story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites. and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. williams smyser is author of "the berlin wall." he talks about it at an event hosted by the national archives in oblgt 2011. the berlin crisis of 1961 is considered a mile stoep of the cold war by many historians. built in august 1961, can wall straited the city in two parts east and west. two months later in october 1961 soviet and u.s. tanks faced off at the border. >> i want to express my appreciation to the gentleman who introduced me because i've

never before been called competent and dedicated. edid do some work on the declassification process and i'm glad to know that people appreciate it. i was in this building in the 1950's way down many the basement when i was working on a thesis for georgetown university for an m.a. which in these days required a thesis. and there was stuff in those archives that was just incredible. i really advise any of you who have any historical research to do at least part of it in this building. i'm going to start with the berlin wall and what berlin was like in 1960 when i went there. you can see there west berlin is pale white. check point charlie and then of

course the other check point bravo which we used only one time in this particular exercise. the before lin crisis began in 1958 when krus clever issued a challenge to the west. he said, i want you to sign a peace treaty for berlin and for germany and when that peace treaty is signed, all the rights that the allies have enjoyed will pass to the gdr, the german democratic republic because they're the ones who are really sovereign in berlin. in they do not agree, if the allies do not agree to sign that, then i will sign the treaty with the gdr and the gdr will be able to impose its rules on whoever wants to come into berlin. this was a direct challenge. it created a lot of commotion in the west. it created some conferences, one

particular conference between eis eisenhower and cruise clever. he didn't get to disneyland, but he got to a lot of other places. but eisenhower and de gaulle and others they held cruise clever back for a while and nothing really happened except for a lot of talk in. 1961 john f. kennedy became president. essentially the others had left the problem for him. eisenhower reached him and said berlin would be the number one problem that kennedy would have to face. we're going to face that problem this morning. i'm going to talk however only about four particular instances because the thing goes on forever. which you can read in your document. i'm going to talk about the vienna summit between cruz clever and kennedy about the beginning of the wall august 13 when i was in berlin.

about the check point charlie crisis. the confrontation where i was also in berlin. and then finally about the cuban missile crisis which had a connection to berlin that most people don't know about. and i'm not even sure it's in the documents. when kennedy became prth in january 20th, 196 1rk he started with two types of staffers. one who were called the best and the brightest, sometimes by themselves. many people who came from his harvard background. they included experts on the soviet union like george cannon, chip bolen, tommy thompson, and others and then they included some people who were journalists in foreign affairs. they did not include a single person who was a scholar or expert in germany. in the senior staff kennedy had a focus on moscow. he did not have a focus on

germany. though germany was his principal problem. he had only one european hand. a person who was a an obscure harvard professor who's gone on to other things whose name was henry kiss jer. he joined the white house on a part time basis because he was still busy as harvard. he was the only real european hand. he was very unhappy with the way kennedy and his staff handled berlin and handled other problems because their focus on moscow was in his mind the wrong thing. he thought we should focus on western europe. he liked kennedy. he's told me that. he liked kennedy. they had very good conversations, but somehow or other they were not on the same page. and kiss jer was couraged because he thought that kennedy would yield too much to the soviets.inger was couraged because he thought that kennedy would yield too much to the

soviets. he resigned in 1961 with a note ant the note said the following. i am in the position of a man sitting next to a driver, kennedy, who is heading for a precipice. and i am being asked to make sure that the tires are properly inflated and that the oil pressure is adequate. farce kissinger was concerned that was not the kind of role that he envisioned for himself and it was not the kind of role that he had later. even before kennedy's inauguration, crews clever made nice. he sent a memo to kennedy saying he wanted good relations. he didn't really like eisenhower. he didn't say that. but that was true. kennedy wrote back and said, yes, i want good relations also. and he proposed a meeting. crews clever sat on the

invitation. soviet intelligence was pretty good in those days and he had known that the americans were going to attack cuba. he alerted castro. told him that there was an attack coming and he might prepare for it. which castro did as we eknow. and he also decided to wait until he could see what the results were of the castro -- of the cuban exercise. we all know what happened at the bay of pigs. i don't need to describe it here. what was interesting was cruise clever's reaction documented by his son who has written a very warm and loving, but a pretty detailed biography of his father. crews clever could not understand kennedy. hence to his son, perhaps he lacks determination. he thought there was something wrong with a person who would launch an attack and not follow

it through. he thought this is a man that he can push because he's weak. then khrushchev really wanted a meeting. he sent a letter to kennedy to meet quickly and vienna is where they met. the summit held on june 3rd and 4th was a disaster for kennedy. reading the documents preparing kennedy for the summit, some of which i'm ashamed to say were prepared in the state department by tommy too muchson himself at the kennedy library i was absolutely shocked at what people were telling kennedy. his own people were saying to him, well, you're going to have

a decent meeting, it's going to be pleasant. it's going to be very, very important. but also it should be pretty good. they still had the old idea of khrushchev that he was going to be nice. and tommy thompson wrote, that khrushchev would want to pass over berlin quote in sweetness and light unquote. this was about as bad a piece of advice as anybody could have been given. in any case the state department scope paper for the summit is misleading. it did not anywhere near attempt to give kennedy the impression that this was going to be a rough and difficult meeting. the only person who warned him that khrushchev would be tough on berlin was a soviet spy who was meeting regularly with bobby kennedy. when the summit began, kennedy expressed desire for good relations and he said

essentially let's divide the world. he said, we have our part of the world, you have your part of the world. let's leave each other alone. let's not bother each other. khrushchev totally refused that. he said, no. we are the wave of history. we're not going to let you get away easy. you may think that we should divide the world, but actually the world will soon be ours. so khrushchev rejected that proposal. then kennedy stressed a mutual responsibility to avoid war. they both had nuclear weapons. and he said, we have to avoid miscalculation. in the documents that you are look at you may find that word as well. miscalculation khrushchev bellowed is not a word that i accept. he said that miscalculation was a device to get the soviet union

to sit on its hands like children in school. and he absolutely refused to do it. he raved and ranted for about five minutes saying there could be no hesitation on either side particularly not on the soviet side because of the danger of miscalculation. kennedy later said to folks, well, i guess i shouldn't use that word again and that was perfectly all right. kennedy backed off. they then talked about laos and arms control and things like that. khrushchev got more and more impatient. he had come to the summit to talk about berlin. who wants to talk about laos in his opinion. it was not important to khrushchev. and he certainly didn't want to talk about arms control very much because it was an arcane subject. at the end of the first day of the meeting, he said to kennedy, we have not talked about berlin. we have to talk about berlin.

i'm going to sign a peace treaty. i'm going to tell you what i'm going to do. kennedy nodded. they had dinner together. the next day they met again. and started talking about laos again. khrushchev got more and more impatient and they finally got to berlin only when there was an hour left. that was all at the end of the second day. and by then khrushchev was beside himself. he threatened and said they were going to sign a peace treaty. he said allied rights would vanish. he would have to deal with the gdr and recognize this was going to be the new world. kennedy reacted rather firmly, he said, look, you've got to recognize here we're not talking about laos. this is berlin. this is a different kind of subject so we have to be very careful and we have to manage our policies very carefully. khrushchev again bellowed and that was the end of the second day of meeting.

they then had lunch. during lunch kennedy said to his staff, i cannot let this go like this. i've got to meet with him one more time. and so, although his staff said you'll be late for your trip to ireland, which was a very important trip, kennedy said, no, i want to meet with him one more time. they did meet with him one more time. again khrushchev went through the whole spiel on berlin very quickly, very brutally. kennedy tried to resist. couldn't. at the end he said, it's going to be a cold winter. that was the mark of that summit. afterwards he met privately with scotty reston a diplomatic correspondent for "the new york times." they met in a darkroom. he said this has been the toughest thing in my life. i've never met a man like that. how can i deal with him?

one reporter said that kennedy had turned green after the end of the meeting. he was obviously very, very badly beaten up. he had not been prepared for this kind of meeting. he went to ireland. he told mcmillen -- to england first and to ireland, he told mcmillen that it has been a terrible experience. mcmillen said you have to yield. which was mcmillen's view. khrushchev was just the opposite. he felt wonderful about the meeting. he said i've really laid the law down to this guy. and he said, kennedy is a boy in short pants. he could not get over the fact that kennedy was so young. nobody in the soviet hierarchy got to any position of responsibility until they were senile. here was an american president

who was young and in khrushchev's mind didn't know what was going on. so he decided that he could continue to beat on kennedy. we at the u.s. mission in berlin, i was in berlin at that time -- by that time. heard about time from journalists who told us the truth not what they were writing in the papers to be nice to kennedy. and they said this is going to be bad. this is going to be really bad. the cia also said this is going to be really bad. khrushchev is very determined. we worried that something was going to happen. we didn't know what. and the other people who were worried of course, were the east germans and the east berliners. because they knew what all this meant. they knew that it could mean the cut off of their ability to get to the west, which to them particularly to the young men who had good jobs and who knew they could get good jobs in the west was incredibly important. and so they started coming out

at a faster pace than ever. 1,000 a day on weekends 25 thoun a day. they were coming out at a pace of half a million a year. half a million people a year for a country of 17 million is a lot especially when they're the best and the brightest. they are the best and the brightest. so they had to do something. and he went to khrushchev and he said, we have got to do something. he felt elated by the summit. because he said kennedy is weak. he said to khrushchev this man can be beaten. we should close the border to west berlin. we should stop allied air traffic. they should be forced to come to other places. we want all people to stop going to west berlin. let it dry out. khrushchev said he couldn't do that without getting the approval of the warsaw pact

nations. and so on august 3rd and 4th, 1961, in a meeting which at least in berlin we didn't know about. the warsaw pact countries met. they met in moscow, of course. he made the pitch. saying we've got to do these things. the warsaw pact countries objected. they objected for a very reason that troubled khrushchev terribly. they said, if you do that, we'll stop the trade with west germany and we desperately need that trade with wrest germany because it produces our best technical goods. khrushchev was aghast. he did not know yet how dependent eastern europe was on west german trade. but he recognized that it couldn't be approved. indeed the warsaw pact nations

universally disapproved it. they did say one thing. they saiding okay, we understand you have to cut what he called the flight from the father land. so you can do that, but you cannot do anything else. khrushchev pointed his finger and said not one millimetre more. he was to hold his fire on anything beyond cut the refugee flow. in berlin, we met all the time. we were trying to figure out what the gdr was going to met. we met with cia. we met with army intelligence. we knew they had to do something. it was obvious they had to do something. the question was if they would

divide berlin or build a circle around berlin and prevent people from coming in from east germany to west berlin. none of us were absolutely certain of the answer. i'd be very curious if in the documents today you have a document which actually shows that we thought that there was going to be a war. i suddenly did not attend any meeting at which they told us that there would be anything like that. even though we all speculated that there could be some kind of cutoff in the mill of the city. on august 13,1961, at 2:30 in the morning i got a phone call from the duty officer saying there's something going on in east berlin. you should go over there and take a look. in those days i was a bachelor. i had a 190 sl. which of course is the way to travel into east berlin because you could lower the top and you could see much better than you

could in a duty car, which was a sedan. so i got together with a friend of mine and we drove. and there were a lot of police, east german police, not soviet dragging barbed wire across the square. i stopped them. and i said, you have to let me through. i'm a member of the allied forces, we are in control here. you must let me pass. the guy checked with his officer and said, okay. and pulled back the barbed wire and i drove into east berlin. a sign that they were not yet ready to confront the allies at that particular point. i drove through east berlin for about an hour. it was obvious what was going on. along the border there were all kinds of people putting barbed wire down and all kinds of police around. there were all kinds of things. there were no soviets.

they were well back. i could see them at a distance. they were obviously observing things. he sent a marshall to berlin. he was well known to hate germans. it was well known that he would prevent any kind of uprising. the soviets were watching carefully to make sure there was no uprising to make sure that everything went well, but they were not themselves at the border. i them drove on which many of you know right now a very nice pleasant relatively modern railway station. east german police were stopping people from going up to the tracks. to the train tracks. they published a decree saying from now on you couldn't get out and all this other stuff.

they were -- i just saw dozens of people sitting on bags. sitting on various kind of bundles weeping saying to themselves, if we only had done this yesterday. because they can't get out anymore. so at that point, i said i've seen what i needed to see and i drove back to the mission. i was stopped again at the gate. i went out through brandenburg gate. told i couldn't get out. i said i'm a member of the allied forces. the guy went into that little house which you all know next to the gate and came out a few minutes later and said okay, you can go. i went back to the mission. and i reported to the mission officers. we reported to washington. and we prepared a protest. a protest which said this is something that should not be done. we're going to tell the soviets.

we did not do anything else because we had no authority to do anything. but there was great disturbance in our mission. in washington in contrast everything was calm. kennedy was not even in washington. he was up at hyannisport. he was known to have said that a wall is not very nice, but it's better than a war. and he went out sailing. his aide ted clifton, a wonderful man, briefed him on what was going on, kennedy said, okay. that's all right. didn't do anything about it. but he got word from a couple of people that he'd better do something about it. one of them was margaret reit higgins. most of you don't know she was a great reporter for the old herald tribune. a wonderful woman. the other person, of course, was the man who we owl know who was

in the director, whose name i can't think of. i'll come back to it in a minute. they said to kennedy, this is something we cannot toll rat. we have to do something about it. he sent a message to kennedy saying what is dying here is that precious quality called hope. this made kennedy come up alert because these were the kind of people he respected. he respected them much more than the state department people. and if they were getting nervous and saying that he had to do something, then maybe he did. then he also found out that the white house press room and the white house mail room was receiving lots of black umbrellas reminiscent of chamberlain's yielding at mun itch saying that kennedy was like chamberlain. he couldn't take it. he decided he had to do something. the person who was the head of

usia at the time was edward r. moro. a great man. he happened to be in berlin at the time. he went into east berlin and looked around. that's why he sent a cable to kepd. the american people were very upset. kennedy had to do something. so he called a man whose name he knew. called lucius clay. general lucius clay who had run the berlin airlift 1948, 1949. a prominent republican, more responsible than anybody else for the nomination of general president eisenhower. and he wanted something from the other party to be with him. and he asked clay what he should do. clay said this is a very serious moment. you have to do something. you have to react. if you don't react. they'll keep piling in. what should i do, kennedy said. what you should do, clay said is send extra brigade to west berlin to show that we take this

seriously. every one of kennedy's soviet advisors from bolen on down said don't do this. it's very dangerous. it's a provocation. khrushchev will react. you'll be forced to react. the brigade would not get through. kennedy overruled them. sent the brigade. we all know what happened. it got through. cheers from west berliners. kennedy sent clay and johnson to meet them. and it was a triumph which helped to start to turn around the situation in berlin. khrushchev watched that process very nervously. every 20 minutes he made a call saying how are things going? he said they're fine. relaxed. we're letting them through. they wouldn't let the east germans get anywhere near that convoy. the convoy went in.

i might add that kennedy also had ted clifton check every 20 minutes. everybody was nervous. a stray shot, and there was a risk of war. kennedy also sent general clay to berlin. he wanted to put clay in charge of the administration of the city. but the american military, general clark, and the american ambassador objected. so kennedy said to clay, look, i can't give you command, but you can call me anytime. i want you to be there as your advisor, as my advisor because i don't trust anybody else. he didn't say that, but thafsz what he meant. clay said, okay. so long as i can phone you anytime, i'll go. and he went.

i was appointed as special assistant. which was a very interesting job to say it mildly. clay immediately started doing things. when the east germans were stopping, west -- excuse me, american cars going up and down the autobahn. not stopping them and holding them stopping them for half an hour to check documents, which they did not have the authority to do, but trying to do anyway. clay said, okay, and he start sending courtesy patrols in jeeps up and down the autobahn which is east germans couldn't stop. the courtesy patrols would stop whoever was an american in trouble. within a few days the whole thing was over. the soviets told the east germans to get out of there. then, the east germans tried other blockades on the autobahn. clay sent patrols and convoys up and down the autobahn. so as to keep showing the

american flag and to keep showing that there was something we were going to do. he also flew a helicopter to a little place because he heard there was a refugee who couldn't get out. he and i flew there together. he picked up the refugerefugee, back to we're berlin. on the way out the east german guards pointed their guns at us. we knew they wouldn't shoot. clay found that kennedy supported him. much of the time, not always. clay was trying to demonstrate that the american presence in berlin was something that we took seriously.