V o L u m e I : a d

surrounded Berlin, so the West’s occupation forces in the city were insignifi-

cant. Eisenhower therefore made it known, sometimes subtly, that the United

States had no intention of fighting a conventional war in Europe. He would

respond to a Soviet move to cut off the city by using atomic weapons. In early

March 1959, I attended a White House meeting with congressional leaders

during which Ike assured his astonished and frightened audience that he was

going through with a prearranged, scheduled cut of 30,000 men despite the

current tensions. If Khrushchev went through with his threat, we would

unleash the Strategic Air Command’s bombers—or so the tea leaves read.

The meeting had a sobering effect on the assembled participants, and

frankly it frightened me. I have mulled the matter over in my mind many

times and have never been certain whether the president would have gone

through with that threat. After long consideration, I have concluded that he

would not. It would be better to lose not only Berlin but even all of Western

Europe than to destroy Earth. But Ike was a great poker player, and the

deterrence worked. Khrushchev could not have been unaware that his six-

month ultimatum had slipped by while the diplomats exchanged words

around the conference tables.

For a while it appeared that a real understanding might be developed

between Khrushchev and the West. A visit of the Soviet premier to the United

States resulted in a temporary era of good feeling between the two super-

powers. But that period came to an end when the unthinkable occurred: a

U-2 was shot down over Sverdlovsk, near Moscow. The results were severe,

although we never came close to going to war. After much furor, including a

shoe-banging exhibition by Khrushchev in the UN, the international situa-

tion calmed. The chance for détente was gone, but Khrushchev’s ultimatum

over Berlin had been neutralized.

One more major crisis, perhaps the most serious, was yet to be played

out, however. In January 1961, President John F. Kennedy came into office.

Although inexperienced, he was determined to take action. His first target

was Fidel Castro’s Cuba. In April, Cuban rebels, openly trained and sup-

ported by the United States, landed at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba’s southern

coast only to be overwhelmed and captured by Castro’s troops. The result-

ing embarrassment to the United States, reinforced by the lack of Western

resistance to his building the Berlin Wall in December 1961, apparently gave

Khrushchev an unrealistic confidence that he could bulldoze Kennedy

under any circumstances. In late October 1962, Khrushchev decided that he

could take the bold step of installing missiles, supposedly nuclear-armed, on

the soil of his ally Cuba.

In this instance, however, conventional military forces proved their

supremacy in a practical world. President Kennedy proclaimed a blockade of

Cuba and ordered the U.S. Navy to intercept the Soviet ships carrying the

missiles. Ultimately Khrushchev backed down, and both sides made conces-

sions. But both powers felt a relief. They had stepped up to the brink, and

both now realized that they had been spared Armageddon. The Cold War

continued formally for almost two more decades, but from then on it was

defanged.

A Personal Perspective

11

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The Years of Confrontation (1962–1989)

The world, or rather the East and West, learned the lessons of the Cuban

Missile Crisis well. Although the two sides remained implacable enemies—

or seemed to—the fear of instant annihilation was largely gone. No longer

did schoolchildren undergo atomic air raid drills; no longer did people build

fallout shelters in their basements. Military threats gave way to diplomatic

activity and clandestine spying.

Within a year or two of the Cuban Missile Crisis, however, the attention

of the United States turned from the large-scale threat of general war to what

was, by comparison, a small war, the American misadventure in Vietnam. This

was not the kind of war for which the American arsenal of superweapons had

been designed. Yet it was, in a way, an auxiliary part of the Cold War, because

it was waged between a communist nation—the Democratic Republic of Viet-

nam (DRV, North Vietnam)—and the United States. More important, it was

perhaps the last military action based on the basic American policy of con-

tainment, set forth in 1946. The United States lost the Vietnam War without

suffering defeat in any pitched battle. It all came about by an American mis-

understanding of the Vietnamese. In Vietnamese minds, it was not a war of

ideology; it was a war simply of national independence.

In 1979, the reverse occurred when the Soviet Union made the error of

invading Afghanistan with similar disastrous results. Again, that conflict was

not strictly a part of the Cold War, although the United States unabashedly

armed the Afghans against the Soviet invaders, hardly an act of friendship

toward the Soviet Union.

At the time of the end of the Vietnam War, I had an experience that gave

me some idea of the reasons for the mistrust of the Soviets by the West, per-

haps only one of many causes for the beginning of the Cold War.

On 8 May 1975, I was a member of a diplomatic delegation to Moscow

headed by former Ambassador W. Averell Harriman. The purpose was to

celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Nazi surrender in Europe. The West-

ern delegations were studded with prominent military leaders: Generals

Alfred M. Gruenther and Lyman L. Lemnitzer, both former supreme com-

manders in Europe under NATO, and Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten,

one of the most prominent British figures of the war.

In most respects, the diplomatic visit was both routine and pleasant. The

memorable moment, however, came at the ceremony itself. Soviet Premier

Leonid Brezhnev, before an audience of thousands, spent what seemed like

an interminable time berating the Western powers for their supposed delay

in crossing the English Channel in World War II. The Soviets, in desperate

straits in early 1942, had believed that the Allies could have come to their aid

much earlier than they did. In their minds, the Allies, Winston Churchill in

particular, were indifferent to the prospect of the Soviets being bled white.

In a way the scene had slightly amusing aspects. The most notable

memory, to me, is that of Lord Mountbatten, up on the stage, resplendent

in a white uniform and every decoration imaginable. He was forced to sit

unhappily and listen to the tirade with no prospect of replying. Yet outside

the Great Hall, the atmosphere was relatively friendly. I, for one, was happy

12

A Personal Perspective

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