The following is the orginal text of an article written by John C. Ausland, which appeared on the opinion page of the International Herald Tribune on November 14, 1989, under the headline: WHEN THEY SPLIT BERLIN, WASHINGTON WAS ASLEEP: Oslo. The opening of the Berlin wall has at least one point in common with its creation. It caught Washington and other capitals by surprise. I trust that George Bush will not react so cautiously that he will end up in trouble as John Kennedy did. Sunday, August 13, 1961 found me duty officer for the Berlin Task Force in the State Department. Having been east German desk officer in the early 1950s, I returned to the German desk in early July, 1961. John Kennedy had recently had his confrontation with Khruschev in Vienna, and a crisis atmosphere pervaded Washington. There were in fact two confrontations, one between Kennedy and Khruschev and another between the State Department and the White House. The Kennedy crowd made no secret of its distrust of the Foreign Service. When I noted to one of them that in Berlin the Kremlin was the enemy, he fixed me with a beady eye and said, "I am not so sure." He was not joking. Given John Kennedy's style, confusion reigned. The bureaucracy was kept in turmoil preparing replies to half- formulated questions. Different people had different preoccupations. In 1961 the four power (American, British, French, and German) planning apparatus was preparing for the 1948 Berlin blockade. Shortly before August 13, there had been a foreign ministers meeting in Paris. The main subject for discussion was what to do if east German guards replaced Soviet guards on the autobahn between the Federal Republic and Berlin. Others feared there could be a repetition of the 1953 east German uprising. They saw east Germany as a gigantic pressure cooker, which could explode at any moment. The flow of east Germans into west Berlin encouraged this analogy. By early August this had become a flood, and it was evident the east German regime would have to stop it. On July 22, the State Department sent a telegram to posts in Germany noting this. It added, "They could do this either by tightening controls over travel from Soviet Zone to East Berlin or by severely restricting travel from East to West Berlin." There was no US planning for the division of Berlin. When Walter Ulbricht gave the signal to divide the city, Washington was asleep. The duty officer in the State Department Operations Center awoke me about midnight. He said the press tickers indicated something was going on in Berlin but it was not clear what. I told him to phone me when he had an official report and went back to sleep. About four o'clock, the duty officer phoned again. He said a CIA message had arrived which had an indicator which called for awakening the President, who was in Hyannis Port. The White House later claimed that the President did not know what was going on until late morning. If this was so, there was a failure of communication somewhere between the White House and the President. I talked to the White House duty officer shortly after arriving at the State Department, about five o'clock. As the morning wore on, it became apparent that American leaders were taking a relaxed attitude toward events in Berlin. Secretary Rusk came in at ten o'clock as planned. After conferring with Foy Kohler, the head of the Berlin Task Force, he issued a calming press release and went to a baseball game. In Bonn, the American Embassy was also relaxed. During a later visit to Bonn, I learned Ambassador Walter Dowling and his Berlin experts did not realize anything was going on until the afternoon, when they also were attending a baseball game. Understandably feeling deserted, tempers in Berlin grew sharp. Willy Brandt sent an angry letter to Kennedy. Edward R. Murrow, who happened to be in Berlin, sent an alarming telegram about the ugly mood of the Berliners. There was a real danger West Berlin crowds would take matters into their own hands. Kennedy finally called a meeting in the White House on Thursday, August 17. Unwilling to take any military action in Berlin, he decided on two demonstrations. One was to send Vice President Lyndon Johnson by air to Berlin. The other was to despatch an army brigade to Berlin from the Federal Republic on the autobahn. In the hours after this meeting, it became clear that no consideration had been given there as to what the brigade commander would do if the Russians tried to stop him. The Joint Chiefs of Staff hurriedly wrote some rules of engagement. The US Army commander in Europe, General Bruce Clark, decided to give the brigade ammunition. The rules of engagement have never been published. As Secretary Rusk remarked to some of us, however, if the Soviets had tried to stop the brigade, there could have been some shooting. Had Kennedy reacted more quickly, sending Vice President Johnson could have been enough to reassure the West Berliners. Fortunately, Khruschev had his hands full in Berlin, without taking on a US Army unit on the autobahn. As a result, Vice President Johnson and the brigade both arrived in Berlin without incident, and the Berliners began to calm down. Some maintain that, if Kennedy had ordered a limited use of force in Berlin, Khruschev would have backed off. We will never know. Paul Nitze observed recently, though, that the US conventional force position in Berlin was extremely weak. A year later, when Khruschev tried to move the game to Cuba, the US had both conventional and nuclear superiority. This time it was Khruschev who backed away from the use of force. An irony: The Cuba crisis was followed by a Soviet military buildup that helped bankrupt Moscow. That in turn led to the opening of the Berlin Wall. John C. Ausland CIS: 73240,2704 Internet: d_ausland_j@kari.uio.no