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Destroying the Village: Eisenhower and Thermonuclear War
Campbell Craig
1998
6.Berlin, November 1958–July 1959
Having observed the American alarm over Sputnik and then Eisenhower’s tentativeness during the second Taiwan straits crisis, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided to test Western resolve over a much more substantial Cold War issue. After more than a decade of acquiescing in the continued Western occupation of West Berlin, Khrushchev demanded in the fall of 1958 that the occupying powers finally depart from that city. The formal refusal of the United States and its European allies to accede to this demand, even though they understood that the USSR was on the verge of acquiring intercontinental missiles, led to the first direct, bipolar crisis of the thermonuclear age. During this crisis Eisenhower put his strategy to evade war to the test.
Khrushchev’s Ultimatum
On Monday, November 10 Khrushchev addressed a Polish&-;Soviet friendship rally at the Moscow Sports Palace, where he called for the occupation of Berlin to come finally to an end. The Soviet Union would therefore cede control of its sector to the East Germans, and recommend that the Western powers make similar arrangements. Western reaction was swift: State Department spokesman Lincoln White declared that the West was prepared to defend West Berlin with force; the United States ambassador to Moscow, Llewellyn Thompson, wired to Washington the next day that the speech was indeed a "most dangerous move on [the] part of Khrushchev." European governments sent urgent telegrams to Georgia, where Eisenhower was vacationing in his apartment above the pro shop at Augusta National. 1
The United States had planned for a showdown over Berlin. In 1954 the NSC developed a contingency paper, NSC–5404/1, which concluded that the Western powers must regard an attack upon West Berlin as an attack against a NATO nation; 2 this paper was supplanted in late 1957 by NSC–5727, "U.S. Policy toward Germany," which contained a specific supplement on Berlin. The latter policy was unambiguous: any Soviet attempt to deny Western access to West Berlin must prompt "immediate and forceful action to counter the Soviet challenge, even though such counter-measures might lead to general war." 3 NSC–5727 even suggested, albeit obliquely, that the United States might be best served by taking the initiative:
In addition to resisting the initial attack and to placing itself in the best possible position for immediate global war, the United States should, if circumstances permit, address an ultimatum to the Soviet Government before full implementation of emergency war plans. 4
Thus the official American strategy on Berlin, as it was written less than a year before the outbreak of the crisis, was to treat any Soviet move to deny access to west Berlin as an attack upon the United States, and to regard that attack as a potential prelude to general war which the United States "should, if circumstances permit," launch unilaterally. The decision made by the Truman administration back in 1948, to make Berlin a basic Cold War stake, still stood.
Early U.S. reaction to the Khrushchev speech followed official policy. On the diplomatic side, Dulles urged that NATO present a united front and refuse to budge from Berlin, while at the same time admitting at a press conference that the U.S. would deal with East German officials—"minor functionaries," as he hoped to trivialize them—on logistical questions regarding access to West Berlin and border arrangements in the city. 5 This latter step was something NATO policy had hitherto prohibited, and it angered West German President Konrad Adenauer and Mayor Willy Brandt of Berlin. 6 On the military side, General Lauris Norstad, supreme commander of the European allied forces (SACEUR) and also head of the U.S. European command, urged action. A few days after the November 10 speech armed East Germans had stopped an American convoy headed eastward on the Autobahn for Berlin; Norstad argued for an immediate Western military probe to assure land access to Berlin and, if the Soviets were to turn over control over Berlin checkpoints to the East Germans, he recommended that the United States "force the issue promptly by dispatching a test convoy supported by appropriate force." 7 Dulles related Norstad’s "rather extreme views" to Eisenhower on the 18th; the president, echoing his sentiments during the straits crisis, noted that "we perhaps should not have committed ourselves as deeply as we had to Berlin. . . [but] we were where we were and had to stand firm." 8 Also on that day the NSC completed document 5803, an updating of NSC–5727: it reiterated the basic American view that a Soviet attack on Berlin would mean that "general war is imminent." 9
On November 27 Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko handed Thompson a formal note which at the same time intensified the stakes of the crisis and diminished its immediate explosiveness. 10 The note was an ultimatum from Khrushchev: the Western powers had six months to get out of West Berlin. Only "madmen," Khrushchev warned,
can go the length of unleashing another world war over the preservation of privileges of occupiers in West Berlin. If such madmen should really appear, there is no doubt that straitjackets could be found for them. 11
Khrushchev’s combination of dire warnings and ultimatums outraged the West. Dulles, for example, described the note as "vicious and unacceptable." 12 But the ultimatum made the crisis more predictable and, for the time being, more stable. Over the next six months Western military decisionmakers would have the luxury of planning for a confrontation in which the time, place, and adversary were apparently going to be known in advance. Unfortunately for Eisenhower, the six-month deadline also meant that it was going to be particularly difficult to dodge his subordinates’ increasingly insistent requests that he openly commit to an ironclad plan for "K–Day," May 27, 1959. 13
Initial Planning
In the immediate wake of the November 27 note both sides assumed confrontational stances. For his part, Khrushchev was eager to demonstrate recklessness. On December 3 the Soviet leader launched into a virulent tirade in front of Senator Hubert Humphrey, who was visiting him in Moscow. The United States, Khrushchev warned, must not dare interfere with the transfer of control to the East Germans; in the event of war the Soviet Union was quite ready to deal a devastating blow against the West. The continued Western occupation of Berlin, Khrushchev said, was a "bone in my throat." 14 Upon Eisenhower’s return from Augusta a week later several key aides met with the president to discuss Khrushchev’s belligerence. Eisenhower admitted during this meeting that his main concern was the freedom of two million Berliners rather than the strategic value of West Berlin; perhaps it had been a mistake to make that outpost a Cold War bastion. But now that the die was cast the United States would not back out on its commitment. He suggested to his advisers that the United States "make it clear that we consider this no minor affair. In order to avoid beginning with the white chips and working up to the blue, we should place them on notice that our whole stack is in this play." 15 In other words, he was telling them, he would wage general thermonuclear war if that became necessary to maintain the West Berliners’ freedom.
In the meantime, delegates from NATO nations began to coordinate a unified Berlin strategy. During December and January Dulles tried to persuade edgy NATO allies to accept his view that a unified and steadfast Western position on Berlin would cause the Soviets to back down. 16 During a NATO ministerial meeting on December 17 Dulles specified his position. The "Soviets will not risk war about Berlin," he wrote, and any "threat to devastate Europe if [the] West [is] firm on Berlin is an empty one which ought not to frighten anyone." 17
Despite Dulles’s assurances, however, the British again wanted to raise questions about the wisdom of seriously preparing for thermonuclear war over occupation rights in West Berlin. In their eyes this was hardly less scandalous than readying the missiles to defend Quemoy and Matsu. British ambassador to Washington Harold Caccia let the American Secretary of State know that London opposed taking a hard line on Berlin, suggesting that a heads-of-state summit could serve to soothe Khrushchev. Dulles complained about this "mushy" British position in a January 9 letter to Eisenhower, and again on the 26th. On the military side, the Joint Chiefs reminded their Western counterparts that unless the Soviets did back down there would be war. As JCS Chairman General Twining had put it, during the December 11 meeting, the West had to stop Soviet aggression somewhere. He added,
We must ignore the fear of general war. It is coming anyway. Therefore we should force the issue on a point we think is right and stand on it. Khrushchev is trying to scare people. If he succeeds, we are through. 18
The NSC began to prepare more formally for "K–Day" in late January. On the 22nd the NSC met to review NSC 5410/1, "U.S. Objectives in the Event of General War with the Soviet Bloc." Though reconciled to Eisenhower’s policy, Dulles did want to say that the idea of "victory" in a general nuclear war needed reconsideration. There was, whatever American policy said, a real difference between limited and general war. In response, Eisenhower reiterated his policy. American objectives in the event of general war were simple: to "hit the Russians as hard as we could." There was no need for strategy. The Russians "will have started the war, we will finish it. That is all the policy the President said he had." 19
The next NSC meeting, on January 29, would deal explicitly with planning on Berlin. The Secretary of State, now seriously ill, wanted to leave his mark on this meeting. 20 In preparation for it he composed a think piece on Berlin. "I am convinced," Dulles stated, "that the striking power of the United States constitutes a genuine and effective deterrent unless the Soviets calculate that there is not the moral courage to use it when necessary." In a January 26 telegram to the American mission in NATO he repeated this sentiment, stating that it was "essential" that the Soviet Union realize that blocking Berlin would risk major war. 21 Going into the January 29 meeting Dulles was solidifying his position: the West must genuinely intend to fight a general war if it wanted to deter the Soviet Union. Bluffing and delay tactics would not suffice, because the Russians would discern the Western moral irresolution. Limited war threats would not work, because, alas, the West did not have the forces. If the Western leaders were not certain in their own minds that they were ready to risk general war over Berlin, then their position vis-à-vis the Soviets would crumble; the temptation to back down as May 27 neared would become irresistible, the Russians would press for more concessions, and all would be lost. The strategy had to be morally sound and rationally credible. This was the way Dulles regarded diplomacy.
All at the January 29 meeting agreed that the United States would not accede to Khrushchev’s ultimatum and would fight to preserve a Western presence in Berlin. Dulles proposed provoking a conflict with East German authorities once they were given control over Berlin after May 27. In the meantime, he suggested a "double-barreled" approach, whereby the United States would marshal world and U.N. opinion while proceeding with a military buildup in Germany, so that when the confrontation was at hand the Soviets would be facing a united front of military might and world opinion. 22
Dulles then noted that the Joint Chiefs had recommended that the United States prepare for a large-scale war on May 27. Twining defended this approach by arguing that we "make up our minds now as to our sequence of action rather than attempt to address the problem only after we are stopped." Eisenhower responded that the lone American division in Germany "has insufficient capability to do an acceptable job. In the event we resort to force, we will have to conquer the entire German zone." 23 Twining replied that
The Joint Chiefs of Staff fear that the United States will go half way and then quit. They feel that if we do not carry through with our resolution to risk general war we might as well get out of Europe.. . .
General Twining pointed out that our policies forbid a limited war in Europe, that we cannot fight the USSR on the ground conventionally, and that if we make up our minds to go through we must be prepared to fight a general nuclear war. To this the President expressed the view that the Soviets will not interfere with direct use of force.. . . Our policy must be to force the Soviets to use military force, after which we are in a position to issue an ultimatum prior to initiation of general war. 24
As was his style, Eisenhower concluded this meeting by summarizing his own view and expressing it in more official terms. Dulles’s plan to provoke a confrontation with the East Germans after May 27, rather than simply commencing armed hostilities, was "generally the best way to start." In the meantime, the United States would explore the possibility of discussing the German question with the Soviets. Finally, "In the event that the Soviets carry through with their threats, we will utilize gradual steps to allow for the breakdown. We will withdraw our ambassador, then break relations and, if necessary, resort to major armed force." 25 Of course, Eisenhower added, all of this depended on a unified NATO front: before any military action on Berlin could begin, he reminded his advisers, it would be necessary to carry "our allies with us."
Following this meeting, the ailing Dulles left for Europe. His first priority was to organize the united Western diplomatic front which, he firmly believed, would force the Russians to back down before May 27. He also brought with him a general military contingency plan from the January 29 meeting in case they did not. Throughout the first half of February the American delegates, led by the Secretary of State, worked to persuade their NATO allies to reject the Soviet ultimatum and prepare to fight rather than quit Berlin. The question was one of Western moral resolve: "If we in the West were united and willing to take the risk of such general war," Dulles stressed, "the Soviets will withdraw from their present position." 26 While the Secretary of State cajoled his colleagues in Europe Eisenhower reminded his colleagues at home of the consequences of war. Secret estimates over the last four years, he told Twining, "have included the Soviet capability to destroy the United States 100%. This was first based on one-way bomber missions and is now based on the ICBM." 27
On February 16 the NATO ministers agreed to the American strategy, and proposed that the three Western powers involved in Berlin suggest to the Soviet Union the convening of a four-power Foreign ministers’ meeting on Berlin. To encourage the Soviet Union to accept this proposal, Macmillan flew to Moscow on the 21st to appeal to Khrushchev personally. In a volatile speech on the 24th Khrushchev seemed to reject the proposal, stating that only a Head-of-State summit would be suitable, but on March 2 Gromyko handed Thompson a note of acceptance. Macmillan scheduled a visit to the United States around March 20 to secure Eisenhower’s approval and then coordinate with him Anglo–American strategy for the proposed ministers’ meeting. 28
With this meeting imminent, Eisenhower’s national security advisers thought it was time finally for him to sign on to a specific contingency plan on Berlin; without something concrete, after all, the Western delegates in Geneva would have a hard time persuading the Soviets that they were ready to fight for Berlin. All that Eisenhower’s military and diplomatic aides wanted was for him to state that if the Soviets took step A the West would automatically take step B. As acting Secretary of State Christian Herter more delicately put it to Eisenhower, "the need for advance planning was evident." 29
Herter had become acting Secretary of State because Dulles had been hospitalized. He had been battling with stomach cancer since 1957, and after the lengthy and difficult Western foreign ministers’ meetings in February, 30 Dulles came home and then checked into Walter Reed Hospital for good. He would live only two more months.
His illness returned at a pivotal moment. Eisenhower was about to come under vehement attack, from virtually every one of his main foreign policy advisers, for his increasingly obvious attempts to evade "advance planning" on Berlin. Had a healthy Dulles chosen to side openly with Eisenhower’s opponents in the spring of 1959 the president might well have found it impossible to continue stonewalling. Without the presence of his imposing Secretary of State, Eisenhower was able to withstand the withering criticism directed his way and continue his strategy of avoiding making any irreversible decision.
Eisenhower Stonewalls
On March 5 the NSC convened a special meeting to establish a formal Berlin contingency plan. The president cautioned that it was important "not to get hysterical." He said that it is "very difficult to work out what constitutes the critical point in the denial of access to Berlin, and what we would do next if that point had been reached." Herter, in response, minced no words: "Are we prepared," he asked, "to use all force necessary to reopen access to Berlin, even at the risk of general war[?]" Eisenhower replied that without unified allied support "he did not see how we could successfully use force in Germany to reopen access to Berlin.. . . The only other solution if our access is stopped would be to decide if we were going to put bombs on Moscow." 31 The meeting ended desultorily, with the last word coming from Allen Dulles, who perceptively noted that "Macmillan’s position would be considerably dependent upon the President’s position." 32
Disgruntled participants of the March 5 meeting evidently leaked their displeasure to Congress. The next day Eisenhower, along with the ailing Dulles, who had left the hospital to attend the hearings, Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy, and other major advisers, met with key defense lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss Berlin. Senator Everett Dirksen pointedly asked Eisenhower to describe "our courses of action in the case of the worst situation." Eisenhower replied that "that this decision will not be easy and that we must see what happens." Lyndon Johnson wondered why, during this tense crisis, the United States was not sending more conventional forces to Europe. Eisenhower replied that current budget requirements forced the United States to rely on nuclear weaponry. He added that "when we reach the acute crisis period, it will be necessary to engage in our rights.. . . the question is whether we have the nerve to push our chips in the pot." 33
Eisenhower’s evasiveness was not lost on some outspoken critics. One blast came from Dean Acheson, who published a scathing article, "Wishing Won’t Hold Berlin," in the March 7 Saturday Evening Post. Acheson warned that the loss of Berlin
might open the way to the final isolation of the United States in North America, not daring to use its thermonuclear weapons unless attacked.. . . Germany and all Europe would know that Khrushchev was the master of Europe. And we Americans would have shown that we, too, knew that Khrushchev was master. 34
To prevent this outcome Acheson recommended that the United States mobilize a large conventional army and prepare for conventional war in Europe. While defeat at the hands of the Soviet army would still be possible, at least the United States would have demonstrated a willingness to defend Berlin without initiating nuclear holocaust. For Acheson, as for Dulles, the crux was to develop a serious plan: casually and indirectly threatening general war was insufficient, "fatally unwise," for it provided no direction for a local crisis. Precisely what, Acheson demanded, should the United States do if the Soviets follow through with their ultimatum and turn over control to the East Germans? "There are those," he warned, "some in high places, who hope and who seem to believe that somehow we will not have to answer that question." 35
Maxwell Taylor added his voice to the chorus of criticism in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 11. Unlike Acheson, Taylor was supposed to be a loyal supporter of official Presidential policy; his testimony on that difficult day for Eisenhower bordered on political insurrection. Taylor suggested, following Dulles, that the West could avert a war with the Soviet Union only by being unequivocally resolved to wage general war. The allies should make "at once," a military probe in East Germany so as to test the Soviet Union’s will to escalate the war. 36 If the Soviets responded with force then "we must be willing now to make up our respective minds now that we will use all force necessary to secure the lives and safety of these two and a half million Germans to whom we are committed unalterably in language that cannot be compromised." 37
While Taylor testified, General Twining sent Secretary McElroy a memorandum that included a Berlin contingency plan adopted by the NSC in February. The Joint Chiefs, he told McElroy, had to have a "clear United States position on Berlin." The attached contingency plan "does not face up to the vital need for decision now that the safety of Berlin is worth running the risk of general war with the USSR." Twining lamented "the absence of an unqualified assertion of determination to fight for Berlin if all other measures fail." We must, Twining wrote, "be visibly prepared for military conflict growing out of the Berlin situation." 38
It is highly unlikely that Eisenhower was not aware of, and affected by, these pointed criticisms. That afternoon he met with the press, and was asked point-blank whether he was prepared to "use nuclear war if necessary to defend free Berlin?" He misunderstood (or chose to convolute) the reporter’s terminology, but the meaning of his response is clear enough: "Well, I don’t know how you could free anything with nuclear weapons." 39 Answering a follow-up question, Eisenhower elaborated in a way that epitomizes his "non-strategy" of early 1959.
And, I must say, to use that kind of a nuclear war as a general thing looks to me a self-defeating thing for all of us.. . . I don’t know what it would do to the world and particularly the Northern Hemisphere; and I don’t think anyone else does. But I know it would be quite serious. Therefore, we have got to stand right ready and say, "We will do what is necessary to protect ourselves, but we are never going to back up on our rights and our responsibilities." 40
Eisenhower thus responded to his subordinates’ demands that he clarify his Berlin strategy by publicly issuing an entirely nonsensical statement on that issue, one that did not fail to allude both to the destruction of the Northern Hemisphere and the American commitment to stand "right ready" to unleash such destruction. One can only imagine how this was received by Taylor and Twining, not to mention Dulles; after March 11 the determination of those who wanted to pin Eisenhower down seemed to falter. On the morning of March 17 he met with Herter and his aides to discuss Macmillan’s imminent visit. Herter, still game, could not help but bring up the issue of contingency planning for Berlin, reminding Eisenhower that he "expected that in the meeting to be held later in the day this matter would be clarified."
At the outset of the afternoon meeting Herter and McElroy handed to Eisenhower a memorandum on Berlin contingency strategy prepared by the "Berlin Contingency Planning Group," a committee of senior policymakers that the new assistant for National Security Affairs, Gordon Gray, and McElroy set up ad hoc after the March 5 meeting. 41 Their memorandum included a summary of a contingency plan developed by the NSC back in February. This plan contained four alternatives, "in the event of failure of political negotiations": a substantial effort to reopen access to West Berlin on the ground; a similar effort to reopen air access; reprisal against communist targets elsewhere; and, last, "General war measures." At "what point," Herter and McElroy ended the memorandum asking, "should we be prepared to resort to one of the four alternative uses of forces described above?" Herter’s objective was to get the president to answer this question.
Eisenhower would not budge. He admitted that if he were on the Soviet side "he could see flaws in the U.S. position." He noted too that the views of Adenauer’s West Germany and Macmillan’s Great Britain "appear to be diametrically opposed." 42 For some reason the discussion turned to nuclear testing, and Eisenhower had this to say: "[T]he scientists will say that any nuclear war would be disastrous, at least for the Northern Hemisphere. This might point to a suspension of the use of all atomic weapons, around which we have built our forces, and require us to go back to conventional forces." 43
Eisenhower’s critics thus failed, though not for a lack of effort, to get the president to sign on to a concrete contingency plan. When the British Prime Minister arrived on March 19, the United States, and by extension NATO, had yet to decide exactly what the West would do when the Soviet Union followed through on their November 27 ultimatum. That there was no binding strategy was, of course, precisely what Eisenhower had intended. His next task was to get Khrushchev to postpone the ultimatum.
Macmillan’s Visit
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan arrived in the States on March 19, checked in with the British embassy, and dined at the White House that evening. The following morning, he and his Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd met with Eisenhower and Dulles in the latter’s room at Walter Reed Hospital to discuss allied strategy on Berlin. The British plan was to talk the Americans out of their confrontational stance, an objective with which Eisenhower was quietly sympathetic.
In this early meeting Macmillan foresaw four outcomes of the Berlin Crisis. The Soviets would give in, the West would give in, the two sides would successfully negotiate the Berlin question, or there would be war. If the last were to occur, Macmillan noted that he would need time to "remove all the young children from the United Kingdom to Canada so as to keep their stock alive as against the total devastation of nuclear war." Taken aback, Dulles retorted that "there is not going to be the war of which the Prime Minister spoke.. . . What is the use," he added, "of our spending $40 billion a year or more to create deterrent power if whenever the Soviets threaten us. . . we have to buy peace by compromise." 44 That afternoon Eisenhower and Macmillan left Dulles at the hospital and went to Camp David. In an initial session there Macmillan proposed a summit meeting to defuse the Berlin crisis, an idea Eisenhower rejected.
Following the formal afternoon sessions Macmillan and Eisenhower went for a drive. The subject of their conversations during the drive has not been revealed. 45 But that night the two sides met again and an "exceedingly emotional" Macmillan unleashed the British view in full force. He warned that stubbornness had led to World War I—"the war which nobody wanted." He "could not take his people into war without trying the summit first." If that were to fail, Macmillan reiterated, it would be necessary to disperse Anglo–Saxon stock, for "eight bombs" could destroy most of England. "Throughout the discussion," noted the meeting’s secretary, Livingston Merchant, "he kept repeating this reference to eight bombs." 46
Eisenhower reminded Macmillan that though the United States itself would lose 67 million people in an all-out war, it was nevertheless necessary to stand firm. He would refuse to be "dragooned to a Summit meeting." But the British Prime Minister had made his point. Relenting, Eisenhower said "that if there was even slight progress" at a Foreign Ministers meeting that he would meet Khrushchev. 47 Agreed in tacit principle, Macmillan and Eisenhower concluded their talks and the British delegation left on March 23. On the 26th Thompson handed Gromyko a formal Western reply to a Soviet note of March 2, proposing an immediate four-power foreign ministers meeting and then a summit "as soon as developments" justified one. Macmillan had gotten what he came to Washington for. 48
Eisenhower had to explain this concession to his military advisers. Following several preliminary meetings, on April 23 the NSC met to formulate yet another "final" Berlin strategy. Gordon Gray, unaware that his earnest contingency planning was no longer desired, presented the new strategy to Eisenhower: if the communists closed off West Berlin, the West would reopen air access, by force if necessary, escalate the war by launching reprisals against communists in other areas, and, if all else had failed, proceed with "General War Measures." Eisenhower brusquely replied that it would not do to develop "rigid plans of action"; any move on Berlin would "have to be played by ear." He added that he was assuming that "Khrushchev had really meant what he said when he stated that he was not going to upset the applecart once negotiations over Berlin had been started between the West and the USSR." Only three possibilities remained, Eisenhower, sounding like Macmillan, concluded. There would be "some kind of deal through negotiations. . . to maintain the status quo for three or four years"; the Soviets would back down; or there would be war, and once that began "there are really no limits that can be set to the use of force." 49
"Terminating the Farce"
Eisenhower was telling his national security assistant that there was no longer really any reason to worry about developing a military contingency plan on Berlin. 50 Either there would be a peaceful resolution to the crisis, or there would be a total war. Eisenhower preferred the former, and by accepting Macmillan’s proposal to invite a Soviet delegation to a foreign ministers’ meeting he was indeed "negotiating under ultimatum." The commencement of the talks on May 11 turned this concession into a tangible diplomatic reality: the Berlin crisis seemed to be resolved. The Western powers had put aside their determination not to negotiate under ultimatum, and the Soviets had responded by allowing the deadline to pass without event. Any possibility that the Soviets might have revived the specter of May 27 was scotched by Dulles, who managed to conjure one of the better ironies of the Cold War by dying on the 24th and being buried on "K–Day." The conferees in Geneva adjourned to attend the funeral, and it would have taken more Realpolitik than Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko possessed to renew talk of ultimatum and war while Dulles’s body was being lowered into the ground. All that remained was for Eisenhower to acquiesce to the "inevitable" 51 summit, where the two sides could formalize a grand compromise on Berlin that would allow everyone to save face. The problem was that Eisenhower had conspicuously declared in the earlier days of the crisis his unwillingness to attend a summit if the foreign ministers had not accomplished something tangible beforehand. Moreover, since the British had been skillfully cultivating the common perception that a summit was "inevitable," nothing substantial was going to issue from Geneva. Why haggle to produce some minor accomplishment when the real business would be taken care of at the summit?
Eisenhower had painted himself into another corner, and this time the only solution was to back down from his oft-stated principle. At first he refused to do so. In a June 15 letter to Khrushchev, he reiterated his condition that the foreign ministers must "reach positive agreements" before any summit. Alarmed, Macmillan immediately urged Eisenhower to convene an "informal" heads-of-state meeting, and hinted that if Eisenhower was going to stall, Macmillan himself might issue such an invitation. Eisenhower saw through this ploy and refused to go along with it; on the 17th Khrushchev reminded Eisenhower that "it is impossible endlessly to drag out a peaceful settlement with Germany and to preserve the occupation regime in Berlin." If the foreign ministers could not proceed on this question, then "a Summit meeting will become even more urgently necessary." 52 With the British and the Soviets now publicly advocating a summit, the harried delegates in Geneva had not even a nominal reason to proceed, and so agreed on June 19 to recess the talks until July 13.
During the recess the British and the Soviets tacitly teamed up to persuade Eisenhower to drop his condition. Macmillan, who may not be accused of inconsistency during the Berlin Crisis, once again suggested to the president that the West offer the Russians an "interim settlement" on Berlin whereby the duration of Western occupation could be negotiated at a later date. Again he reminded Eisenhower that the British were averse to fighting an "even more horrible war" than World War II "to defend the liberties of people who have tried to destroy us twice in this century." 53
Surprised that Eisenhower was not quickly seizing such an obvious opportunity to finesse the Berlin Crisis, Khrushchev was growing impatient and bellicose. 54 On June 25 he told former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman that "we are determined to liquidate your rights in West Berlin.. . . If you want to perpetuate or prolong your rights, this means war." Using rhetoric unequaled in the public record of the Cold War, Khrushchev reminded Harriman that in a European war "we may die but the rockets will fly automatically." Berlin would be the first to fall: "Your generals talk of tanks and guns defending your Berlin position," Khrushchev noted. "They would burn." 55
Later that day Eisenhower showed Herter Khrushchev’s warnings, wondering whether they were simply designed to provoke a summit, or if they perhaps reflected Khrushchev’s genuine mood. Herter reminded Eisenhower that confronting the Soviets was no longer an option, at least for the moment, because the West had agreed not to initiate hostilities without complete allied unity, and the British would never go along with war unless and until the "inevitable" summit had been tried. 56 There was no alternative but for Eisenhower to agree, and in light of Khrushchev’s recent rhetoric and British impatience it could not be forestalled for long.
In July Eisenhower worked it out. On the 1st he told Herter that the West should indicate to the Soviets a new willingness to negotiate an interim arrangement regarding West Berlin. The main issues of dispute—the date of Western departure and the number of Western troops to remain in Berlin afterwards—could be left, as if they were technicalities, "to fill in at a Summit conference." On July 9 Eisenhower, in a meeting with Herter, brought up the idea of staging an informal summit by inviting Khrushchev to the United States. "The key point," Herter emphasized, "is to find a way of doing it without appearing to be kowtowing or weakening." The next day Eisenhower discussed this idea with Herter, Robert Murphy, and other State Department officials, and directed Murphy to broach the informal summit proposal with Frol Kozlov, a Soviet deputy premier visiting Washington. 57 Murphy did so on July 12.
Eisenhower wanted to prevent his invitation from appearing to be what it was: another instance of his backing down from a stated conviction. Perhaps he was interested in appearing resolute to future historians; perhaps he believed that a more candid retreat would reveal his fear of nuclear war and thus endanger American security. For whichever reason, in late July he decided to take unusual, even bizarre steps to pretend that he had not abandoned his condition of achievements in Geneva before attending a summit.
On July 21 Herter sent Eisenhower a telegram from Geneva assuring the president that there was no chance for even a token accomplishment to come from the conference there. That evening Eisenhower wrote back to Herter, agreeing that the Geneva talks were obviously going nowhere and suggesting that it was time to consider "terminating the farce." He also told Herter that he had met with Soviet ambassador Menshikov and reiterated to the Russian his firm conviction there must be progress at Geneva before any summit meeting. 58
The next day Eisenhower conducted an unusual discussion, as his own son John Eisenhower recorded it, with Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, who was leaving for an extended visit to the Soviet Union. Nixon asked about the president’s plans for a summit. Eisenhower first said that his original plan had been to meet with Khrushchev in order to prod the ministers at Geneva, but "this had been discouraged by his advisors." 59 Nixon then wanted to know what would actually constitute "progress" at Geneva. Eisenhower said that Western "rights" must be assured, "plus the setting up of machinery to study the overall problem." This "machinery," he explained to a doubtless mystified Nixon, "could be amorphous in nature." Eisenhower finally admitted to his Vice President that "he would like to find soon a reasonable excuse for a Summit Meeting." 60
That afternoon Eisenhower met with Murphy and Undersecretary of State Douglas Dillon. Dillon commented that Khrushchev’s visit was of course contingent upon progress at Geneva. Despite what he had told Nixon that morning, Eisenhower replied that was an "automatic" condition because it would pave the way for a formal summit meeting; hence Khrushchev could not come until the conditions for a summit were met. 61
The veteran diplomat Murphy, head of the Berlin ad-hoc group and a long-time aide and confidant of the president, then announced that he had not understood this distinction, and had instead given Khrushchev an unqualified invitation! An "extremely disturbed" Eisenhower castigated Murphy for his presumption, complaining, Claude Rains-like, about the new predicament in which he now found himself, but then resignedly acknowledged that "it all boiled down to the fact that in light of the unqualified invitation that had been given, he would have to pay the penalty and hold a meeting he despised." He then directed Murphy and Dillon to draft a new policy statement: Khrushchev could come without any progress at Geneva. 62
Eisenhower engaged in this theater because he was determined to give Khrushchev the summit they both wanted without appearing to have discarded his principles. Either he and Murphy had already agreed to engineer the scene for Dillon’s (and posterity’s) benefit; 63 or, perhaps after Khrushchev’s outburst to Harriman, Eisenhower privately decided to abandon his condition, manipulate Murphy into issuing an unconditional invitation, and then make a scapegoat out of his unwitting aide.
This bizarre epilogue to the Berlin crisis captures the unusual nature of thermonuclear confrontations. When statesmen on both sides of a crisis personally believe that the costs of war far outweigh the benefits of victory, then the important diplomacy becomes less a matter of engaging in substantive negotiations over traditional objectives and more one of finding ways for both sides to save face. As petty as Eisenhower’s attempts to appear unyielding were, they were necessary for him to achieve the objective—finding a compromise over Berlin without undergoing obvious humiliation—that he had pursued since November. The foreign minister talks that summer could have never existed and the history of the Berlin crisis might be substantially the same as it is. Had Eisenhower not figured out a superficially honorable and speedy way to get out of his solemn commitment, however, it is easy to envision Khrushchev growing increasingly impatient, angrily canceling his offer to visit that fall, and reactivating the ultimatum.
Berlin and Eisenhower’s Strategy to Evade Nuclear War
Eisenhower’s clever and resolute steering of American diplomacy toward compromise on Berlin played a decisive role in keeping that crisis peaceful. But his diplomatic skills were not employed in a vacuum. The president was able to stonewall the Berlin planners pleading with him to sign on to a contingency plan, and to latch on to the British plan to force a summit, because he had eliminated from American military policy the option of waging limited war to defend Berlin. By placing before his advisers no options other than conciliation or thermonuclear annihilation, he could belittle contingency plans as unrealistic and ill-suited, foment British anxiety over the notion of irradiating the Isles so as to defend the erstwhile capital of the Third Reich, and feasibly insist that no military action of any kind be taken without his personal approval. Had the advocates of flexible response been successful back in 1956 and 1957, the United States would have had in place a strategy for fighting limited war in Europe and, presumably, the forces there to make that strategy viable. In that event it is difficult to imagine Eisenhower successfully steering the United States away from war. Writing a contingency plan would have been simple—Eisenhower’s efforts to evade signing on to it, implausible. British panic about "eight bombs" could have been met with reassurances that current planning limited war to Central Europe. The president’s demands to approve of any military action would have seemed odd, since the initiation of hostilities in a limited war context would not supposedly have been so grave.
If the political scientist Richard Neustadt is correct, an American president cannot simply issue commands and expect obedience. To attain actual power in the "sphere of executive relations," Neustadt writes, a president needs to coerce people into doing what he wants them to do. 64 To avoid nuclear war, Eisenhower wanted to make a deal on Berlin. But every one of his major national security advisers opposed compromise, preferring to force the Soviets to back down by pushing the crisis toward war. To make his task more difficult, Eisenhower could not simply state what he wanted, as if the debate were on the minimum wage or a highway program; the president was not going to say openly that he wanted to back down on Berlin, so he had to pretend that he also wanted to stare down the Russians. By using basic policy as a means of giving his advisers no reasonable military options, and then by quietly attaching his Berlin diplomacy to that of the conciliatory British, Eisenhower was able to realize his objective.
Endnotes
Note 1: Editorial Note, "Western Reaction to Khrushchev’s November 10 Speech," FRUS 1958–1960: 8, "The Berlin Crisis," p. 46; November 11, 1958 Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union (Thompson) to the Department of State, p. 47, ibid. Also see John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 211–13. Back.
Note 2: See NSC 5404/1, "Progress Report on U.S. Policy Toward Berlin," DDC 1993, number 2877. Back.
Note 3: "Statement of Policy on U.S. Policy on Berlin," supplement I to NSC–5727, "U.S. Policy Toward Germany," December 13, 1957, DDC 1993, number 2878, pp. 1–2. Back.
Note 5: Department of State Bulletin 39 (December 15, 1958), p. 947. On this press conference also see William Burr, "Avoiding the Slippery Slope: the Eisenhower Administration and the Berlin Crisis, November 1958–January 1959," Diplomatic History 18 (Spring, 1994): 185–86. Back.
Note 6: November 17, 1958 telegram from Dulles to U.S. Embassy in West Germany, FRUS 8 (1958–60): 82–83. For an excellent treatment of U.S. relations with its European allies during the early stages of the crisis, see Burr, "Avoiding the Slippery Slope," especially pp. 185–87. Back.
Note 7: November 23, 1958 telegram from Norstad to Twining, FRUS 8 (1958–60): 116–17. Back.
Note 8: Dulles memorandum of November 18, 1958 conversation between Eisenhower and Dulles, ibid., pp. 84–85. Back.
Note 9: Supplement I to NSC–5803, "U.S. Policy on Berlin," DDC 1993, number 3127. Back.
Note 10: On this point also see Burr, "Avoiding the Slippery Slope," p. 196. Back.
Note 11: Reprint of Soviet November 27, 1958 note in Department of State Bulletin 40 (January 19, 1959), p. 88. Back.
Note 12: November 28, 1958 memorandum of conversation among Dulles and French officials, FRUS 8 (1958–60): 137–38. Back.
Note 13: As it was called by the "Berlin Contingency Group," no doubt to kindle memories of Normandy in Eisenhower. See undated (sometime in December or January) Defense Department contingency plan, DDC 1995, number 2425. In this plan the authors set out steps the U.S. should implement in the months preceding "K–Day," designating them as K—120, K—60, etc. Also see memorandum of March 12, 1959 discussion of the second meeting of the Berlin Contingency Group, FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 471. Back.
Note 14: December 3, 1958 telegram from Thompson to the Department of State, ibid., pp. 148–52. Back.
Note 15: December 11, 1958 memorandum of conference with Eisenhower, ibid., pp. 172–77. Back.
Note 16: See December 13, 1958 memorandum of U.S. delegation conversation, during Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Council, ibid., pp. 193–96; also December 17, 1958 memorandum of conversation between French and American delegations, ibid., pp. 218–19. Back.
Note 17: December 17, 1958 telegram from North Atlantic Council meeting to State Department, ibid., p. 212. Back.
Note 18: Memorandum of December 13, 1958 U.S. delegation conversation, cited in note 16, above, p. 195. Back.
Note 19: Memorandum of January 22, 1959 NSC meeting, FRUS 3 (1958–60): 174, 178. Back.
Note 20: Burr points out ("Avoiding the Slippery Slope," p. 201) that in many respects this was the last major policy meeting upon which Dulles was able to exert his influence. This may be true, but he certainly gave it another good effort when Macmillan, Lloyd, and Eisenhower visited him in his room at Walter Reed hospital in March. See pp. 100–101, below. Back.
Note 21: Undated Dulles paper, "Thinking Out Loud," FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 293; January 26, 1958 telegram from Dulles to NATO mission, ibid., p. 295. Back.
Note 22: Memorandum of January 29, 1959 conference with Eisenhower, p. 301, ibid. For another account of this meeting, see Burr, "Avoiding the Slippery Slope," pp. 200–201. Back.
Note 23: FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 302. Back.
Note 24: Ibid., pp. 302–303. Back.
Note 25: Ibid., pp. 304–305. Back.
Note 26: Dulles memorandum of February 8, 1959 conversation between U.S. and West German delegations, ibid., p. 347. Back.
Note 27: Memorandum of February 9, 1959 conference between Twining and Eisenhower, FRUS 3 (1958–60): 182. The reference to new Soviet ICBM capability may refer to a report Eisenhower received from Allen Dulles the previous August, during the second Quemoy–Matsu crisis. A new NIE, Dulles reported, indicated direct evidence of nine missile systems, and ten operational ICBMs, available to the Soviets sometime in 1959. The heavier of these weapons, Dulles noted, "might produce a 4-megaton explosion." See Editorial Note on August 27, 1958 NSC meeting, ibid., pp. 135–36. Back.
Note 28: See February 23, 1959 MacMillan message to Eisenhower, and February 23, 1959 Eisenhower message to Macmillan, ibid. pp. 385–87. Back.
Note 29: March 4, 1959 memorandum from Herter to Eisenhower, FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 413. Back.
Note 30: On Dulles’s courageous performance at Geneva, see Marks, Power and Peace, pp. 142–43. Back.
Note 31: Memorandum of March 5, 1959 special meeting of the NSC, FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 424. Back.
Note 32: Ibid., p. 425; Tusa, The Last Division: A History of Berlin, 1945–1989 (Reading: Addison–Wesley, 1997), p. 159. Back.
Note 33: Memorandum of March 6, 1959 conference with Eisenhower, FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 428–37. Back.
Note 34: Dean Acheson, "Wishing Won’t Hold Berlin," Saturday Evening Post 231 (March 7, 1959): 33. Back.
Note 35: Ibid., p. 85. On Acheson’s critique, also see Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 372, 375–76. Back.
Note 36: Taylor Testimony before the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, March 11, 1958, FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 450. Back.
Note 37: Ibid., p. 451. I have added the emphasis, which the reader, if willing to imagine Taylor testifying in his Kansas City drawl, must allow. Back.
Note 38: March 11, 1959 memorandum from Twining to McElroy, p. 454. On Twining’s Cold War views, also see Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, pp. 106–7. Back.
Note 39: March 11, 1959 Eisenhower Press Conference, Public Papers of the President 1959 (Washington, 1960), p. 245. Back.
Note 41: See FRUS 8 (1958–60): 441–44, especially Footnote 1, p. 441. Also see, for a slightly different record of this recommendation, DDC 1995, number 1896. Back.
Note 42: Memorandum of March 17, 1959 conference with Eisenhower, FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 492–95. Back.
Note 43: Memorandum of March 17, 1959 conference with Eisenhower, NSA number 988, p. 4. This segment of the conference was not included in the FRUS account. Back.
Note 44: Dulles memorandum of March 20, 1959 conference, FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 515. Back.
Note 45: See Eisenhower’s Waging Peace, p. 354, and Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1956–1959 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 645 Back.
Note 46: Memorandum of March 20, 1959 conversation, FRUS 8 (1958–60): 520–21 Back.
Note 48: Historians who take Eisenhower’s opposition to a summit at face value have to explain why he suddenly gave in to Macmillan’s demands. Tusa, for example, argues that Eisenhower had "no sympathy" for Macmillan’s position (The Last Division p. 160), yet then relates two pages later, without explaining, that Eisenhower agreed to the British demand. Back.
Note 49: Memorandum of April 23, 1959 special NSC meeting, ibid., FRUS 8 (1958–1960): 629, 631 Back.
Note 50: According to a draft NSC memorandum, the President signed on to a contingency plan at a "special meeting" held before the regular NSC one on April 23. But one of the several "caveats," as the memorandum read, was that "any advance planning regarding the alternative uses of force would necessarily be subject to review and decision in the light of circumstances as they develop." In other words, this contingency plan meant nothing. See DDC 1995, number 2471. Back.
Note 51: As British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, like Clay partial to the fait accompli, described it. See memorandum of March 31, 1959 Tripartite Foreign Ministers’ conversation, FRUS (1958–1960): 549. Back.
Note 52: June 15, 1959 Eisenhower telegram to Khrushchev, pp 901–03; undated (June 15 or 16) Macmillan message to Eisenhower, pp. 906–8; June 17 Eisenhower telegram to Macmillan, pp. 908–10; all ibid. Back.
Note 53: Undated (June 23, 24, or 25) Macmillan message to Eisenhower, ibid., pp. 938–40. Back.
Note 54: See James G. Richter, Khrushchev’s Double Bind: International Pressures and Domestic Coalition Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 119; and Tusa, The Last Division, pp. 173, 175 Back.
Note 55: .June 25, 1959 conversation between Averell Harriman and Khrushchev, as related in June 25, 1959 Thompson telegram to Herter, FRUS (1958–1960): 941–43. Back.
Note 56: Herter memorandum of June 25, 1959 conversation with Eisenhower, ibid., pp. 943–44. Back.
Note 57: Herter memorandum of July 1, 1959 conversation with Eisenhower, p. 962; memorandum of July 9, 1959 conference between Herter and Eisenhower, pp. 971–73; memorandum of July 10, 1959 conference with Eisenhower, pp. 976–77; all ibid Back.
Note 58: July 21, 1959 Eisenhower telegram to Herter, pp. 1026–27, ibid. Back.
Note 59: There is no record of such a plan. Back.
Note 60: Memorandum of July 22, 1959 morning conference with Eisenhower, ibid., p. 1030. Back.
Note 61: Memorandum of July 22, 1959 afternoon conference with Eisenhower, ibid., pp. 1030–33. Back.
Note 62: Ibid. Murphy spoke with Menshikov on the evening of July 23 and told him that Khrushchev’s visit would go much smoother if "reasonable progress could be achieved at Geneva." In other words—to translate the diplomatic language—progress was no longer necessary, despite what Eisenhower had told the Soviet ambassador two days earlier. See FRUS 8 (1958–60): footnote 5, p. 1033. Back.
Note 63: On July 9 Eisenhower had made Murphy the State Department’s "Czar" on Berlin. Back.
Note 64: Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents, 5th ed. (New York: Free Press, 1990), p. 33 and passim. Back.
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