposed a series of measures that each of the nations could take to improve their readiness. two days later -- i have a heavy hand on the mouse there. two days later on august 13th, as you've heard, the east germans acted to stop the flow of refugees into west berlin by starting the construction of the berlin wall. western allies made formal protest but took no further action because the east german move was seen as a defensive action that did not interfere with the status or rights of the western allies in berlin.