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40 Years Ago, U.S. Faced Down Soviets in Berlin

By W. R. Smyser

Special to The St. Petersburg Times

The Associated Press U.S. Army and Soviet tanks standing off at Checkpoint Charlie on Oct. 28, 1961.

On Sunday evening, Oct. 22, 1961, Allan Lightner, the chief of the U.S. Mission in Berlin, wanted to pass through Checkpoint Charlie to attend the opera in East Berlin.

Just before that evening 40 years ago, Walter Ulbricht, the chief of the Sozialistische Einheits-Partei, or SED, had returned in a rage from the 22nd Communist Party Congress in Moscow. During that congress, Nikita Khru shchev had not repeated his demand for a German peace treaty by Dec. 31, 1961, and had stressed "peaceful coexistence." Ulbricht had contradicted Khrushchev, telling the congress that the peace treaty was "a task of the utmost urgency," but Khrushchev had not listened.

For Ulbricht, the Wall had saved his regime but not given him what he really wanted, which was to neutralize West Berlin and destroy its freedom. He had informed Khrushchev that SED cadres were ready to invade West Berlin - provided the Soviets supported them - but Khrushchev had not agreed.

Ulbricht and other Communist SED leaders wanted all of Berlin, not talk of peaceful coexistence. They wanted to destroy the confidence of the Berliners. The SED knew that this could best be done by humiliating the Americans.

Thus the Vopos, the East German police, stopped Lightner and demanded his identification documents. Lightner, following long-standing practice, said that he was with the U.S. occupation authority, as shown by his license plate. He refused to show identification.

General Lucius Clay, who had just arrived in Berlin as U.S. President John F. Kennedy's personal representative, went to the American operations center in West Berlin to deal with the crisis. He sent a squad of American soldiers to the checkpoint.

As the Soviet political adviser had not even returned from Moscow, his deputy hurried to the scene. Not sure what to do, he told an American political adviser that Lightner should follow the police's instructions.

Clay then ordered the U.S. soldiers to escort Lightner's car through the checkpoint. The Vopos drew back and the car proceeded. It went in and out several times to make the point. The Soviet official told the American that the incident had been a "mistake."

Some Washington advisers to President Kennedy criticized Clay's action. But Clay cabled Kennedy that he intended to meet the East German action firmly to show the Berliners that the Americans would face all challenges.

Ulbricht and the SED still wanted to show that they could dictate to the Americans. The next day, they published a decree stating that henceforth all civilian foreigners would have to show identification to the Vopos.

Clay then launched a probe. He sent a car to Checkpoint Charlie with two soldiers dressed in civilian clothes. They were, as Clay expected, stopped by Vopos when they tried to enter East Berlin.

But Ulbricht was playing into Clay's hands. Clay believed firmly that Khru shchev did not want war and would let Ulbricht carry out his provocations only as long as the Americans would not react with more than a protest. If Khrushchev thought he could control the temperature of the Berlin crisis, he would let Ulbricht keep it bubbling. Once he feared it would boil over, he would turn off the heat. That was what Clay wanted.

Clay, therefore, wanted to become unpredictable. To save West Berlin, Clay had to make the situation potentially dangerous enough for Khru shchev and for Marshal Ivan Ko nev, whom Khrushchev had sent to Be rlin as commander of Soviet forces, to tell Ulbricht to stop his provocations.

Therefore, Clay mounted a bigger show of force, bringing 10 tanks to a short distance from the checkpoint. Once again, a squad of U.S. soldiers escorted an American car in and out.

The American tanks, some equipped with bulldozer blades, alarmed Konev. He feared that the tanks might advance right through the Mitte district and cut off all major East German ministry buildings as well as the Soviet Embassy from the main body of East Berlin. The Soviets either had to block the tanks themselves or let Ulbricht do so. And they did not trust Ulbricht.

Konev brought 10 Soviet tanks near the checkpoint, to a grassy lot near Friedrichstrasse, where a luxury shopping mall now stands. The Soviets covered their insignia with mud to suggest that the tanks were East German, but U. S. soldiers monitoring their radios knew that they were Russian.

Clay wanted to bring the Soviet tanks into the open. On the next afternoon, he repeated that test and, when the Vopos blocked the American car, he moved the American tanks right up to the checkpoint and the American sector border line.

As Clay expected, the Soviet tanks rambled off their lot and came up to the checkpoint to face the American tanks. And, throughout the evening, the tank face-off continued, providing some of the most dramatic photographs of the Cold War.

Clay felt relieved that Konev had sent Russian tanks. They eliminated any chance that Ulbricht might provoke a real crisis.

But press stories conveyed a sense of imminent conflict. Kennedy's advisers urged the president to tell Clay to pull back the tanks.

Kennedy called Clay at the operations center. When Clay said, "Hello, Mr. President," the center fell silent. Kennedy asked Clay about the situation. Clay told him that the Soviets had matched the American tank force, tank for tank, and thus shown that Moscow wanted no trouble.

Clay added that he saw the Soviet tank deployment as a sign they did not want to run any real risks over Berlin. Kennedy urged Clay and his colleagues not to lose their nerves. Clay replied that he and others in Berlin were not worried about losing their own nerves but about those in Washington losing theirs. Kennedy replied, "I've got a lot of people here that have, but I haven't."

Kennedy's reaction showed that the president understood Clay and supported him. He did not order Clay to withdraw the American tanks. Instead, by 10:30 the following morning, the Soviet tanks began withdrawing. Clay instructed the U.S. tanks to withdraw as well. In an elaborate minuet, the Soviet and American tanks pulled back sequentially until, within half an hour, all tanks had left the checkpoint.

Clay felt that the U.S. tanks had done what he had wanted. The confrontation had proven his point. It had forced the Soviets to assume their responsibilities. In the process, they had also inflicted a deep humiliation on Ulbricht and the SED.

The Checkpoint Charlie confrontation proved to be one of the decisive moments in the history of divided Germany. Instead of humiliating the Americans and demoralizing the Berliners as Ulbricht and the SED had wanted, it had done the opposite. It destroyed the image of a sovereign East Germany. Soviet tanks had to save Ulbricht only a few blocks from his office.

Khrushchev and Konev did not want to risk war. They agreed with Clay to keep the confrontation from escalating. Having seen what Ulbricht would do on his own, Khrushchev called him to Moscow and subsequently kept him under stricter control.

By the winter and over the following spring, investment again flowed into West Berlin and people stopped leaving. This put an end to Ulbricht's hope that West Berlin could be neutralized and brought under SED control. Ulbricht could keep the East Berliners and East Germans in prison behind the Wall, but he could not win West Berlin.

W.R. Smyser was special assistant to General Clay in Berlin during the Check point Charlie confrontation. He is now a professor at Georgetown University in Washington. This article comes from his book "From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle Over Germany."

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