Berlin 1961.

• Author: Palmer, Mark
• Position: Book review

Berlin 1961

Reviewed by Ambassdor Mark Palmer

Frederick Kempe, Berlin 1961, Putnam: N. Y., 2011, ISBN: 9781101505625, 608 pp., $29.95 (hardcover), $16.00 (paperback).

The 50th anniversary of the erection of the Berlin Wall has brought forth a rush of articles, statements and reflections on its significance--and one very good book. Former Wall Street Journal Europe editor and current Atlantic Council President, Frederick Kempe, has written a spellbinder in his recently published Berlin 1961. The Cuban Missile crisis a year later, which Kempe and other observers find was in part caused by the Kennedy Administration's handling of the Berlin Wall, is the subject of seemingly endless books and movies. Despite Khrushchev's view in his memoirs that Berlin was "the most dangerous place on earth," the diplomacy behind the Berlin Wall has received far less attention.

As Kempe himself states, "it struck me that none of these books had put together all the pieces that had contributed to the historic occurrences around Berlin in 1961. My goal was to produce a readable, authoritative narrative for both the expert and the general reader that would investigate all the available historical accounts and combine those with the more recently declassified materials in the United States, Germany and Russia."

From a parochial Foreign Service viewpoint, Berlin 1961 is particularly notable for the prominent roles which Kempe ascribes to distinguished American Foreign Service officers: Tommy Thompson, Chip Bohlen, Allan Lightner, Marty Hillenbrand, Foy Kohler, George Kennan. Their extraordinary closeness to Khrushchev and Kennedy, their understanding of things Soviet, German and--importantly--American, and their willingness to fight for what they believed to be in our best interest, even in the face of strong crossfire, are on prominent display.

Equally intriguing is that these FSOs (and others) split over their recommendations to Kennedy on how to handle Khrushchev. As Kempe notes: "Kennedy saw his administration separating into two camps. The first was becoming known as the Hard-Liners on Berlin and while the other had been disparagingly labeled by the hawks in the room as the SLOBs, or the Soft-Liners on Berlin. The hardliners included Acheson and Assistant Secretary of State Foy Kohler, the whole of the German desk at the State Department, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze, and more often than not the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and Vice...