Show me your ear! The Berlin wall.

• Author: Baker, Bob
• Position: Visiting East Germany - Travel narrative

Part of my job at U.S. Embassy, London, was to persuade British student leaders that despite our war in Vietnam, we were still necessary and reliable partners in Britain's most important alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That was also our bulwark against communist expansionism.

In 1973 I asked the American guys at NATO headquarters in Brussels to pay annually for a dozen British student leaders to get NATO briefings in Berlin and Mons (NATO headquarters) near Brussels. Terry, my British assistant, and I went along on the trips, which lasted a week. They were a great way to talk in depth about politics and military realities in Europe with the students.

Later on in their adult careers the students who had been on the trips included an editor-in-chief (The Sunday Times), a major figure in the Anglo-American Corporation, members of the Special Air Service, and of the U.K. and EU Parliaments. I hope their NATO trips influenced them in later life to support U.S. interests.

British and American military officers gave excellent briefings on Europe's military situation at NATO HQ in Mons. In Berlin, German city officials also gave outstanding briefings on the city and its problems. At the time, West Berlin was surrounded by communist power and shut off from the rest of Germany by the Berlin Wall. That kept all East Germans inside the Peoples Paradise. Escape was almost impossible. (A couple brave East Germans were killed each year as they tried to escape over, under or around the Wall).

The British (and American) publics were rarely aware of the massive Soviet military power in Europe. The briefings showed the future leaders of Britain in detail that the Soviets hugely outgunned NATO in troops, troop carriers, tanks, artillery, etc. NATO had better air forces thanks to the U.S. which also kept 300,000 ground troops in Europe. Germany voluntarily spent about $5 billion a year to help pay for our troops there. The final guarantor of West European security was our nuclear weapons shield, but our other armed forces were very important militarily and as evidence of US resolve to keep Europe free.

Berlin was the most emotionally striking part of our NATO tour. The highlight was when we got out of our British Army jeeps in the wooded part of the Berlin Wall in the British sector. The Brits, Americans and French still occupied their sectors of Berlin as agreed by the Soviet communists at the end of WW II. Soviet Moscow had set up a puppet...