a

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL
A CITY TORN APART

b
BUILDING BERLIN WALL OF

THE

A CITY TORN APART

in conjunction with a symposium given on

27 OCTOBER 2011

at the

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND

RECORDS ADMINISTRATION

WASHINGTON, DC
 a symposium given on h n conjunction wit i

7 OCTOBER 2011 2

the at

 AND S HIVE C NAL AR O ATI N

ON TRATI S ADMINI S RD CO RE

 DC , ASHINGTON W

BUILDING BERLIN WALL OF

T RN APAR O ITY T C A 
i

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

brandenburg gate

Built in 1791, standing 85 feet high, 215 feet 

long and 36 feet wide, this former city gate 

is one of the most iconic symbols of Berlin 

and Germany. Throughout its existence it has 

served as a visual representation of various 

political ideologies, ranging from Prussia’s 

imperialism to East Germany’s communism. 

It was closed by the East Germans on 14 

August 1961 in a response to West Berliners’ 

demonstration against the building of the 

wall dividing their city into East and West. It 

remained closed until 22 December 1989.

Its design is based upon the gate way to the 

Propylaea, the entry into the Acropolis in 

Athens, Greece. It has 12 Doric columns, six to 

a side, forming five passageways. The central 

archway is crowned by the Quadriga, a statue 

consisting of a four horse chariot driven by 

Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. After 

Napoleon’s defeat, the Quadriga was returned 

to Berlin and the wreath of oak leaves on 

Victoria was replaced with the new symbol of 

Prussia, the Iron Cross. 
A CITY TORN APART

ii

A C ITY T O RN APART

ii

A couple from Berlin may never see each 

other again because they became separated 

by the newly formed Berlin Wall. On August 

12th, one day before Ulbricht ordered West 

Berlin surrounded by barbed wire, a man 

flew into West Berlin. His wife was planning 

on following him several days later after 

their young son completed his holiday camp. 

Several days after the “iron curtain” was 

drawn, the couple was able to meet at the 

fence. The guard indulgently allowed them 

time to talk. When the guard turned away 

and was not watching, the mother quickly 

hands their son over to his father and to 

freedom.

Having made her decision, the mother wipes 

away her tears of pain and sorrow, knowing 

that she may never see her son grow up.

With a goodbye bouquet and clinging hands, 

a man and a women acknowledge that they 

might never see each other again and that a 

young boy may never really know who his 

mother was and the sacrifice she made to 

have him live in freedom.

a family divided
1

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL B U ILDIN G O F THE BERLIN WAL L

table of contents

Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

 IMS

 NARA/ND

Agenda and Speaker Bios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Essays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

 Overview

 CIA

 Army

 SHAPE

 State

Selected Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
A CITY TORN APART

2

National Archives and Records Administration

As the nation’s record keeper, it is our vision that all Americans will understand the vital 

role records play in a democracy, and their own personal stake in the National Archives. Our 

holdings and diverse programs will be available to more people than ever before through 

modern technology and dynamic partnerships. The stories of our nation and our people are 

told in the records and artifacts cared for in NARA facilities around the country. We want 

all Americans to be inspired to explore the records of their country.

The National Archives and Records Administration serves American democracy by 

safeguarding and preserving the records of our Government, ensuring that the people can 

discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage. We ensure continuing access to 

the essential documentation of the rights of American citizens and the actions of their 

government. We support democracy, promote civic education, and facilitate historical 

understanding of our national experience.

The mission of the National Declassification Center (NDC) at the National Archives is to 

align people, processes, and technologies to advance the declassification and public release 

of historically valuable permanent records while maintaining national security. Located 

at the National Archives Building in College Park, MD, the Center was created as part of 

Executive Order #13526. It aims to be the world’s preeminent declassification organization, 

responsive to all customers, committed to the free flow of information and the requirements 

of national security. Its current focus is:

• timely and appropriate processing of referrals between agencies for 

accessioned Federal records and transferred Presidential Records;

• general interagency declassification activities necessary to fulfill the 

requirements of sections 3.3 and 3.4 of the executive order; 

• the exchange among agencies of detailed declassification guidance to 

support equity recognition; 

• the development of effective, transparent, and standard declassification 

work processes, training, and quality assurance measures; 

• the development of solutions to declassification challenges posed by 

electronic records, special media, and emerging technologies; 

• the linkage and effective utilization of existing agency databases and 

the use of new technologies to support declassification activities under 

the purview of the Center.
3

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

Historical Collections Division

The Historical Collections Division (HCD) of CIA’s Information Management Services is 

responsible for executing the Agency’s Historical Review Program. This program seeks to 

identify and declassify collections of documents that detail the Agency’s analysis and activities 

relating to historically significant topics and events. HCD’s goals include increasing the usability 

and accessibility of historical collections. HCD also develops release events and partnerships to 

highlight each collection and make it available to the broadest audience possible. 

The mission of HCD is to: 

• Promote an accurate, objective understanding of the 

information and intelligence that has helped shape major US 

foreign policy decisions.

• Broaden access to lessons-learned, presenting historical 

material that gives greater understanding to the scope and 

context of past actions.

• Improve current decision-making and analysis by facilitating

 reflection on the impacts and effects arising from past foreign 

policy decisions.

• Showcase CIA’s contributions to national security and provide 

the American public with valuable insight into the workings of 

its government.

• Demonstrate the CIA’s commitment to the Open Government 

Initiative and its three core values: Transparency, Participation, 

and Collaboration.
A CITY TORN APART

4

9:00 am to 10:00 am Opening Ceremonies:

Neil C. Carmichael, Jr., National Declassification Center

Mr. David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States

Mr. Joe Lambert, Director Information Management Services, CIA

Guest Speaker:

Dr. William Richard Smyser, Adjunct Professor, BMW Center for 

German and European Studies at Georgetown University.

10:00 am to 10:15 am Break

10:15 am to 12:00 pm Panel Discussion: Berlin Crisis of 1961, Building the Wall

Historian Panel: From Vienna to Check Point Charlie; 

12:00 pm to 1:00 pm Private Reception for Panel and Speakers

agenda
5

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

speakers

David Ferriero

Archivist of the United States

Joseph Lambert

Director, Information Management Services, Central Intelligence Agency

Guest Speaker

Dr. William Richard Smyser

Adjunct Professor, BMW Center for German and European Studies

at Georgetown University

Moderator of the Historian Panel

Dr. Donald P. Steury

Central Intelligence Agency

Members of the Historian Panel

Dr. Donald A. Carter

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Dr. Hope Harrison

Associate Professor of History and International Affairs

at George Washington University

Mr. Lou Mehrer

Central Intelligence Agency, Retired

Dr. Gregory W. Pedlow

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe

5

Dr. Donald A. Carter

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Dr. Hope Harrison

Associate Professor of History and International Affairs

at George Washington University

Mr. Lou Mehrer

Central Intelligence Agency, Retired

Dr. Gregory W. Pedlow

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
A CITY TORN APART

6

speaker biographies

William Richard Smyser is the former Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and 

International Relations at the Library of Congress; he is currently an adjunct professor at the 

BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University and also teaches at the 

U.S. Foreign Service Institute. An expert on the politics and economy of Europe, he has worked 

for the U.S. government, the United Nations, and in foundation management and academia. He 

served with U.S. forces in Germany in the 1950s, was a special assistant to General Lucius Clay, 

President Kennedy’s personal representative, during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and served as a 

political counselor at the American embassy in Bonn. Since then he has held a number of senior 

executive positions at the White House and was a senior member of Henry Kissinger’s National 

Security Council staff. His books include: The Humanitarian Conscience: Caring for Others in the Age 

of Terror (2003), How Germans Negotiate: Logical Goals, Practical Solutions (2002), and From 

Yalta to Berlin: the Cold War Struggle over Germany (1999). 

Professor Hope M. Harrison conducted extensive research in the archives in Moscow and 

Berlin on the decision to build the Berlin Wall. She has published books and articles on this 

in the U.S., Germany and elsewhere. Her 2003 book published by Princeton University Press, 

Driving the Soviets Up the Wall, Soviet—East German Relations, 1953-1961, won the 2004 Marshall 

Shulman Prize for the “best book on the international relations of the former Soviet bloc” of 

the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. An updated and expanded 

version of her book was published this year in Germany in time for the 50th anniversary of the 

building of the Berlin Wall: Ulbrichts Mauer, Wie die SED Moskaus Widerstand gegen den Mauerbau 

Brach (Propyläen Verlag, 2011). She has appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, the History Channel, 

Deutschlandradio, and Spiegel TV discussing the Berlin Wall. Her current research focuses 

on German debates about how to commemorate the Berlin Wall as a site of memory since 1989.

Donald P. Steury is a historian currently working in the National Declassification Center at 

the National Archives. He previously served as a Soviet military analyst and worked on the CIA 

History Staff from 1992 to 2007. He has written widely on intelligence history in World War II 

and the Cold War and his publications include two documentary histories, On the Front Lines of 

the Cold War: the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946-1961 and Intentions and Capabilities: Estimates on 

Soviet Strategic Forces. He has taught at the University of Southern California and the George 

Washington University and presently teaches at the University of Maryland University College. 

He also serves on the Wissenschaftlicher Beirat of the Alliierten Museum in Berlin. He has a 

doctorate in modern European history from the University of California, Irvine.
7

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

Gregory W. Pedlow has been Chief of the Historical Office at NATO’s Supreme Headquarters 

Allied Powers Europe since 1989. Previous positions have included Staff Historian for the 

Central Intelligence Agency and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nebraska. 

He received a Ph.D. in Modern European History from the Johns Hopkins University in 1979 

and is the author of a number of books and articles on German history, NATO and the Cold War, 

and the Waterloo Campaign of 1815.

Donald A. Carter is currently serving as a historian for the U.S. Army Center of Military 

History. He has been an Assistant Professor and Instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West 

Point, New York and the U.S. Army Field Artillery School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He is a graduate 

of the U. S. Military Academy and holds a doctorate from Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 

in Military History. He has written articles for a number of journals and military publications 

such as the Journal of Military History, Army Review and Field Artillery. 

Lou Mehrer is a retired CIA Officer who served in senior assignments in Washington and 

abroad. Most recently, he was featured in the UK film production, Spies Beneath Berlin, the 

history of the Berlin Tunnel Operation, which is scheduled for commercial release later this 

summer. He holds a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Modern European History and German 

Literature and continued his education as a Fulbright Scholar in Germany at the University of 

Frankfurt. Later as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Rutgers University, he earned a Master of Arts 

degree in History. He currently is a senior review officer for the CIA Declassification Center. 
A CITY TORN APART

8

Berlin, November 20, 1961

New wall at the Brandenburg Gate shows the old 

barbed wire, a screen of fireboard, and the new 

wall erected by Communist labor battalions.
9

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

maps

Berlin, August 1961

U.S. tank and riflemen stand guard at the 

Friedrichstrasse crossing of the Divided City’s 

sector border as West Berliners look on.
A CITY TORN APART

10

A C ITY T O RN APART

10

BUILDING BERLIN WALL OF

THE 

MAPS OF BERLIN

Map depicts the location of the 

watchtowers, tank traps, and minefields 

that surrounded West Berlin after the wall 

was constructed.
11

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL B U ILDIN G O F THE BERLIN WAL L

Map portrays pre- and post-war 

German borders as well as indicating 

how Germany and Berlin was divided 

by the Allies.

A city map of Berlin showing the 

city sectors controlled by each of 

the Allies.

Map indicates the air routes to 

and from Berlin.
A CITY TORN APART

12

A C ITY T O RN APART

12

Berlin, late August, 1961

An East German guard jumps to freedom.
13

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL B U ILDIN G O F THE BERLIN WAL L

essays

Berlin 1961

Faced with the success of one of their comrades in escaping 

the previous day, armed East German soldiers on their 

motorcycles and in their armored personnel carriers stand 

watch at the Brandenburg Gate.
A CITY TORN APART

14

Autumn 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the 

political crisis that resulted in the erection of the 

Berlin Wall which divided that German city for 28 

years. The National Declassification Center of the 

National Archives and Records Administration and 

the Historical Collections Division of the Central 

Intelligence Agency have partnered to publish 

newly declassified documents that reveal intimate 

details of the five month Berlin Crisis of 1961.

Included in this joint publication are newly 

released documents that show behind-thescenes security discussions and planning. The 

Department of State has added a contemporary 

600-page report, never before disclosed, on the 

impact of the events surrounding the crisis and 

the deepening of the Cold War. Other documents 

explain the looming threat the crisis represented 

to the legal status and rights of the three Western 

Powers in Berlin: Britain, France and the United 

States, and provide a sense of the real-time spiral 

of statements, military acts, parry and feints, that 

led to international brinksmanship as the West 

went toe-to-toe with a USSR ready to annex or 

asphyxiate Berlin.

EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE CRISIS

1958-1960

From the end of World War II in 1945, the question 

of Berlin’s status 90 miles within the Deutsche 

Demokratische Republik (East Germany) and 

the Soviet Union’s zone of occupation, along with 

the status of Germany among the community of 

nations, remained a source of tension between the 

East and West. Premier Khrushchev continued to 

push President Eisenhower and the other Western 

leaders for resolution of the issue.

In November 1958, Khrushchev issued an 

ultimatum giving the Western Powers six months 

to agree to withdraw from Berlin and make it a 

free, demilitarized city. If the West did not come to 

agreement, Khrushchev declared that “the German 

Democratic Republic had scrupulously observed 

the stipulations of the Potsdam Agreement 

with regard to the eradication of militarism and 

liquidation of the monopolies while the Western 

Powers had permitted the revival of militarism 

and economic imperialism in the German Federal 

Republic” (State Department, 1962, p. 2). He 

further threatened to turn over to a thuggish 

East Germany, complete control of all lines of 

communication with West Berlin; the Western 

Powers then would have access to West Berlin 

only by permission of the obstinate East German 

government. These accusations from Khrushchev 

were nothing new, and the three Western Powers 

responded by rejecting the statements as continued 

Soviet propaganda, but the threat of turning over 

access to the DDR was something to be taken 

seriously and prepared for. In the end, the United 

States, United Kingdom, and France replied to the 

ultimatum by firmly asserting their determination 

to remain in, and to maintain their legal right of 

free access to, the entirety of Berlin.

In May 1959, the Soviet Union withdrew its 

deadline and met with the Western Powers in a Big 

Four foreign ministers’ conference. The conference 

failed to bestow any important concessions by either 

East or West or reach any general agreements on 

BERLIN CRISIS OF 1961 OF

THE

A BRIEF HISTORY

NEIL C. CARMICHAEL, JR.

NATIONAL DECLASSIFICATION CENTER

NATIONAL RECORDS and

ARCHIVES ADMINISTRATION
15

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

Berlin; however, it did lead to Khrushchev’s visit to 

the United States in September with Eisenhower at 

Camp David. Eisenhower started the discussion on 

Berlin on September 26, explaining that Berlin was 

of deep concern not only for the US government 

but also US citizens. Eisenhower felt that once the 

tensions between the two countries over Berlin had 

been resolved, the US and Soviet Union could begin 

productive dialogue and progress on numerous 

other issues. He stated that the US did not want to 

continue to maintain an occupation force in Berlin 

forever and agreed that the existing situation should 

be corrected. 

Khrushchev, for his part, specified that he was in 

general agreement with the President’s statement 

but did not understand how the Soviets’ proposal 

for a free city of West Berlin could affect United 

States security. Khrushchev emphasized that the 

Soviet’s approach to the Berlin problem came 

from necessity; that is, ending the state of war and 

concluding a final peace treaty with Germany. He 

further charged the United States with maintaining 

an abnormal situation and a virtual state of war 

because of the position taken by Chancellor 

Adenauer, and that the US should not endorse 

the Adenauer policies. At the end of this visit, 

Khrushchev and Eisenhower jointly expressed 

that the most important world issue was general 

disarmament – including the problem of Berlin – 

and “all outstanding international questions should 

be settled, not by the application of force, but by 

peaceful means through negotiations.” Khrushchev 

believed that an agreement with the US over Berlin 

was possible and agreed to continue the dialogue 

at a summit in Paris in May, 1960. But the Paris 

Summit turned out to be ill-fated, cancelled in the 

fallout from the Soviet shoot down of an American 

U-2 reconnaissance plane and the capture of Gary 

Francis Powers on 1 May 1960. 

N E W A D M I N I S T R A T I O N : 1 9 6 1 A N D T H E J U N E 

MEETING IN VIENNA

In the post-summit climate, the Kennedy-Nixon 

presidential race was not immune to the effects of 

increased Soviet propaganda, and numerous acts of 

physical harassment by the East German government 

turned into a belligerent display in support of Soviet 

policies on Berlin, reinforcing the East German 

regime’s claim that Berlin was within the territory of 

the GDR. One writer characterized the post-summit 

conference phase of the Berlin problem as a “cold 

war by proxy” (Speier, 1962, p. 114). However, the 

harassment against Berlin met with failure because 

of successful Western countermeasures and a 

general lack of interest on the part of Khrushchev 

to continue negotiating outstanding issues with 

the Eisenhower administration. Khrushchev would 

later call the election of Kennedy a “fundamental 

improvement” in Soviet-American relations (State 

Department, Feb. 1970, p.1).

On January 6, 1961, Khrushchev pronounced 

Soviet support for ongoing national wars of 

liberation and further stressed that the Western 

powers must end their “occupational regime” 

in West Berlin (State Department, Feb. 1970, 

p.1). This was the belligerent and threatening 

environment that existed on January 20, 1961, 

when John Kennedy took the oath of office as 

the 35th President of the United States. The new 

Kennedy administration initially made no strong 

policy statement in regards to Berlin, preferring 

to allow the Soviets to take the initiative in any 

provocative posturing. Previously the US, after 

consultation with its allies, would put forward 

proposals concerning Berlin that were then rejected 

by the Soviets. The Kennedy administration did, 

however, confirm the US commitment to the 

security of West Germany and the people of Berlin. 

Over the next several months, the Kennedy 

administration met internally to discuss US 

contingency planning for any Soviet move on 

Berlin. The developing US or western policy was 

one of allowing the Soviets to make initial proposals 

in regards to Berlin and its status. The State 

Department issued instructions that diplomatic 

replies to the Soviets were to recognize the 

unsatisfactory nature of the situation in Germany 

but that changing the status of West Berlin into 

that of a free city or a similar scheme would merely 

“increase the abnormality of an already abnormal 

situation” (State Department, Feb. 1970, p. 3). 

On June 4, 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy met in 

Vienna in hopes that the two could exchange views 

in a personal meeting. Leading up to the summit, 

Khrushchev had welcomed a spirit of cooperation 

that was developing with the new administration 

and also expressed regret over the heated 

international atmosphere resulting from events in 

Cuba. During the summit, however, an emboldened 

Khrushchev demanded an immediate peace treaty 

to reunite Germany under Communist terms. That 
A CITY TORN APART

16

failing, as it must, he vowed to sign a separate 

peace treaty with Communist East Germany which, 

by his way of thinking, would then be unleashed 

to cut off free-world access to West Berlin. If a 

peace treaty were signed “the state of war would 

cease and all commitments stemming from the 

German surrender would become invalid. This 

would apply to institutions, occupation rights, and 

access to Berlin, including the air corridors.” (State 

Department, Feb. 1970, p. 41). The three Western 

powers replied that no unilateral treaty could 

abrogate their responsibilities and rights in West 

Berlin, including the right of unobstructed access 

to the city. As the conversation over the status of 

Berlin grew more heated, Kennedy undercut his 

own bargaining position with the Soviet Premier 

when Kennedy conveyed US acquiescence to the 

permanent division of Berlin. This misstep in the 

negotiations made Kennedy’s later, more assertive 

public statements, less credible to the Soviets, who 

now saw him as indecisive and weak. 

THE CITY DIVIDED: AUGUST 13/14, 1961

During the early part of August, the foreign 

ministers of three occupation countries (the 

United States, United Kingdom, and France) 

met to discuss “the diplomatic, propagandist and 

military aspects of the Berlin problem.”(State Dept, 

Feb. 1970, p. 51). The US believed that the West 

German government should be associated more 

closely with contingency planning and be fullfledged partners in the work of the Ambassadorial 

Steering Group in Washington regarding Berlin. 

Hurriedly, ministers, military leaders, and heads 

of state discussed Soviet motives and intentions, 

strengthening of the forces of the alliance, economic 

countermeasures, and Berlin contingency planning. 

The ultimate goal was to be able “to respond to 

any threat to Western access and at the same time 

deter the Soviet Union from creating such a threat 

as a result of a peace treaty with the GDR.” (State 

Dept, Feb. 1970, p. 51). In a final analysis, the 

Western Powers determined that the Soviets were 

unwilling to risk war and that any actions on their 

part would be more defensive in nature. 

Khrushchev, through Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet 

Foreign Minister, reiterated to the Western Powers 

that if a treaty was not forthcoming, the Soviets 

would conclude a separate peace treaty with the 

GDR. The Soviets continued to apply pressure for 

resolution on the Berlin question. In his speeches 

of August 7 and 11, Khrushchev conjured up the 

specter of nuclear war with the west if pushed by 

the United States. He “combined an aggressive 

stance with a posture of reasonableness” by 

publicly asking for multilateral conferences, but 

“he offered no new proposals for negotiations and 

merely continued to insist that, if the Western 

Powers persisted in their refusal to sign a German 

peace treaty, this problem would have to be settled 

without them.” (State Dept., April 1970, p.73).

On Saturday August 12, 1961, East Berlin mayor 

Walter Ulbricht signed an order to close the border 

and erect a Wall. The tide of East Germans flooding 

to the West through the many roads, canals, 

crossings, and trains, came to an abrupt end. It 

is estimated that 3.7 to 4 million East Germans 

escaped to the West. The daily flow of refugees in 

the beginning of August was roughly 1,500 East 

Germans, but after Khrushchev’s “bomb-rattling” 

speech, the daily number had rose to 1,926. On 

August 11, unbeknownst to all, the last 2,290 

refugees seeking the freedoms of the west, entered 

the Marienfelde reception center in West Berlin. 

Overnight, in a swift, unexpected manner, the door 

to freedom closed, and was to remain so for 28 years. 

On the night of 13-14 August 1961, East German 

police and military units sealed off all arteries 

leading to West Berlin. The communists pulled 

up train tracks and roads, erected barriers topped 

with barbed wire, completely isolating the Western 

sectors and preventing East Germans from escaping 

to the West. The fences and barricades completely 

surrounded the 97 miles around the three western 

sectors and 27 miles that cut through the heart of 

the city, dividing it. The Soviet Army moved three 

divisions closer to Berlin to discourage interference 

by the West and presumably to assist in the event 

of large-scale riots. From August 13-23, the Soviets 

and East Germans undertook a massive show of 

force in Berlin to stop the exodus of refugees to 

the West. In a direct response to Soviet and East 

German operations to cut off allied access to Berlin, 

at the end of August, Kennedy made a public show 

of ordering 148,000 National Guardsmen and 

Reservists to active duty. 

T H E S T A N D O F F A T C H E C K P O I N T C H A R L I E , 

OCTOBER 27, 1961

During the end of summer and into the fall of 1961, 

the Soviets and East German governments continued 
17

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

a general harassment of US forces traveling from 

Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo, which allowed access 

through East Germany, and a series of threats 

were made by Soviet leaders concerning unfettered 

access to air corridors as well. Military and Allied 

diplomats were also harassed moving across the 

borders of the divided city. On 22 October 1961, 

just two months after the construction of the wall, 

the US Chief of Mission in West Berlin, E. Allan 

Lightner, Jr. was stopped in his car (which had 

occupation forces license plates) while crossing at 

Checkpoint Charlie to go to a theater in East Berlin. 

This violated agreements made at the 1945 Potsdam 

Conference. It was at that point that General Lucius 

Clay, Special Advisor in West Berlin, decided to 

demonstrate American resolve.

The next day, Clay sent an American diplomat 

to test the East German border police. When the 

diplomat was stopped by East German transport 

police asking to see his passport, waiting US 

Military Police at the border recognized his 

diplomatic car, and rushed to escort him into 

East Berlin. The shaken GDR police moved out 

of the way. The car continued on and the soldiers 

returned to West Berlin. Over the next three 

days American and Soviet soldiers deployed at 

Checkpoint Charlie tested each country’s resolve on 

how far each would go during these standoffs over 

Berlin. On October 24, 26 vehicles were stopped 

by East German police, only to have US military 

personnel escort the vehicles across the border and 

return back to the West.

On October 27, 1961, the provocative games took 

a serious turn as another probe prompted the 

Soviets to deploy 10 tanks on the Eastern side of 

Checkpoint Charlie. The US had been using tanks 

to support their escorts of vehicles into East Berlin, 

and now was met by equal force. The Soviet and 

American tanks stood a mere 100 yards apart from 

each other, and both sides readied for battle. The 

showdown of tanks at the wall became a visual 

emblem of the dangerous situation these world 

powers were locked into. The confrontation made 

headlines around the world, and it looked as if 

the Cold War was soon to become a hot, shooting 

war with grave consequences. It was only after 

more sanguine heads prevailed that Moscow and 

Washington mutually agreed to pull back from the 

standoff, and the confrontation eased.

INTRODUCTION TO THE ESSAYS

The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was a major turning 

point during the Cold War and answered, for 

a time, the question of Berlin; but unintended 

results from the events re-defined the Cold War 

over the next 18 years. 

The story can be viewed as an impatient, frustrated, 

older, and seasoned Soviet Premier Khrushchev, 

seeking resolution to the Berlin question, having 

to confront a new, young, popular but untested 

American President. An emboldened Khrushchev 

breaks off discussions with the former American 

President Eisenhower over the U2 incident, and is 

then further bolstered by Kennedy’s public failure 

and embarrassment over the Cuban Bay of Pigs 

fiasco. It has the mark of not only the tension 

between two men – Khrushchev and Kennedy – 

but to competing economic and social systems in 

a global war over which system would triumph. 

We have in the Berlin Crisis – viewed through 

these newly released documents – a more precise 

look at the tensions between the military strategic 

thinking and reliance on the nuclear umbrella of 

US missile defense versus use of more conventional 

forces. This argument is revealed through countless 

internal documents and was a serious, highly 

debated issue when the West was forced into the 

review of contingency planning on Berlin. The West 

did not have sufficient forces for a conventional 

fight, and yet would not want to be seen – by the 

US or its Western Allies – as too ready to use 

nuclear weapons in response to Soviet or East 

German intervention of British, French, and US 

rights to travel to Berlin via the autobahn, trains, 

or designated air corridors. The use of the nuclear 

option would not be balanced and would exceed 

the actions taken by the Soviets, and would trigger 

the negative opinion of most non-aligned countries. 

The other conflict during the crisis was internal, 

bureaucratic wrangling between the NATO 

Secretary General Stikker, and the British, French, 

and United States Supreme Allied Commander, US 

General Nordstad.

The contributions on the Berlin Crisis from these 

authors highlight several contentious issues within 

the Western Alliance that, despite differences 

during this very crucial and critical time, did 

not vitiate the Allies’ unified stance to counter 
A CITY TORN APART

18

the USSR/GDR threat. The results of the 1961 

crisis led the West to expend resources for closing 

the conventional force gap that existed between 

the Warsaw Pact and NATO. The West lacked 

sufficient conventional forces to support and 

sustain combat operations against overwhelming 

Warsaw Pact forces. This lack of conventional 

forces limited the Kennedy administrations actions 

on what it could accomplish in the face of quick, 

aggressive Soviet moves on Berlin outside of simple 

recognition. It allowed the West to continue their 

claim of access to the East and non-recognition of 

the East German government, and to force access 

to East Germany and East Berlin. 

The three essays drafted for this publication, and 

the release of the Department of State’s “Crisis 

over Berlin,” shows the wide variance in the issues 

surrounding the events of 1961. Although we have 

used documents from as early as the 1946 period, 

our focus has been those events starting with the 

Vienna Summit between Khrushchev and Kennedy 

through the 1961 standoff between the US and 

Soviet tanks in October of that year. One should 

not let the talks on Berlin between Kennedy and 

Khrushchev, and the dangerous world power 

standoff in October, overshadow the concerns and 

fears of the people of Berlin caught in the middle of 

a confrontation between two super powers. Berlin 

had long been a source of friction between east 

and west, and Khrushchev continued to push for 

resolution on Berlin’s legal status. Khrushchev’s 

meeting with Kennedy and the passing of the now 

famous “aide-mémoires” only exacerbated the 

situation and renewed US and Soviet tensions over 

Berlin. Khrushchev’s frustration with the slowness in 

Western response, and his own hot rhetoric, should 

come as no surprise, for each time Khrushchev spoke 

on the subject it resulted in an increase in East 

Germans heading West through Berlin. And those 

mass exoduses added to the tension.

For this publication, the Department of State 

declassified one of the most significant documents 

written on the Berlin Crisis of 1961. The eightpart study, covering the period November 

1958-December 1962, in 600 pages presents a very 

detailed account of the events leading up to, and 

throughout, the 1961 Crisis. Titled “Crisis over 

Berlin” and drafted by the Department of State’s 

Historical Office after the Wall was erected by 

the East Germans, captures the serious tension, 

and contemporary understanding of the Soviet 

and GDR intentions on Berlin. Part VI covers the 

period from June through September cataloging 

the different events on the internal US discussions, 

international efforts with the British, French, 

Germans, and NATO, and US military planning. 

It provides great detail on the many issues of the 

day and took several years to complete. Martin 

Hillenbrand directed the study. 

Dr. Pedlow’s “NATO and the Berlin Crisis of 

1961” discusses the NATO planning efforts 

during the crisis. During the previous years, 

the NATO alliance had come to rely on the US 

nuclear strategic umbrella in its military planning 

and as a potential response to the Soviets and 

Warsaw Pact in regards to West. The 1961 

Crisis, and the Kennedy administration’s efforts 

to move away from reliance on nuclear weapons, 

was coupled with a move to increase US and 

NATO conventional forces. The Crisis forced 

NATO military defense planning to reevaluate 

conventional force levels and led to an increase in 

defense spending, initiated by Kennedy. Dr. Pedlow 

captures the operational details, and discussions 

by the LIVE OAK contingency planning staff, 

established in 1958, for anticipating the Soviet 

intentions on Berlin. Along with the Washington 

Ambassadorial Group, these discussions created 

tension between the three Western Powers and 

NATO (Stikker) as to the military planning and 

acceptable allied response. The question was 

answered, in the end, that the NATO General 

Secretary would direct all military planning.

Dr. Don Carter’s “The US Military Response to 

the 1960-1962 Berlin Crisis”’ details the US Army’s 

role and, more specifically, the role of the 7th US 

Army Europe and that of the newly formed Berlin 

Brigade, during the Crisis. It describes the moves 

made by the Army in Berlin from patrols and 

their challenging of the Soviet attempts to halt US 

mission vehicles from entering the Eastern sectors 

which expected to pass without inspection, and the 

US diplomats’ refusal to show their identification 

to anyone but Soviet military. The essay highlights 

the increased training by US troops in Berlin, 

defending or attacking, and planning to squash 

any Soviet-initiated rioting. The training balanced 

the dual military capability on riot-control drills 

and combat defense operations. The US military 

commanders were under pressure from local 

German officials to cut the wire, and knock down 

the barricades with US military bulldozers. The 
19

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

Germans were concerned by – and suspicious of – 

the apparent lack of US force or any appearance 

of concern by US commanders in Berlin. US Army 

forces were increased both in Berlin and Germany 

as well as committed to NATO conventional forces. 

The arrival of the US troops on August 18th to 

Berlin – expecting to be stopped by Soviet and 

GDR troops – is a pivotal moment. When the 

Americans arrived in the city dressed in full field 

equipment, they received a hero’s welcome and 

were paraded in front of Vice President Johnson 

and General Clay. The paper also nicely details 

the actual events leading up to and including the 

standoff at Checkpoint Charlie.

Dr. Steury’s “Bitter Measures: Intelligence and 

Action in the Berlin Crisis, 1961” covers the US 

intelligence efforts to assist US civil and military 

policymakers with evaluations of Soviet and GRU 

intentions on the status of Berlin. The essay details 

the significant reports and studies produced by the 

CIA during the height of the Crisis, and we read 

the documentation by CIA analysts of the unfolding 

actions and counteractions. After the 1958 Crisis, 

CIA focused its attention on the Soviets’ true 

intentions on undermining the US legal status in 

Berlin. The CIA also was directed to study Soviet 

responses to the various NATO plans and meetings. 

Dr. Steury accurately captures all three aspects of 

the Berlin Crisis from the Intelligence Community 

attempting to understand what was happening in 

real time, the US military responding to the GRU’s 

blockading access, up to the new administration 

finding itself in a crisis that had been in the works 

before Kennedy had taken office.

THE NEWLY RELEASED DOCUMENTS

Since 1995, the United States government has 

reviewed 1.4 billion pages of classified information 

and exempted millions that original classification 

authorities believed needed further protection and 

were not released. Documents from the 1961 Berlin 

Crisis were among the many pages withheld from 

public disclosure and are now released through 

the coordination of the National Declassification 

Center and it’s Agency partners. Altogether, the 

NDC will release over 370+ documents, comprising 

almost 4,800+ pages of textual records, at this 

Berlin Crisis Conference.

The declassification of documents surrounding 

the Allied Contingency Planning on Berlin is an 

ongoing process. NATO, through its Archives 

Committee, Germany, and the United States has 

systematically released – through consultation and 

review – many of the most sensitive documents. 

The latest releases of these Operation Live Oak 

and Contingency Planning documents continue to 

expand our understanding of what western civil 

and military leaders at the time were concerned 

with in regards to the Soviet intentions in Berlin. 

“How should Western Allies respond to Soviet or 

East German moves against Berlin? What level of 

force should be used to defend Western interests?” 

Throughout the summer of 1961 the story unfolded 

in dozens of documents, reports, meetings, and 

discussions on an Allied response that risked 

starting a nuclear war in the heart of Europe.

The release of these newly declassified documents 

provides a fascinating, detailed snapshot of 

those moments in the Crisis, and furthers our 

understanding of a significant and critical series 

of events during the Cold War. The Berlin Wall 

would stand for another 28 years before the people 

of East Germany would peacefully rise up and 

regain their freedom.

sources

United States Department of State. Historical Studies Division 

(1966). Crisis Over Berlin, American Policy Concerning the 

Soviet Threats to Berlin November 1958-December 1962. Part 1. 

(Research Project 614-A). Washington, D.C.: Author. 

United States Department of State. Historical Studies Division 

(February 1970). Crisis Over Berlin, American Policy Concerning 

the Soviet Threats to Berlin November 1958-December 1962. Part 

V. (Research Project 614-E). Washington, D.C.: Author. 

United States Department of State. Historical Studies Division 

(April 1970). Crisis Over Berlin, American Policy Concerning the 

Soviet Threats to Berlin November 1958-December 1962. Part 

VI. Deepening Crisis Over Berlin: Communist Challenges and 

Western Responses, June-September 1961. (Research Project 

614-F). Washington, D.C.: Author. 

Speier, H. (1961). Divided Berlin: The Anatomy of Soviet Political 

Blackmail. New York, NY: Praeger.
A CITY TORN APART

20

INTELLIGENCE AND ACTION IN THE 

BERLIN CRISIS, 1961

BITTER MEASURES:

DR. DONALD P. STEURY

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

“All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not 

reflect the official positions or views of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or any other U.S. 

Government agency. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying 

U.S. Government authentication of information or CIA endorsement of the author’s views. 

This material has been reviewed by CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified information.”

Just after midnight on the morning of 13 August 

1961, East German soldiers pulled up in trucks at 

numerous locations in the center of Berlin. Working 

quickly, they pulled out rolls of barbed wire and, 

within a few hours, had established a barrier clean 

across the center of the city. Guards were posted 

every few yards, as necessary, and, within a matter 

of hours, Berlin was cut in two. The Berlin Wall 

had come into being.

Looking back, it is possible to see this as the 

turning point in the Cold War. No nation, no 

system, which can survive only by walling in its 

citizens can possibly hope to achieve credibility 

or permanency. The building of the Berlin Wall 

ensured that the German Democratic Republic 

would last only so long as the Wall remained. Its 

construction was an admission of defeat by the 

communist leadership. Once built, it was doomed, 

sooner or later, to come down.

It did not seem so at the time. The Berlin Wall 

was built in a period of soaring tension between 

the US and the USSR. It was the climax of nearly 

three years of crisis, precipitated in November 

1958, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev 

threatened to sign a separate peace treaty with 

communist East Germany, thereby putting an end 

to the four-power regime in the city. In the end, 

no such treaty was ever signed and Khrushchev 

moderated his tone over 1959, even taking time off 

from the Cold War to engage in a triumphal tour 

of the United States. But, in May 1960, he walked 

out of the Paris summit, following the shoot-down 

of Francis Gary Powers’ U-2, and later that year 

conducted a stormy appearance at the United 

Nations, which produced his famous shoe-pounding 

episode. The specter of a peace treaty was raised 

again and Soviet-American tensions increased even 

as Khrushchev prepared to deal with the newlyelected President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

What was at stake, of course, were western rights 

to station troops in Berlin and maintain the freedom 

and independence of the western half of the 

city. These derived from four-power agreements 

negotiated at the end of World War II. Although 

a separate Soviet-GDR peace treaty might 

conceivably be little more than a political gesture, 

there was little doubt that, once having signed 

such an agreement, Khrushchev would use it as a 

lever to force the western allies, and especially the 

United States, out of Berlin.

Quite apart from the humanitarian cost of 

abandoning another million or so people to 

communist domination, this would have been 

catastrophic politically: Berlin was the symbol 

of America’s commitment to the North Atlantic 

alliance, to the security of Western Europe, 

to the sovereignty of the Federal Republic. To 

abandon Berlin would be to make mockery of the 

commitments negotiated since the end of the war.

But Berlin was indefensible. The Soviet bloc might 

not actually be expected to take West Berlin by 
21

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

force, but, a determined Soviet effort to isolate 

the western half of the city could only be met by 

evacuation, by hunkering down for a siege, or by 

efforts to force troops through to the city from 

West Germany. All of these actions carried with 

them the risk of war. There was a general fear that 

a military confrontation over Berlin would quickly 

escalate into general hostilities, in an era in which 

both sides were prepared to wage war with nuclear 

weapons. A crisis over Berlin, if it got out of 

control, could lead to Armageddon.

CIA analysts thus took very seriously any apparent 

attempts to undermine western treaty rights in 

Berlin. At the same time, it was believed that 

Moscow would make strenuous efforts to negotiate 

before carrying out Khrushchev’s threats. Whatever 

the validity of this conclusion, it was, in a sense 

misleading. Since any negotiation along lines 

acceptable to the Soviets inevitably would involve 

compromising western treaty rights, no negotiated 

solution was really possible. The Berlin crisis thus 

took the form of a series of threatened ultimata, 

which never quite came off, with western observers 

attempting to anticipate Soviet actions that were 

never taken.

But, although treaty issues often were at center 

stage, the dynamic factor in the Berlin situation 

was the refugee problem. So long as the sector 

border between East and West Berlin was open, 

West Berlin acted as an open conduit to the West. 

Moreover, its growing prosperity stood in sharp 

contrast to the drabness of life in the Soviet bloc. 

The result was that through Berlin, East Germany 

was depopulating itself at the rate of 200-300,000 

people per year, more than 1.1 million since the 

founding of the communist state in 1949—and 

this from what was, after all, a small country 

with a population of fewer than 16 million.1

 In 

the summer of 1961, Khrushchev joked with the 

East German leader, Walter Ulbricht, that soon 

he would be the only person left in the country. 

Ulbricht was not amused.

Small wonder that the East German’s relations 

with Khrushchev seem to have been dominated by 

increasingly frantic attempts to reach agreement 

on some drastic measure to keep the population 

of East Germany from simply walking away down 

the Friedrichstraße. The importance of this has 

often been underestimated in western scholarship, 

which for years focused on Khrushchev and his 

policies. Thanks to the work of Hope Harrison we 

now know that the Wall was almost wholly an East 

German project, from beginning to end. Ulbricht 

was an unrepentant Stalinist and the East German 

regime the most hard-line communist in Eastern 

Europe. Their persistent efforts to reconstruct the 

East German economy along Stalinist lines caused 

widespread hardship and directly fed the outflux 

of refugees.

In the American intelligence community, the 

importance of what was termed the “refugee 

problem” as a destabilizing factor in the Berlin 

situation was recognized early on. The greatest 

concern was that East Berlin’s inability to resolve 

the economic crisis they largely had created would 

undermine Khrushchev’s political standing inside the 

Kremlin and force him into some kind of precipitate 

action. This concern grew as Khrushchev stepped 

up his pressure on the West: increased tensions 

worked directly to increase the flow of refugees, 

which in turn, fed the growing economic crisis 

in East Germany, thereby increasing pressure 

on Khrushchev to force through some kind of 

solution—and so on, in an escalating spiral of 

tension with increasingly dire consequences.

The possibility of some sort of Soviet action to 

restrict access to West Berlin—either as a repetition 

of the 1948 blockade, or as some other form of 

action—figured strongly in intelligence reporting 

throughout the last half of the 1950s. In November 

1957, CIA’s Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) 

warned that the Soviets might seal the sector 

borders between East and West Berlin as a means 

of applying pressure on the West.2

 On 28 May 

1959, OCI warned that East Germany—not the 

Soviet Union—might restrict traffic at the border 

crossings, to reduce or eliminate uncontrolled access 

to West Berlin, force the West Berlin government to 

negotiate on issues of access, and reduce the labor 

shortage in East Germany.3

1Current Weekly Intelligence Summary: “Flight of Refugees from East Germany,” 12 February 1959 (MORI: 45580) in Donald P. Steury

(ed.), On the Front Lines of the Cold War: Documents on the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946-1961 (Washington, D.C. CIA History

Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999) p. 455-58.

2Memorandum for the DDI; Subject: “The Berlin Situation,” 1 November 1957 (MORI: 44001 in Ibid., pp. 536-37.

3Current Weekly Intelligence Summary: “East Germany May Move against East German Sector Border Crossings,” 28 May 1959; Ibid., 

pp. 493-94.
A CITY TORN APART

22

Nonetheless, the Berlin crisis, when it came, was 

something of surprise. The mid-1950s had been a 

period of relative quiet in Berlin. Although it was 

taken for granted that Soviet long-term goals were 

to force the western allies out of the city, it was 

assumed that they were not willing to risk war and 

accepted a western presence for the time being.4

It was known that the Soviets believed that longterm political and economic trends favored them. 

Moreover, as their nuclear capabilities improved, 

the Soviets would be more confident in their 

dealings with the West—and would be more willing 

to force their demands.5

Khrushchev’s November 1958 pronouncement thus 

was seen as a sign that a period of Soviet resurgence 

was beginning. The intervening two years had seen 

considerable expansion of the Soviet long-range 

bomber force, deployment of large numbers of 

medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles 

in Eastern Europe and significant progress in their 

ICBM program. This did not mean that the Soviets 

would deliberately provoke a military confrontation, 

but that they were determined to force a discussion 

of the Berlin situation and that they would not 

back down. An NIE issued immediately after 

Khrushchev’s November pronouncement forecast 

that the Soviets would seek a summit at a time 

and place of their own choosing, preferably under 

circumstances in which they had some hopes of 

splitting the western alliance.6

Another SNIE, issued two months later noted 

that the Soviets believed that their advances in 

nuclear weapons had considerably improved 

their negotiating position.7

 If the western powers 

refused to recognize the de facto position in Central 

Europe, another blockade of Berlin was possible. 

Analysts believed that, in contrast to 1948, the 

Soviets would not permit the resupply of the city, 

but they would allow supplies to be carried to the 

western garrisons. Western attempts to force open 

access to the city would be opposed, but the Soviets 

would otherwise avoid a military confrontation.8

DECIPHERING SOVIET INTENTIONS

NIEs issued over the next two years amplified, 

but did not back away from these conclusions.9

Analysts nonetheless found Khrushchev’s intentions 

and actions difficult to predict. Tensions remained 

high, but, given the uncompromising nature of his 

demands, Khrushchev was remarkably quiescent 

during the Berlin crisis as a whole. The caution 

he demonstrated often contrasted puzzlingly 

with his habitual bombast. In January 1959, 

Khrushchev sent clear signals that he would not 

go to war over Berlin, but also that he would not 

be part of an agreement that included the Bonn 

government—which then had as its Chancellor the 

Christian Democrat Konrad Adenauer. When the 

foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and the three 

Western Allies met in Geneva over May-June 1959, 

Khrushchev apparently sniffed the beginnings of 

a crack in the Western alliance—perhaps from a 

KGB report that Great Britain and France were 

considering reducing their troop commitments to 

West Berlin. Yet, when the United States vetoed 

the idea, Khrushchev responded only with an open 

letter to Eisenhower. Apparently eager to push for a 

solution at the beginning of the conference, he later 

was disposed to wait for a more opportune moment. 

“A year or a year and a half—this isn’t a key issue 

for us,” he told the East German leader, Walter 

Ulbricht.10 An SNIE issued during the conference 

concluded that Khrushchev probably did not seek 

a real solution there, but saw it as the first stage 

in a process by which the Western Allies would 

be eased gradually out of Berlin. “If the Soviets 

allow the Geneva meeting to end in stalemate, they 

will presumably do so on the calculation that a 

period of additional pressure on the Berlin problem 

will finally induce the Western Powers to make 

substantial concessions.” The Soviets still would 

shrink from a direct confrontation, but would be 

more likely, “to increase pressure on the Berlin 

issue gradually and only in such a degree as in their 

opinion would tend to induce the Western Powers 

to resume negotiations later . . .”11 In the meantime, 

4NIE 11-3-56 Probable Short-Term Communist Capabilities and Intentions Regarding Berlin; 28 February 1956, pp. 1-3. (www.FOIA.

CIA.gov).

5NIE 11-4-56 Soviet Capabilities and Probable Course of Action Through 1961; 2 August 1956, p. 48. (www.FOIA.CIA.gov)

6SNIE 100-13-58 Soviet Objectives in the Berlin Crisis; 23 December 1958, Steury (ed.) op. cit. p. 431.

7SNIE 100-2-59 Probable Soviet Course of Action Regarding Berlin and Germany; 24 February 1959, p. 2 (www.FOIA.CIA.gov).

8Ibid. pp. 4-5.

9SNIE 100-2/1-59 The Berlin Crisis; 17 March 1959, passim (www.FOIA.CIA.gov).

10Aleksander Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War (New York and London: WW Norton, 2006), pp. 224-25.
23

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

Khrushchev went off to the United States, to visit 

President Eisenhower.

The next opportune moment came a year later, 

at the Paris summit. Once again, Khrushchev 

failed to make use of the opportunity to push the 

Berlin issue. Although he later claimed that he 

had decided there was little point in dealing with 

the lame duck President Eisenhower,12 he may 

also have decided after a preliminary meeting with 

De Gaulle that there was little hope of separating 

Great Britain and France from the US on the Berlin 

question.13 At any rate, he showed up in Paris 

only to destroy the summit. Denouncing the U-2 

flights over the Soviet Union (Francis Gary Powers 

had been shot down just two weeks previously) 

he demanded an apology and stormed out of the 

summit. An apology was not forthcoming, and the 

summit was at an end.

The winter of 1960-61 was one of anticipation, 

as well as discontent. In a review of the Berlin 

crisis prepared that Spring, CIA’s Office of 

Current Intelligence observed that Khrushchev 

had alternated between offers to negotiate over 

Berlin and threats of unilateral action. Throughout, 

“Moscow” had, “aimed at liquidating Western rights 

to remain in Berlin without restrictions pending 

German unification.” Since the West has no interest 

in negotiating away its rights, Moscow has used 

deadlines, either explicit or implicit to guarantee 

continuing Western interest in discussing the issue 

in order to avoid a crisis.

There was a clear sense, however, that some 

kind of decision was at hand: Moscow was still 

willing to negotiate, even to settle for some kind 

of interim agreement. However: If the West 

refused to negotiate, Khrushchev would probably 

feel compelled to conclude a separate treaty. His 

long and continuing commitments to take this 

action probably act as a form of pressure either 

to demonstrate gains by negotiations or to carry 

out his repeated pledges to resolve the situation in 

Berlin by unilateral action. At any rate, Khrushchev 

has committed himself to a solution during 1961.14

11SNIE 100-7-59 Soviet Tactics on Berlin; 11 June 1959 (www.

FOIA.CIA.gov), pp. 1, 4.

12John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War (London: Penguin, 2005), 

p. 73.

13Sherman Kent, “The Summit Conference of 1960: An 

Intelligence Officer’s View,” in Donald P. Steury (ed.), 

Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates 

(Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 

1994), pp. 162-63.

14Current Intelligence Weekly Summary: “Soviet Policy on 

Berlin and Germany,” 11 May 1961 Doc. Nr. 28202) in Steury 

(ed.) On the Front Lines of the Cold War, pp. 545-46.

Berlin, 30 November, 1961

Before the start of the holiday season, 

on 30 November, West Berliners still 

try to stay in contact by waving at 

friends in East Berlin.

T O R E A D T H I S A R T I C L E I N I T S E N T I R E T Y , P L E A S E 

REFER TO THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER, ON THE DVD.
A CITY TORN APART

24

The election of a new U.S. president, John F. 

Kennedy, in November 1960 renewed the EastWest tensions surrounding the city of Berlin 

that had simmered since the Allied occupation of 

Germany in 1945. Kennedy’s first meeting with 

Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev in Vienna 

in June 1961 did nothing to diffuse the sense of 

confrontation. During their personal discussions, 

Khrushchev handed an aide-memoire to Kennedy 

that seemed to dare the president to oppose Soviet 

intentions. The missive accused the Federal 

Republic of Germany of cultivating “saber-rattling 

militarism” and of advocating revisions to the 

borders that had been established after World War 

II. Only a permanent peace treaty that recognized 

the sovereignty of both East and West Germany, 

as they had evolved, would guarantee that they 

would not again threaten the European peace. 

The conclusion of a German peace treaty, the 

document went on, would also solve the problem of 

normalizing the situation in West Berlin by making 

the city a demilitarized free zone registered with 

the United Nations. Naturally, the memorandum 

concluded, any treaty, whether the United 

States signed it or not, would terminate Western 

occupation rights.1

KHRUSHCHEV’S ULTIMATUM

On 4 June 1961, Kennedy met privately with Soviet 

Premier Nikita Khrushchev to make one last effort 

to impress upon the Soviet leader the importance 

the United States placed on its commitment to 

the people of West Berlin. Khrushchev replied 

that he appreciated the frankness of Kennedy’s 

remarks, but if the U.S. insisted on maintaining its 

presence in Berlin after a treaty was signed, the 

Soviet Union would have no choice but to assist 

the German Democratic Republic in defending its 

borders. His decision to sign the treaty, he added, 

was irrevocable. The Soviet Union would sign it in 

December if the United States refused an interim 

agreement. As he departed, Kennedy closed the 

conversation saying it “would be a cold winter.”2

Immediately after the conclusion of the Vienna 

summit, in an unprecedented fireside chat on 

Soviet television, Khrushchev repeated his 

demands, telling his people that the Soviets 

would sign a peace treaty whether the West was 

ready to do so or not. He added that the Soviet 

Union would oppose any and all violations of 

East Germany’s sovereignty. The chairman of 

East Germany’s council of state, Walter Ulbricht, 

also publicly warned the West to negotiate its 

use of access routes into Berlin with his country 

or risk “interruptions.” He made it clear that the 

Communists wanted the Western Allies out of 

Berlin so that the city would no longer be a lure to 

refugees from the East.3

President Kennedy and his military advisers 

weighed their options in light of Khrushchev’s 

increasing belligerence. Understanding that the 

1960 - 1962 BERLIN CRISIS TO

THE

THE U.S. MILITARY RESPONSE

DR. DONALD A. CARTER

THE U. S. ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY

1

Aide-Memoire, Soviet Union to the United States, Handed by Premier Khrushchev to President Kennedy at Vienna, 4 Jun 1961, in Documents 

on Germany, 1944–1961, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Dec 1961, pp. 642–46.

2

Memorandum of Conversation, 4 Jun 1961, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963 (cited hereafter as FRUS) (Washington, 

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993), 14:96–98. 

3

“Khrushchev Demands 1961 Germany Pact,” and “Ulbricht Gives Warning on Berlin Access Route,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 16 

Jun 1961.
25

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

Communists’ initial actions would include cutting 

off Western access to Berlin, the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff began refining contingency plans for various 

military probes of the main roadway into West 

Berlin, an autobahn that ran 105 miles to the city 

from the town of Helmstedt on the West German 

border. Although they were prepared to mount an 

airlift similar to the one that had broken a Soviet 

blockade in 1949, they privately decried the lack 

of options available to them for dealing with the 

impending crisis. They informed the president and 

Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara that the 

Allies’ lack of military strength in Europe allowed 

only limited ground probes, which, if turned back 

by superior Communist forces, would result in a 

choice between accepting humiliation or initiating 

nuclear war. To keep that from happening, they 

urged the president to build up U.S. military power 

in Europe and to encourage the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to do the same.4

From Europe, the Supreme Allied Commander 

Europe [SACEUR], General Lauris Norstad, also 

lobbied for increasing the U.S. military presence 

in the theater. He praised the Seventh Army in 

Europe as the best peacetime force the United 

States had ever fielded and commended the 

dedication and commitment of NATO units, but he 

stressed the overwhelming number of Soviet tanks, 

aircraft, and men arrayed against those forces. He 

urged the president to call up additional reserve 

units and to deploy additional battle groups to 

Europe under the guise of training exercises. He 

also wanted the president and the Joint Chiefs to 

position additional U.S. naval and air forces where 

they could contribute to theater readiness, and he 

suggested that the Seventh Army should conduct 

more exercises that would require its divisions 

to move into their alert positions. Those steps, 

combined with an increase in U.S. military strength 

in Europe, would give the United States greater 

freedom of action, the general said, and provide 

alternatives short of nuclear war.5

After several weeks of discussions with his cabinet, 

the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, and a variety of other advisers, the 

president made his decision. At 2200 on 25 July, 

he addressed the nation on the situation in Berlin. 

After summarizing the course of events since his 

meeting with Khrushchev, he stated that the United 

States would never allow the Soviet Union to drive 

it out of Berlin, either gradually or by force. He 

then announced a series of steps that he was taking 

to increase military readiness. First, he would ask 

Congress for an immediate additional appropriation 

of $3.2 billion for the armed forces, about half of 

which would go to the procurement of conventional 

ammunition, weapons, and equipment. A request 

would then follow, Kennedy said, to augment the 

total authorized strength of the Army from 875,000 

to 1 million men, and increase the Navy and Air 

Force active-duty strength by 29,000 and 63,000, 

respectively. He also called for a doubling and 

tripling of draft calls in the coming months; the 

activation of some reservists and certain readyreserve units; and the extension of tours of duty 

for soldiers, sailors, and airmen scheduled to leave 

the service in the near future. Finally, the president 

postponed programs to retire or mothball older 

ships and aircraft and delayed the deactivation of a 

number of B–47 bomber and aerial refueling wings. 

Shortly thereafter, Secretary of Defense McNamara 

announced that 50 percent of the Strategic Air 

Command’s bomber wings would be placed on 

15-minute ground alert and that three of the Army’s 

divisions in the United States would be relieved 

of training duties and prepared for emergency 

deployment to Europe.6

THE WALL

Meanwhile, the situation continued to deteriorate. 

Soviet and East German soldiers increased their 

harassment of U.S. vehicles and troop trains trying 

to enter the city, and Soviet authorities periodically 

renewed attempts to conduct unauthorized 

4

Memo, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) for the President, 14 Jun 1961, sub: Supply Levels in Berlin, and Note by the Secretaries to the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, Improved Position Anticipated from U.S. and Allied Build-up, 14 Jul 1961, both in Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal File, 

1961, Record Group (RG) 218, National Archives, College Park, Md. (NACP).

5

Telg, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (Norstad), to JCS, 27 Jun 1961, in FRUS, 1961–1963, 14:136–38; Msg, U.S. Commander in Chief, 

Europe (USCINCEUR), to JCS, 2 Jun 1961, Msg no. ECJCO-9-88008, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal File, 1961, RG 218, NACP;

“Norstad Urges Quiet Buildup,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 10 Jul 1961. 

6

Memo of Meeting on Berlin, 18 Jul 1961; Memo of Minutes of the National Security Council Meeting, 19 Jul 1961; and National Security 

Action Memorandum 62, 24 Jul 1961; all in FRUS, 1961–1963, 14:215–16, 219–22, and 225–26, respectively; Radio and Television Report to 

the American People on the Berlin Crisis, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1962), pp. 533–40; “Kennedy Asks Power to Extend Terms of Servicemen Due Out in Next Year,” Stars and 

Stripes, European Edition, 27 Jul 1961.
A CITY TORN APART

26

inspections of Allied vehicles as they crossed 

checkpoints into and out of Berlin. The Soviets 

also tried to institute new restrictions on flights 

approaching the city while allowing their fighters to 

buzz Allied aircraft flying through approved access 

corridors. In May 1960, Soviet fighter aircraft 

forced down an American C–47 transport that had 

strayed off-course on a flight from Copenhagen to 

Hamburg. Although the plane and its crew were 

released a few days later, the incident heightened 

the tension for pilots flying the Berlin routes. 

Border officials slowed barge traffic, as well, by 

implementing new inspections and controls.7

In response, the two battle groups of the U.S. 

Army’s 6th Infantry that made up the bulk of the 

U.S. garrison in West Berlin increased their tempo 

of training and placed additional emphasis on riotcontrol drills and combat operations in the city. 

West Berlin’s expansive Grunewald Park, the only 

open space in the sector where units could train, 

hosted a series of exercises where the troops tested 

their readiness to attack and defend. Companies 

donned civilian clothing and acted as rioters to test 

the ability of their compatriots to maintain order in 

the face of Communist-inspired civil disturbances. 

In some cases, U.S. commanders went out of their 

way to ensure that the Soviets knew exactly what 

they were doing. It was an essential element in 

the American effort to convince the Soviets that 

the United States would fight for West Berlin 

and that, while U.S. forces might not be able to 

hold the city, they would inflict unacceptable 

losses on the attacker. In response, the East 

Germans built an observation tower to get a better 

view of the training. One American lieutenant 

colonel commented that he did not mind the close 

observation. As a matter of fact, he said, “We want 

them to know that we’re here to stay.”8

For the Communists, however, time was apparently 

running out. Khrushchev’s repeated threats to 

conclude a separate peace treaty with East Germany 

spurred an increase in the already considerable 

number of refugees heading west. Since 1945, 

well over three million people fled from the East. 

German authorities recorded that more than half 

of those had come through West Berlin, making 

the city unmistakably the “escape hatch” from 

the Soviet zone. In 1960, manpower shortages 

reached a point where the German Democratic 

Republic experienced difficulties in completing 

winter planting and harvesting and admitted to 

a shortage of five hundred thousand workers of 

all types in East Berlin alone. By the end of the 

year, for example, only 380 dentists remained in 

the Soviet sector, as compared to 700 the year 

before. Complicating matters, some 20,000 of the 

150,000 refugees who entered West Berlin were of 

military age, a serious loss in East German military 

manpower. The trend accelerated in 1961. During 

February, the exodus averaged 2,650 persons per 

week. By the end of May, this figure had risen to 

3,200. In July, more than 30,000 refugees crossed 

over to the west, the largest monthly total since 

1953. In an appeal broadcast to its own citizens, 

the East German government said that the mass 

migration was disrupting the economy, damaging the 

nation’s standing abroad, and threatening its future.9

Communist efforts to stem the tide grew desperate. 

The East Germans employed more than 5,000 

police to guard the borders around West Berlin. 

When that proved to be insufficient, they began 

drafting members of the “Free German Youth,” 

a Communist political organization, to assist 

transportation police in checking buses and trains 

at crossing points. Party officials took steps to 

force East Berliners working in West Berlin to 

give up their jobs. Vigilante groups sanctioned 

by the Communist government turned in persons 

suspected of planning to flee the East or of helping 

others to do so. Increased propaganda meanwhile 

labeled refugees as traitors and accused the West 

of plotting to sabotage the East German economy 

through blackmail and a trade in slaves.10

7

Robert P. Grathwol and Donita M. Moorhus. American Forces in Berlin: Cold War Outpost (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1994), 

p. 80; “Soviets Delay U.S. Train on Berlin Route,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 27 Mar 1960; “Reds Say C47 Down in East Zone,” Stars 

and Stripes, European Edition, 21 May 1960; “Russian Downed C47 Flies Out of East Zone,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 26 May 1960; 

HQ, U.S. Army, Berlin, Annual Historical Report, 1961, pp. 32–35, Historians files, CMH.

8

George Fielding Eliot, “Will Berlin Crisis Explode in 61?” Army Times, 21 Feb 1959; Ernie Weatherall, “Uniform of the Day: Rabble Rousing 

Clothes,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 17 Sep 1960; “Berlin Units Wind Up Exercise Ever Ready,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 

15 Apr 1961; “Tough Training in West Berlin,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 20 Apr 1961.

9

The U.S. Army in Berlin, 1945–1961, HQ, U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR), 1962, p. 31; HQ, U.S. Army, Berlin, Annual Historical Report, 

1961, p. 40; “East Zone Pleads for Stop in Refugee Flow,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 30 Jul 1961.

10Ibid.; U.S. Department of State, Berlin 1961, European and British Commonwealth Series no. 64, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing 

Office, n.d., p. 26; “Vigilantes Cut Refugee Flow, Russ Says Berlin Talk a Must,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 3 Aug 1961; “Reds Increase 

Restrictions to Slow Refugee Flow,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 5 Aug 1961; “New Restrictions Spur Exodus from East Zone to Another 

High,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 10 Aug 1961.
27

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

On 12 August 1961, the East German regime 

announced that all but 13 of the 120 bordercrossing points between East and West Berlin 

would be closed to both vehicular and pedestrian 

traffic. Then, in the predawn hours of 13 August, 

East German police, armored cars, and tanks were 

deployed along the entire border of the Soviet 

sector of the city. Workers set up barbed-wire 

barricades and began construction of permanent 

cement-block walls. In some places, sections of the 

cobblestone streets were removed. Although West 

Berliners and Allied personnel were still allowed in 

and out of East Berlin through a few well-guarded 

checkpoints, decrees from the East German 

government forbade its citizens from entering West 

Berlin. As a precaution against an internal uprising 

in East Berlin, it appeared that the Soviet 10th 

Guards Tank Division and 19th Motorized Rifle 

Division deployed to the north and south of the 

city, and Soviet tanks moved into East Berlin to 

take positions at various locations in the city. To 

western reporters and military personnel who could 

still move about East Berlin, the Soviets clearly 

wanted no uprisings of the sort that had occurred 

in Hungary in 1956 in response to the imposition of 

Soviet power.11

Over the course of the next several days, the East 

Germans worked to complete the isolation of West 

Berlin. They announced that train traffic would 

be reorganized so that there would no longer be 

direct service between the two parts of the city. In 

the future, travelers would have to change trains 

and submit to identity checks before entering 

the eastern sector. Trains from West Germany 

into West Berlin would pass normally, but they 

would no longer be allowed to continue into the 

Communist sector. Local commuter trains and 

buses from outside the city limits as well as those 

originating in East Berlin were also denied access 

to West Berlin. Even the pleasure boats that 

transported tourists from lakes in East Berlin to the 

Havel River in the western sectors were terminated. 

Within a week, the East Germans designated a 

crossing point at Friedrichstrasse in the American 

sector as the only point of entry into East Berlin 

for the Allies and other foreign nationals. As East 

German police and workmen sealed off doors and 

windows in buildings that made up portions of the 

barricade and replaced barbed wire with concrete, 

the grim reality of a divided city began to sink in to 

citizens on both sides of the wall.12

2

11The U.S. Army in Berlin, 1945–1961, p. 32; U.S. Department of 

State, Berlin 1961, p. 26; “Reds Block East Germans from Entering 

West Berlin,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 14 Aug 1961; 

George Boultwood, “East German Guns Point East as Barbed Wire 

Barricades Rise,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 14 Aug 

1961; HQ, U.S. Army, Berlin, Annual Historical Report, 1961, pp. 

25–26.

12“East Berlin Keeps Peace with Tear Gas, Hoses,” Stars and 

Stripes, European Edition, 15 Aug 1961; “Angry Crowds Mass, 

Jeer at Berlin Border,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, 14 

Aug 1961.

Berlin, October 1961

American tanks were brought up to Friedrich 

Strasse on October 25 after two U.S. army 

buses were refused entry into East Berlin for 

a sightseeing tour.

T O R E A D T H I S A R T I C L E I N I T S E N T I R E T Y , P L E A S E 

REFER TO THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER, ON THE DVD.
A CITY TORN APART

28

When East German border guards began stringing 

barbed wire on 13 August 1961 – the first step in 

constructing what soon became known as the Berlin 

Wall – NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] 

and the West had already been confronted by an 

on-again, off-again crisis over Berlin since late 

1958. On 27 November 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita 

Khrushchev had stated he would end the fourpower occupation of Berlin and sign, within six 

months, a separate peace treaty with the German 

Democratic Republic, threatening the continued 

presence in West Berlin of British, French and U.S. 

forces. Soon afterward, at the NATO Ministerial 

Meeting of 16 December 1958, the Alliance’s 

foreign ministers gave full support to the position of 

the three Western Allies in Berlin by declaring that 

“the denunciation of the inter-allied agreements 

on Berlin can in no way deprive the other parties 

of their rights or relieve the Soviet Union of its 

obligations.”1

 But in terms of developing responses 

to possible Soviet moves against the Allies’ position 

in Berlin, NATO was not actively involved prior 

to the summer of 1961. Instead, the three Western 

Allies preferred to deal with this crisis themselves, 

and established tripartite mechanisms to do so. 

The Washington Ambassadorial Group (WAG) – 

consisting of the British and French ambassadors 

to the United States and Deputy Under Secretary 

of State Robert Murphy – became the senior forum 

for tripartite consultation in January 1959, and in 

April the three powers established the LIVE OAK 

contingency planning staff in Paris to prepare 

military responses to possible Soviet restrictions on 

Allied access to Berlin. General Lauris Norstad was 

the first “Commander LIVE OAK” as a third “hat” 

in additions to those he wore as NATO’s Supreme 

Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the US 

Commander-in-Chief Europe (USCINCEUR).2

In the autumn of 1959, tensions over Berlin eased as 

Khrushchev quietly dropped his ultimatum against 

the Western Allies. General Norstad therefore 

reduced the LIVE OAK planning staff in size 

but chose not to eliminate entirely this source of 

expertise for Berlin planning. LIVE OAK continued 

to produce various contingency plans to deal with 

Soviet threats to Western access to Berlin. For 

ground access, LIVE OAK had developed plans 

that included a small (company-sized) tripartite 

probe to test whether or not the Soviets actually 

were stopping all Allied access to Berlin, and a 

larger tripartite battalion effort to demonstrate the 

Allies’ determination to reopen the access routes. 

To deal with threats to Allied use of the three air 

FACING THE SOVIETS WHILE 

MAINTAINING UNITY

NATO BERLIN CRISIS OF 1961:

DR. GREGORY W. PEDLOW

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED POWERS EUROPE

AND 

THE

1

“Declaration on Berlin”, attachment to North Atlantic Council [NAC] Ministerial Meeting of 16-18 December 1958, in NATO Information Service, Texts of 

Final Communiqués, 1949-1974, Issued by Ministerial Sessions of the North Atlantic Council, the Defence Planning Committee, and the Nuclear Planning 

Group (Brussels, n.d. [1975]), 123-124.

2

For more information on LIVE OAK see Gregory W. Pedlow, “Allied Crisis Management for Berlin: The LIVE OAK Organization, 1959-1963,” in William W. 

Epley (ed.), International Cold War Military Records and History: Proceedings of the International Conference on Cold War Military Records and History Held 

in Washington, D.C., 21-26 March 1994 (Washington: Offi ce of the Secretary of Defense, 1996), 87-116; Gregory W. Pedlow, “Three Hats for Berlin: Lauris 

Norstad and the Second Berlin Crisis, 1958-1962,” in John P. S. Gearson and Kori Schake (eds.), The Berlin Wall Crisis: Perspective on Cold War Alliances 

(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 175-198. The offi cial history of LIVE OAK that the author prepared at the time the organization closed in 1991 has been 

declassifi ed and will be published in: Gregory W. Pedlow, LIVE OAK TOP SECRET! Allied Cold War Planning for a Soviet Blockade of West Berlin, 1959-

1989: The Offi cial History (forthcoming).
29

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

corridors to West Berlin, LIVE OAK also developed 

a series of air contingency plans. These plans did 

not, however, include plans for another airlift 

like the one of 1948-1949. Not wishing to rush 

immediately into another airlift without first testing 

Soviet intentions on the ground, the United States 

had ordered the removal of all airlift planning from 

LIVE OAK in January 1960.3

SOVIETS TEST METTLE OF NEW

U.S. PRESIDENT

NATO’s involvement in Berlin contingency 

planning did not come until the crisis reawakened 

in 1961, after Khrushchev decided to test the new 

U.S. administration of President John F. Kennedy 

by renewing his earlier threats against the Western 

presence in Berlin. Initial hints of such an action 

had already come in the early months of 1961, and 

Khrushchev’s intentions became clear at a summit 

meeting with Kennedy in Vienna on 3-4 June 1961, 

when he again threatened to sign a separate peace 

with East Germany and said that Allied forces 

would have to depart from Berlin within six months 

after the signing.4

The renewed crisis over Berlin came at a time when 

NATO was in the midst of a substantial debate 

about the future direction of its military strategy, 

which was still officially one of heavy reliance on 

nuclear weapons to defend the Alliance’s territory. 

After the new U.S. administration began calling 

for a considerable strengthening of NATO’s 

conventional forces in order to postpone the 

start of nuclear conflict in the event of war, the 

European NATO members began to fear that the 

United States was moving away from the strategy 

set forth in MC 14/2, a strategy that is commonly 

called “massive retaliation” even though the actual 

strategy was not quite so inflexible as to launch all 

the missiles and strategic bombers as soon as the 

first Soviet soldier crossed a NATO border.5

On 5 June 1961, one day after the KennedyKhrushchev summit in Vienna, U.S. Secretary 

of State Dean Rusk appeared before the North 

Atlantic Council to inform the nations about the 

Vienna meeting. He expressed the belief that the 

Soviets would force the Berlin issue before the end 

of the year.6

 Two days later the U.S. Permanent 

Representative to NATO,7

 Ambassador Thomas K. 

Finletter, informed his colleagues about the state 

of tripartite military contingency planning, the 

first such report to the Council since December 

1959. He noted that in order to meet this “new 

threat” from the Soviet Union, additional 

multinational planning had become necessary, 

including work on economic countermeasures by 

NATO, and a tripartite plan for further nonmilitary countermeasures.8

A DIVIDED, INDECISIVE, AND

IRRESOLUTE NATO

What Ambassador Finletter did not say to the 

Council, however, was that the three Western 

Allies still held widely divergent views on their 

own military contingency plans. Thus even before 

President Kennedy met with Premier Khrushchev 

in Vienna, members of the Kennedy administration 

were already expressing dissatisfaction with the 

existing contingency plans for Berlin. On 5 May 

1961 Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara 

had written to the President calling the existing 

military contingency plans for an access crisis over 

Berlin “deficient” and complaining that they could 

be stopped even by the East Germans acting alone. 

He therefore called it “mandatory, that in any 

military operation larger than a probe, we have at 

least the level of forces required to defeat any solely 

3

The Quadripartite Berlin Airlift (QBAL) plan by the three Western Allies and the Federal Republic of Germany continued to be updated, but this was now the 

responsibility of Headquarters, US European Command, not LIVE OAK. LO-TS-61-53, Memorandum for Record, Detailed LIVE OAK Activity Report, 24 

March 1961, LIVE OAK Archives, Bundesarchiv-Militärchiv.

4

Memorandum of Conversation, Vienna, June 4, 1961, 3:15 p.m., Vienna Meeting Between the President and Chairman Khrushchev, in Foreign Relations of the 

United States (hereafter cited as FRUS) 1961-1963, vol. 14, Berlin Crisis 1961-1962, 96-98.

5

The full texts of MC 14/2, “Overall Strategic Concept of the Defense of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Area,” 23 May 1957, and its accompanying 

military document known as MC 48/2, “Measures to Implement the Strategic Concept,” 23 January 1957, can be found in Gregory W. Pedlow, ed., NATO 

Strategy Documents, 1949-1969 (Brussels: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 1997), 277-332.

6

Joint Chiefs of Staff [hereafter cited as JCS], Joint Secretariat, Historical Division, Germany and the Berlin Question (Washington, D.C., 1961), 2:172. This 

declassifi ed (with deletions) offi cial history written during the Berlin Crisis can be found in the Berlin Project Files of the National Security Archive (hereafter 

cited as NSA BPF), a private organization in Washington, D.C., that collects declassifi ed government documents. 7

The North Atlantic Council normally meets in Permanent Session at ambassadorial level, and the member nations’ ambassadors to NATO are also known as 

Permanent Representatives. The two terms will therefore be used interchangeably in this essay. The Council also meets occasionally in Ministerial Session, with 

nations represented by Foreign or Defense Ministers, depending on the topic to be discussed. 

8

JCS, Germany and the Berlin Question, 2:173.
A CITY TORN APART

30

Satellite force, without employing our nuclear 

response.”9 In stark contrast to the growing belief 

in the Kennedy Administration that plans for much 

larger operations to restore access were needed, the 

United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff still believed that 

large-scale operations were “militarily unsound and, 

moreover, could not succeed in their object unless it 

was made clear that they were backed by the threat 

of nuclear striking power and that the West was in 

all respects prepared to go to war.”10 The French 

also had their doubts about the quality of existing 

military plans for Berlin. Ministère des Armées 

Pierre Messmer told British Prime Minister Harold 

Macmillan in July 1961 that “LIVE OAK planning 

certainly did not seem very realistic.”11

General Norstad shared British concerns about the 

effectiveness of large-scale operations to restore 

access to Berlin. In a letter he wrote to McNamara 

as USCINCEUR on 29 May 1961, he stated that 

he was planning to order the development of a 

corps-level plan on a unilateral basis, but his letter 

gave only one possible justification for such a 

force – rescuing a probe – while pointing out many 

grave disadvantages: “A large probe, that is, one of 

several divisions, could be stopped almost as easily 

as a small one, perhaps even by the East Germans 

without Soviet assistance, and the greater the force 

used, the greater the embarrassment which would 

result from failure . . . We must also, in considering 

the size of the effort to be used, remember that 

nothing would impress the Soviets less than wasting 

in the corridor the forces that are known to be 

essential to our over-all defense.”12

D E F E N D I N G B E R L I N A I R C O R R I D O R S E X P O S E S 

NATO VULNERABILITIES

 This was the great dilemma of the larger 

military 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 would otherwise 

force the early use of nuclear weapons in a Berlin 

access crisis – was to consider a major build-up 

not only of the U.S. forces deployed in Europe 

but also those of the NATO allies. At the request 

of Secretary McNamara, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of 

Staff developed a “Requirement Plan for the Allies” 

listing measures that the NATO allies could take to 

increase their forces’ readiness. President Kennedy 

then issued a direct appeal to the NATO allies 

on 20 July 1961 to undertake such an immediate 

military build-up to meet the Soviet challenge over 

Berlin. This appeal took the form of personal letters 

to President de Gaulle, Prime Minister Macmillan 

and Chancellor Adenauer, plus directives to U.S. 

ambassadors in the other capitals to inform the 

foreign ministers of the proposed U.S. military 

build-up and the United States’ desire that the 

other NATO members make a comparable effort.13

 As a follow-up, Secretary of State Rusk addressed 

a private meeting of the North Atlantic Council on 

8 August 1961. He urged the Alliance to support 

the preparation of economic countermeasures and 

NATO coordination of “propaganda and political 

action in support of our position in Berlin.” He 

supported the need for a NATO military build-up, 

noting that “If there is any way, short of the actual 

use of force, by which the Soviets can be made to 

realize Western determination, it is by making our 

strength visibly larger.” He also stated that the 

build-up may “influence Soviet political decisions.” 

Secretary Rusk informed the Council that existing 

military contingency plans were being reviewed, 

“the military contingency planning group known 

as Live Oak is being brought into the SHAPE 

[Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe] 

area, and we can expect close coordination of that 

planning with NATO as a whole.” He called for the 

West to have a “wide choice of courses of action 

after the first Soviet use of force,” even though 

some of these plans might never be executed and 

recognizing the fact that “planning implies no 

commitment to execute.” He also called for the 

NATO allies to bring their forces up to previously 

agreed forces levels and to make their first-echelon 

forces combat ready. In the economic field they 

should be prepared to impose a total embargo on 

the Communist bloc in the event Western access is 

blocked. Reaction in the Council to Rusk’s speech 

9

McNamara to Kennedy, 5 May 1961, FRUS 1961-1963, 14:61-63.

10Chiefs of Staff Committee, Confi dential Annex to COS(61)38th Meeting Held on Tuesday, 20th June 1961, DEFE 4/136, UK National Archives,. 11Cyril Buffet, “De Gaulle, the Bomb and Berlin: How to Use a Political Weapon,” in Gearson and Schake (eds.), Berlin Wall Crisis, 86. 12Norstad to McNamara, 29 May 1961, NSA BPF.

13JCS, Germany and the Berlin Question, 2:224. See also FRUS 1961-1963, 14:223-224.
31

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

was generally supportive, and the ambassadors 

agreed to meet again to consider their governments’ 

preliminary reactions.14

Secretary Rusk’s statement that LIVE OAK “was 

being brought into the SHAPE area” referred 

simply to the physical move of the staff from the 

USEUCOM compound to the SHAPE compound, 

a move for which General Norstad had requested 

authorization from the Tripartite Chiefs of Staff on 

4 August 1961 in order to provide the British and 

French staffs at LIVE OAK access to their national 

secure communications facilities at SHAPE, to 

enable him to supervise the staff’s work more 

closely, and to facilitate the transfer of control 

of operations to NATO if that proved necessary. 

However, there was some initial confusion about 

this statement at NATO Headquarters, with the 

head of defense planning in NATO’s International 

Staff informing the Deputy Secretary-General that 

“the decision to transfer direction of LIVE OAK’s 

operations to SHAPE confirms the intention of 

the United States, Great Britain, and France to 

put this matter under NATO, in particular into the 

hands of the military authorities of the Alliance.”15 

In reality, LIVE OAK remained an independent 

organization until the end of its existence in 1990, 

but the move to SHAPE did symbolize the desire to 

create a closer relationship between quadripartite 

and NATO planning as well as to ensure a rapid 

transfer of control once operations to restore access 

to Berlin moved past the smaller LIVE OAK plans. 

In addition to the move to SHAPE, LIVE OAK 

underwent another key change on 9 August 1961, 

when a German liaison officer joined the staff. The 

Washington Ambassadorial Group also became 

quadripartite through the addition of the German 

ambassador to the U.S. in late July. Although 

German military personnel and diplomats were now 

involved in the LIVE OAK planning and approval 

process, the Bundeswehr could not take part in any 

Allied military actions on the access routes or in the 

air corridors; these had to remain tripartite.

As a follow-on to Secretary Rusk’s call for stronger 

conventional forces in the Alliance, SACEUR 

Norstad wrote to Secretary-General Dirk Stikker 

on 11 August outlining a series of “actions which 

could be taken by NATO countries to prepare for a 

possible Berlin crisis.” He provided detailed tables of 

the current land, sea, and air forces for each NATO 

member, including their authorized versus actual 

periods of compulsory military service, and he made 

recommendations for specific measures to “improve 

the posture of the Alliance in the next few months.”16

14Although the actual discussions of the private meeting of the NAC on 8 

August 1961 have not yet been declassifi ed, Rusk described to President 

Kennedy what he intended to say in a telegram on the previous day 

(FRUS, 1961-1963,14:309-311), and the full text of his presentation 

on the military build-up is found in the United States Delegation, 

Memorandum on Statement to the North Atlantic Council in Private 

Session on Military Build-Up, Soviet Motives and Intentions, 8 August 

1961, Military Planning for Berlin Emergency (1961-1968) [hereafter 

cited as MPBE], DEF 4-4-04 (1961-1), Sec. 1, Doc. 2, NATO Archives. 

NATO’s recently declassifi ed collection of documents related to the 

Second Berlin Crisis can be found on the Archives portion of the NATO 

website (www.nato.int/archives/berlin) with the title “Military Planning 

for Berlin Emergency (1961-1968).” 

15JS.100/61, J. Sagne, Note Pour M. le Secretaire General Delegué, 

Propositions américaines dans le domaine militaire à l’occasion de la crise 

de Berlin, 10 August 1961, MPBE, DEF 4-4-04 (1961-1), Sec. 3, Doc. 1. 

Mr. Sagne was Head of the Finance and Defence Planning Section of the 

Economics and Finance Division, which later became the Defence Plans 

and Policy Division.

16Norstad to Stikker, Actions to be Taken by NATO Countries for a 

Possible Berlin Crisis, 11 August 1961, MPBE, DEF 4-4-04 (1961-1), 

Sec. 3, Doc. 2, NATO Archives.

T O R E A D T H I S A R T I C L E I N I T S E N T I R E T Y , P L E A S E 

REFER TO THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER, ON THE DVD.

Berlin, 1961

Barbed wire is coiled underneath the sign 

announcing the end of the French sector 

of West Berlin. Behind the East German 

soldiers guarding the border, East Berlin 

civilians stand silently watching.
A CITY TORN APART

32

Crisis over Berlin was produced by the Historical 

Office of the Department of State at the request of 

Martin J. Hillenbrand, a senior Foreign Service 

Officer and scholar of Germany. Hillenbrand 

requested the document in his capacity as Deputy 

Head of the Berlin Task Force (BTF), an interagency 

body charged with coordinating responses to the 

Berlin crisis. Hillenbrand’s formal request of March 

4, 1963 notes that the BTF found military histories 

of the crisis operationally helpful. Hillenbrand also 

hoped a State Department project focusing on the 

diplomatic aspects of the crisis would be, “useful in 

the future when the history of this particular foreign 

policy problem comes to be written.”2

 The Historical 

Office accepted the tasking on March 22, 1963. Dr. 

Arthur Kogan was relieved of his other duties to 

fulfill Hillenbrand’s request. In conversation with 

Kogan, Hillenbrand emphasized the historical import 

of the project, requesting a “thorough” account of 

“some length.”3

 Kogan received extensive access to 

highly classified Department of State documents 

for the purpose of creating the most comprehensive 

possible account. To address Hillenbrand’s request 

for a comprehensive account, Kogan designed an 

eight-part study covering the period November 

1958-December 1962. Kogan transmitted the draft of 

Part I to Hillenbrand on August 21, 1964. Hillenbrand 

extensively involved himself in the project, critiquing 

Part I in detail. Kogan noted, “Your comments and 

suggestions regarding Part I were most helpful and 

they have been fully taken into account in the drafting 

of the final version.”4

 While waiting for Hillenbrand’s 

1

Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Offi ce of the Historian Records, Research Project 614, in six parts: Folder 614-A, Crisis Over Berlin: American 

Policy Concerning the Soviet Threats to Berlin, November 1958-December 1962: Part I: Renewed Soviet Threats Against Berlin and the Western Response, 

November 1958-April 1959, 126 pp., October 1966; Folder 614-B, Crisis Over Berlin: American Policy Concerning the Soviet Threats to Berlin, November 

1958-December 1962: Part II: The Geneva Foreign Ministers Meeting, May-August 1959, 118 pp., July 1969; Folder 614-C, Crisis Over Berlin: American Policy Concerning the Soviet Threats to Berlin, November 1958-December 1962: Part III: From the End of the Geneva Foreign Ministers Meeting to the Abortive 

Summit Meeting, August 1958-May 1960, 127 pp., October 1969; Folder 614-D, Crisis Over Berlin: American Policy Concerning the Soviet Threats to Berlin, 

November 1958-December 1962: Part IV: Developments During the Final Phase of the Eisenhower Administration, June 1960-January 1961, 96 pp., February 

1970; Folder 614-E, Crisis Over Berlin: American Policy Concerning the Soviet Threats to Berlin, November 1958-December 1962: Part V: Developments in 

the Early Phase of the Kennedy Administration and the Meeting with Khrushchev at Vienna, January-June 1961, 56 pp., February 1970; Folder 614-F, Crisis 

Over Berlin: American Policy Concerning the Soviet Threats to Berlin, November 1958-December 1962: Part VI: Deepening Crisis Over Berlin: Communist 

Challenges and Western Responses, June-September 1961, 143 pp., April 1970 (includes Documentary Appendix). An additional part, Folder 614, Crisis Over 

Berlin: American Policy Concerning the Soviet Threats to Berlin, November 1958-December 1962: Introduction, 17 pp., October 1966, is missing from this fi le. 2

Hillenbrand to Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Robert J. Manning, March 4, 1963, ibid., Folder 614-A. 

3

Memorandum of Conversation between Hillenbrand, Kogan, and Edwin S. Costrell (P/HO), April 1, 1963, ibid., Folder 614-A. 4

Kogan to Hillenbrand, March 2, 1965, ibid., Folder 614-A

5

Historical Offi ce Deputy Director Richardson Dougall to Hillenbrand, August 11, 1969, ibid., Folder 614-A 6

Hillenbrand, Martin J., Fragments of Our Time: Memoirs of a Diplomat, Athens GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998.

comments on Part I, Kogan finished drafts of Parts II, 

III, and IV. Hillenbrand, newly appointed Minister 

to Bonn, brought Kogan to Berlin in June 1965 so he 

could take an aerial tour of the city and speak to key 

actors in the Berlin crisis. Soon after the completion of 

this trip, Kogan was appointed Chief of the Research 

Guidance and Review Branch of the Historical Office. 

Kogan’s new duties prevented him from working 

extensively on the Berlin study; he noted regretfully 

on January 24, 1967 that Hillenbrand’s revisions to 

Parts II, III, IV, and V had not been included and 

that his work on the draft of Part VI was incomplete. 

Kogan sent Part VI to Hillenbrand on June 14, 

1967. Writing that he would not be able to undertake 

the final two sections of the study, he expressed his 

belief that the present study, extending to September 

1961, was sufficiently detailed to accomplish 

Hillenbrand’s goals. The final copy of Part II was sent 

to Hillenbrand on August 11, 1969. The transmission 

letter for Part II stated that Parts III, IV, V, and 

VI, “will be given the final treatment before many 

months.”5

 In March and April of 1970, Hillenbrand, 

then serving as Assistant Secretary of State for 

European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR), sent final 

versions of the Parts I through VI to senior officials 

in EUR, the Executive Secretariat to the Secretary 

of State, the United States Embassy in Bonn, and the 

NSC. Hillenbrand’s enduring fondness for the project 

led him to request declassification of the study, and 

in his memoir, Fragments of Our Time: Memoirs of a 

Diplomat, Hillenbrand praised Kogan’s valuable and 

detailed work.6

CRISIS OVER BERLIN

BY THE HISTORICAL OFFICE, 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE1

A STUDY PRODUCED 
33

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

selected 

intelligence documents

Berlin 1961

Why? A child looks in wonderment at the 

wall built by the East German Communists.
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
A CITY TORN APART

42

acknowledgements

The CIA’s Historical Collections Division and NARA’s National Declassification Center gratefully 

acknowledges the following individuals, organizations and staffs for their declassification assistance 

and their courteous contribution of materials for this collection.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Presidential Library and Museum

Abilene, Kansas

Office of the Historian

Department of State

Washington, DC

Harry S. Truman

Presidential Library and Museum

Independence, Missouri

Historical Office

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe 

[SHAPE], Brussels, Belgium

John F. Kennedy

Presidential Library and Museum

Boston, Massachusetts

Joint Chiefs of Staff

Pentagon

Arlington, Virginia

Lyndon B. Johnson

Presidential Library and Museum 

Austin, Texas

Army Declassification

Records Management & Declassification Agency

Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Ike Skelton Library

Joint Forces Staff College

Norfolk, Virginia
43

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

Poster advertising the symposium, tear-out and display.
A CITY TORN APART

44

disclaimer

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this 

booklet are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect 

official positions or views of the Central Intelligence Agency, 

National Archives and Records Administration or any other 

US government entity, past or present. Nothing in the contents 

should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government 

endorsement of an article’s statements or interpretations.
45

BUILDING OF THE BERLIN WALL

The Historical Collections and Information Review and Release Divisions of the Central 

Intelligence Agency’s Office of Information Management Services reviewed, redacted, and 

released hundreds of documents related to the Berlin Wall for this event. The accompanying 

DVD contains over 370+ documents and more than 4,800+ pages of material.

The material is organized into the following categories.

The Berlin Wall document collection features CIA memorandums, summaries and estimates; 

Departent of the Army documents and summaries; documents from the historical collections 

of SHAPE and the Department of State; and materials from the presidential libraries of Harry 

S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. 

The multimedia collection—photos, audio, and video material from the collections of the National 

Archives and Records Administration and the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

This DVD will work on most computers and the documents are in .PDF format.

IPS 110008
A CITY TORN APART

46