211. Testimony by the Chief of Staff of the Army (Taylor) Before the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services0
[Here follow introductory remarks.]
General Taylor. The Berlin situation has, of course, been with us since Potsdam. It reached the critical point at the time of the Berlin Airlift, and recurrently since that time has been in mind as the allies, the United States, Britain and France have repeatedly been exposed to pressures placed upon their communications with the city of Berlin.
I had the privilege of commanding there two years immediately after the airlift, and have a very deep feeling of the importance of Berlin and the significance of the problem represented thereby. I cannot say that the events which have taken place in recent months have been a surprise to me. Even in ‘49 and ‘50 when I was in command we were predicting that next time pressure was applied upon the city of Berlin to any serious degree, that it would be done not by the USSR but by the East German Republic.
In other words, if we had another blockade that it would be done without a Russian in sight. So that Khrushchev’s announcement late in the fall, in November, was perhaps surprising only as it came rather late, later than I would have predicted say five or six years ago. Since that time, of course, we have intensified our attention to the problem and found that the factors really haven’t changed over the years. We still have the problem of maintaining communications, of maintaining the freedom of 2 and a half million West Berliners for whom we are responsible and for whose life, safety and fortunes we have pledged our honor. From the military point of view that problem is virtually insolvable if it is the intention of the USSR and its allies to use force against the allies in Berlin.
That is it is impossible as a single isolated solution.
Senator Johnson. Would you repeat that statement now?
General Taylor. Putting it in slightly different words, Berlin has always been untenable as a military position. In other words, it is over 100 miles inside the Iron Curtain. It is an island surrounded on all sides by superior forces. A surprise attack or an imminent attack with warning could never be resisted locally by military means. We have known that, we have accepted the fact. It is inevitable. On the other hand, we have [Page 450] thus far protected Berlin first by the evident resolution that we would not accept interference with our rights without making a very violent reaction.
We so reacted at the time of the airlift. I think that you will find that many of the leaders of the airlift, people like General Clay, General Hayes and others felt at the time that we should never have accepted the airlift, but rather should have used force on the highway, at least to verify what the Russian intent was.
Instead we accepted a challenge which may well have been a bluff. We will never know to what extent the USSR would have gone to maintain the blockade by force. We have foreseen that if the EGR, the Eastern German Republic replaced the USSR and by similar measures undertook to blockade Berlin that our problem would be greater in the sense that the affront and the loss of honor to accept the will of the conquered East Germans over the U.S. and its allies would be much greater, much more serious in international relations.
Hence when this challenge did come last November, as I say we knew very intensely our contemplation of all facets of the old problem and found that they really had not changed very much.
In military language, and I say in military language with diffidence because this is essentially a political problem, as I view the military side of the operation or the possible operation, they are directed more at strengthening our political power, at supplementing our position at the negotiation table rather than as a straightforward military planning which is much simpler than this complicated picture that we face.
But again as I started to say, in military terms what are we faced with? We are faced possibly with the use of limited force or indeterminate force on the part of the East Germans after May 27th to prevent our free access to Berlin.
That will mean that we will have to decide well in advance how to cope with that kind of situation. In my judgment it should call first for I would call it a reconnaissance of intention. This time we should never allow bluff to force us into a self-imposed blockade or anything resembling that kind of passive reaction.
I would say that we should certainly probe at once to find out will any force be used to prevent our free access on the ground to Berlin? And if that is the case, then to apply repeated force and in such strength as the situation may require to develop that in deed. This is a major effort to which the EGR and the Soviet Union are willing to engage in formal military operations and by that time we will reach the point of extremely serious decision, how far then will we go?
Will we indeed pass to general war? But I would sum up the formula which in my mind is clear as crystal, that we must be willing now [Page 451] to make up our respective minds now that we will use all force necessary to secure the lives and safety of these two and a half million Germans to whom we are committed unalterably in language that cannot be compromised.
[Here follows unrelated discussion.]
Senator Engle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, I only have two questions and perhaps you covered one of them.
As I listened to your testimony this morning, we can’t win in Berlin, that is Berlin isolated by itself is not an area where we can fight successfully.
General Taylor. We probably could not win immediately in a military sense, but I don’t suggest for a moment that Berlin is not defensible. It is defensible by our clear determination to go all out, if necessary, in any kind of a military operation if we are really threatened with a situation from Berlin.
It can be defended, and in my judgment must be defended.
Senator Engle. What I am thinking about is how do you get to fighting the kind of war you can win? Now we don’t fight a war we can’t win, so if we limit ourselves to Berlin, we are trying to take a city or hold a city sitting right out in the middle of the communist sea. We don’t want to get the other end of the case where you have an all-out atomic and hydrogen war where everybody is throwing everything they have.
Now we don’t want that because no one wins one of those wars.
General Taylor. That is right.
Senator Engle. So in between someplace, in other words if you have to fight, what size war are you going to fight? Are you going to spread out and take the whole of East Germany?
General Taylor. No, I would first think there has been perhaps a little, a fallacy injected into my testimony by my not having made clear that I would doubt that we will encounter Soviet forces in the kind of patrolling of the highway that I anticipate. I believe the Soviets would follow certainly initially, their favorite tactic of the cat’s paw of war or military operation by proxy, and we would not necessarily see Soviet soldiers. There wouldn’t be one in sight, although his potential presence would be a constant threat to our operation.
I think we ought to visualize the problem the Soviets have to contemplate in any kind of a military operation in East Germany. They are tremendously vulnerable in the satellite area and the consequences of starting any kind of a shooting operation to them must look very dangerous, indeed.
So I personally believe that a strong, determined, active reaction to any threat by the East Germans will eventually lead them to modify their position.
[Page 452]I can’t prove that, but I have that feeling.
Senator Engle. Well, we start out by probing to determine what their real intensions are.
General Taylor. Yes, is it a bluff, or are they going to stop one truck? If we find a man there with a gun to stop the truck, let’s send an armored detachment down and see if they stop that.
Senator Engle. Do we stop there or shoot?
General Taylor. I say we use the necessary force to go through or stop. How much further do we go?
Senator Engle. There is one on each side to determine if we have war, is that it?
General Taylor. No, I would say that the two sides at the outset will determine what our next move is going to be, whether we send forces in.
Senator Engle. After that is done, let’s assume the [shooting?] starts and we project force against force and we move into Berlin and they desire to hold it and they have fire power enough to run us out of there. Then what do we do?
General Taylor. In that case, they have gone so far that indeed they are initiating World War III.
Their problem is tougher than ours at every step that we describe, and if we just see our difficulties and our figures and don’t see the other fellow’s I am afraid apathy is the only thing we have to offer.
Senator Engle. Let’s go to the third step. We have gone to the point where the patrols meet. The patrol meets and we had to push our way in.
Now the third step is that we get into an all-out shooting, conventional war surrounding Berlin. Is that it?
General Taylor. I doubt that we get that far.
Senator Engle. Let’s assume it, General. We just have to assume that is maybe what will happen and they are going to pour it on us because they think with conventional weapons they can run us out.
Is their assumption right?
General Taylor. If we limited ourselves to conventional weapons, we could not hold Berlin. It is too far inland—110 miles from West Germany.
Senator Engle. All right, then you mean we would have to go to atomic weapons of one size or another. Is that what you are talking about?
General Taylor. I think you are talking about it. I am not. You are posing a situation which I don’t visualize as being reasonable.
It could happen. Virtually anything could happen, but I would visualize a stalemate on the Autobahn, five miles inside of Eastern [Page 453] Germany and there is where you would decide is this stalemate acceptable or are we going to go by it?
Senator Engle. What I am trying to find out is whether or not we don’t get down to this situation: Don’t we get down to this situation where eventually we have to face the decision of using at least the small atomic weapons or be prepared to get run out?
General Taylor. I would go further and say from the very outset, before you start this, you must be resolved to use as much force as necessary to accomplish the mission.
Senator Engle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Johnson. General, the whole thesis of what you said is that we are determined to go to all out war against the Soviets, but we won’t have to do that. Is that your opinion?
General Taylor. That is my opinion.
Senator Johnson. And is that the basis of your thinking? Would it be different if you came to the conclusion that the Soviets won’t back down and we would have to go to a nuclear war?
General Taylor. It would be a tough decision, Senator, when we analyze the repercussions from the loss of Berlin to force, particularly if we didn’t do our best.
Now I have always said, sir, and you may or may not agree, that it is better to try and to lose than not to try at all.
I am sure insofar as the world position is concerned, that fact is a fact. But, if we look at the results of losing West Berlin as I say, without trying our world position, our European position is so compromised that we are inevitably accepting Russian domination of the world and of our downgrading to a second or third class power.
With those stakes I would say that this is worth that, worth general war with the Soviets if we can see clearly that that is the alternative.
Senator Johnson. So then if all negotiations fail, our decision not to give an inch remains firm, even if they are not bluffing?
General Taylor. I would say we must verify that they are not bluffing.
Senator Johnson. And if they are not, then what?
General Taylor. If we verify that, that indeed they will use force to throw us out of Berlin, I say we must use all the necessary force to overcome it.
Senator Johnson. And that would be?
General Taylor. It would be general war.
[Here follows unrelated discussion.]
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Harlow Records. Top Secret. General Taylor testified at morning and afternoon sessions on March 11.↩