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Construction began on The Berlin Wall early in the morning of Sunday, August 13, 1961. It was a desperate – and effective - move by the GDR (German Democratic Republic) to stop East Berliners escaping from the Soviet-controlled East German state into the West of the city, which was then occupied by the Americans, British and French.

Berlin's unique situation as a city half-controlled by Western forces, in the middle of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, made it a focal point for tensions between the Allies and the Soviets and a place where conflicting ideologies were enforced side-by-side. However, as more and more people in the Soviet-controlled East grew disillusioned with communism and the increasingly oppressive economic and political conditions, an increasing number began defecting to the West. By 1961 an estimated 1,500 people a day were fleeing to the West, damaging both the credibility and - more importantly - the workforce of the GDR. Soon rumours began to spread about a wall, and it wasn’t long after that those rumours were made a concrete reality.

On Aug. 13, 1961, Robert H. Lochner drove to the eastern sector of Berlin. A radio director in the city’s American sector, Lochner used a hidden tape recorder to capture stories of families who were suddenly trapped in the East by the decision to build the Berlin Wall. Thousands had been fleeing each week, threatening the Communist state’s viability. Now Lochner watched as an elderly woman timorously walked up to one of the transport policemen and inquired when the next train was due for West Berlin. He never forgot the officer’s contemptuous response: “That is all over. You are all sitting in a mousetrap now.”

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So Kennedy was actually relieved when he “only” saw the Wall going up?

Smyser: Kennedy thought to himself that day: Ah, that is the way Khrushchev will solve the refugee problem in East Germany — where many thousands of people had fled to the West in the previous months. The President said to aides, this is not a very nice solution but it is a hell of a lot better than war. After Kennedy left Vienna, he thought that war was on the horizon. What the Wall showed him was that Khrushchev was solving his refugee problem in a way that would not violate American rights.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The State Department in Washington even tried to frame it as a success for the West.

Smyser: That was one of the craziest things US diplomats ever did. We tried very hard to tell them that this was exactly the wrong message. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State at the time, wanted to say the construction of the wall represents a victory for the West because it showed that the Communists had to imprison their own people. But they only said it once or twice and when everybody scoffed, they retracted it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: To what extent was the West German government aware of Kennedy’s thought process?

Smyser: Not at all. But they knew that the Western powers had agreed shortly before that if there was only a stoppage of the refugee problem, for example by the installation of barbed wire or the construction of a wall, that would not trigger a war.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because Kennedy did not care first and foremost about the people in East Berlin.

Smyser: He was concerned about American lives in Berlin. The President said: German reunification is not an issue. What he worried about in Berlin was Khrushchev’s effort to force the Americans out or to shoot down an American plane flying there. He thought that might be a reason for war since he could not accept such hostility due to the strategic importance of Berlin during the Cold War. Kennedy was very concerned about a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union, much more than his predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was the first US president who had to cope with the fact that the Soviets could reach America with a nuclear missile.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did Kennedy fear Krushchev?

Smyser: He thought that Khrushchev was irrational. He feared that Krushchev might do something that would lead to war — and he seemed to Kennedy like a man he couldn’t deal with. After the Vienna summit, the President refused several invitations to meet with him again.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When did Kennedy begin to realize that his initial reaction to the construction of the Wall had been too muted?

Smyser: About 48 hours later. He realized it because in the two days after the construction, almost every American newspaper wrote that this was unacceptable and that it was a big defeat for the United States. They accused Kennedy of appeasement. Leading diplomats cabled the President from Europe: Hope is dying here, you have to do something. That was a real blow to Kennedy. Finally he decided he had to send a brigade to Berlin to avoid a public relations disaster. He did not anticipate American outrage over the construction of the Wall to be so strong.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And the Russians relented. They treated the incoming American brigade with the utmost courtesy and did not seek any further escalation.

Smyser: Khrushchev thought he could not go further at that point. Only later, during the Cuban missile crisis, did he dare to provoke the Americans again. Khrushchev would have even been happy with just the construction of barbed wire. He called the Wall “this hateful thing.” The Soviet leader was a strong believer in the glorious future of Communism. And such a future did not include a Wall. When the barbed wire was put up, he did not want more, for fear of economic retaliation by the West.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Kennedy recovered, too. When he travelled to Berlin in the June of 1963, he got a rock star reception. Hundreds of thousands of people cheered him on and listened to his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

Smyser: By then, the people in Berlin had obviously not forgotten the Wall and Kennedy’s silence about it. But they had begun to learn that Kennedy would defend them and would defend the right of the city to be as it was. They had seen that in the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which they had perceived as a Russian effort to threaten Kennedy and challenge him on Berlin. When the US President stood up to Khrushchev to force out the Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, people in Berlin told me: “It’s all about us.” They felt that the Cuban missile crisis had solved the Berlin crisis. Kennedy would have had a very different reception in Berlin just a year earlier. But by 1963, the citizens said: He is a good man, he fought for us. Of course, that only applies to the people in West Berlin. The people in the East continued to be disappointed in him

Bobby wrote:Vern,here it is:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUiQgZ7f820[/youtube]