Nothing seemed to vindicate Arthur Miller’s image of a world “gripped between two diametrically opposed absolutes” more than the Berlin Crisis of 1961. The Berlin Crisis of 1961 finds its origins in it’s prequel crisis more than a decade earlier — The Berlin Blockade of 1948. Stalin carried out the blockade to coerce the allied powers to abandon Berlin. Western Berlin recovered as a result of the Berlin airlift, when the allied powers delivered supplies to the people of West Berlin from 1948-1949. Even in the wake of the airlift, however, they would not cede their vision of a Western Berlin free from Western control, ultimately laying the framework for the division of the two spheres of influence within the city of Berlin. On November 10, 1958, a decade after the Berlin blockade, Krushchev reiterated the Soviet demand that the allied powers relinquish their military presence within in six months. It was this threat that initiated a crisis in U.S.-Soviet Bloc relations, over the disputed future of Berlin, that would ultimately reach its climax in 1961 with the construction of the Berlin Wall. Soviet and East German officials alike began to perceive West Berlin as a liability, given that the nature of the partition of the city accentuated the stark juxtaposition between the capitalist and communist systems. The stark contrast between the two Berlins would later spark a mass exodus from the East to the West, that was facilitated by the freedom of movement between them. While the Soviet Premier issued his ultimatum to the allied powers, the United States simultaneously hailed West Berlin as a triumph of the capitalist system and as a result had a deep security commitment to Western Berlin. Washington even encouraged and allayed East Berliners in their migration to the West, as matter of the Kennedy administration’s official policy. It was clear that any Soviet provocation restricting land access implied the potential for a direct confrontation and dire escalation of a conflict between the two powers.
On August 13th, 1961, the Berlin Wall was erected at the direction of East German leader Walter Ulbrict, which had began the construction of a barbed wire fence separating the East and the West the night before. Not only did the subsequent erection of the Berlin wall end migration out of the communist sector, in doing so it effectively putting an end to the capitalist sector’s influence. In the aftermath of the crisis the wall would remain a symbol of this great ideological and physical divide that would span nearly three decades. President John F. Kennedy pledged his reassurance to the people of West Germany and echoed the United States’ resolve:“…we seek peace–but we shall not surrender. That is the central meaning of this crisis, and the meaning of your government's policy.” Such a bold rhetorical juxtaposition between war and peace, as well as the thin between the two could not more explicit – reflecting the true nature of the crisis.
President Kennedy was able to avert war in what Premier Nikita Krushchev called “the most dangerous place on earth”, by signaling the U.S.’s resolve through brinksmanship and tying hands and communicating the United States intentions behind closed doors through secret reassurances.
One of the tensest moments during the occurred prior to the erection of the wall itself, following the Vienna Summit. In the months leading up to the summit, President Kennedy was cautioned by Washington’s ambassador to Moscow that if a consensus on the future of Berlin and Germany than Krushchev would pursue his own separate peace treaty — in direct conflict with the interests of the United States. The gravest implication of potential Soviet delegation of absolute authority over East Berlin to the East German government would be that American communication with and control of West Berlin, would be at the behest of East German officials. The prospect of a separate Soviet peace treaty thus threatened the existing balance of power and meant a potential end to American influence in East Berlin This question of a separate Soviet treaty with Berlin dominated the discourse between the U.S. President and the Soviet Premier at the Vienna summit, with regard to the Berlin Crisis. Debate over the Berlin question reached an impasse and the summit ultimately ended in failure with regard to progress on Berlin. Following the summit, Krushchev reissued same the Soviet ultimatum he had initially threatened the Eisenhower administration with in 1958, giving the United States six months to withdraw from Berlin within six months. With the prospect of skirmish over the future of West Berlin, President Kennedy retaliated by demonstrating U.S. resolve through brinkmanship. The president’s preparations for an escalation of the crisis included increases in the defense budget and an order to activate 150,000 reservists. This type of American brinkmanship lead the Soviets to wonder as to how the United States would react to the signing of a separate Soviet treaty with Berlin, which prompted the construction of the Berlin Wall. As Petr Lunak obesrves in his article, Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis: Soviet Brinkmanship Seen from Inside, the mechanism of brinkmanship played a crucial role in his perception of American resolve:
American brinkmanship after the meeting in Vienna had an effect on Khrushchev… Khrushchev was also concerned about the possibility that Kennedy would respond to unilateral measures in West Berlin with conventional weapons under the false assumption that he would be able to keep the conflict at a controllable level, as Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara and his whiz kids had convinced him.
It’s important to note that Premier Krushchev believe that President Kennedy’s approach to foreign policy would take a much softer stance with regard to the Soviet Union than the Eisenhower administration. Following the Vienna Summit it was clear that American brinkmanship, would remain an indelible facet of the Berlin only to be reinforced by Kennedy issuing costly signals.
President Kennedy’s July 1961 speech is a poignant example the U.S.’s use of the mechanism of tying hands. In his address, President Kennedy even raised the specter on nuclear war, but what was most relevant with regards to the tying of hands was his scathing analysis of the role the Soviets played in the origins of the Berlin Crisis of 1961:
[If] war begins, it will have begun in Moscow and not Berlin. For the choice of peace or war is largely theirs, not ours. It is the Soviets who have stirred up this crisis. It is they who are trying to force a change. It is they who have opposed free elections. It is they who have rejected an all-German peace treaty, and the rulings of international law.
Thus, Kennedy acknowledged the prospect of war and outline where the Soviets had blame he tacitly threatened it should the Soviets continue their role in the crisis. Kennedy essentially generate a costly signal even through such a tacit threat, reiterating that any Soviet provocation continuing in the tradition of those carried out which lead to the Berlin crisis would inevitably lead to war. This is an example of the view present by Shuhei Kurizaki in Efficient Secrecy: Public versus Private Threats in Crisis Diplomacy, “[The] gist of the tying-hands mechanism is a double-edged sword: generating audience costs by going public simultaneously facilitates separation of types of an informed state (informational effects) and escalates a risk of costly fighting (escalatory effects).” (Kurizaki, 544) President Kennedy generated audience costs by, albeit implicitly, vowing to respond to the Soviets war and by doing so increased the prospect of waging war. The Checkpoint Charlie Crisis, at the height of the Berlin Crisis of 1961, however, would be the ultimate test of this resolve.
The Check Point Charlie crisis began October 22nd, when a chief U.S. diplomat was barred entrance to the State Opera House pending when he refused to present his passport to the East Germans for inspection claiming that only the Soviets had that right. The situation intensified when General Lucius D. Clay ordered that American diplomats were to be escorted in vehicles with armed U.S. army military police and severely escalated when Clay ordered American tanks to move to Checkpoint Charlie. Moscow responded to the threat by deploying an equal number of Soviet tanks to Checkpoint Charlie where the two would stare each other down for 16 hours. The standoff was uItimately resolved through Kennedy’s use of back channel diplomacy with the Soviets. President Kennedy could have faced domestic audiences costs should it have been revealed that the United States chose to back down in secret. Dean G. Pruitt, in his article, Back-channel Communication in the Settlement of Conflict, reinforces back-channel negotiation as a means to avoid the imposition of audience costs. The secret channel between the United States and the Soviet Union was also significant because it allowed the U.S. to asses whether or not it could extract concessions the Soviets. The Kennedy administrations move to resolve the Checkpoint Charlie standoff is consistent with Pruitt’s view that, “back-channel communication allows assessment of the adversary's readiness to negotiate and make concessions.” The use of U.S.-U.S.S.R back-channelling was vindicated by. the historical context in which it took place, prior to the Checkpoint Charlie standoff front-channel negotiations between President Kennedy and Premier Krushchev reached a diplomatic impasse of the question of Berlin. Thus, the prospect of successful front-channel negotiations, in addition to being very costly for both President Kennedy and Premier Krushchev alike — the very initiative was high unlikely to be taken in the first place. The resolution of the Checkpoint Charlie crisis, in the greater context of the Berlin Crisis of 1961, is consistent with Pruitt’s assessment of back-channel negotiations as,”very useful as an adjunct to front- channel negotiation when deadlocks develop.”` President Kennedy the Attorney-General of the United States, Robert Kennedy, to resolve the crisis with the de facto Soviet envoy of the past six months, Georgi Balshkov. Following the talks between Balshkov and Kennedy meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, the Soviets removed their tanks from Checkpoint Charlie and shortly there after the U.S. removed theirs. Robert F. Kennedy’s meeting with Balshkov is a poignant example of secret reassurances as a way of communicating intentions while simultaneously tying hands. The U.S. was able to communicate its intention of peacefully solving the crisis by backing down. The Attorney General suggested to the Soviet spy that should the Soviets withdraw their tanks, the United States would reciprocate. This allowed the United States to concede, in a withdrawal from principle. This is a poignant example of what makes communication in secret credible, which as Karen Yarhi-Milo’s argues,”permits riskier as well as costlier activity” (Yahri-Milo et. al, 134) in because the crisis probably could not have been resolved without signaling that was costly it had to be carried out in private.
Ultimately, the Soviets responded to these costly American overtures with the Berlin Wall. Although, the crisis did not end with reopening a direct line of transport between East and West Berlin — it is a successful case study in crisis management and arguably would pave the way as a model from the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Crisis of 1961 also illustrated the interdependence of the mechanism of crisis management and crisis bargaining. It was indeed several types of costly gestures — whether in public or private — that brought about a resolution to the crisis.