317. Letter From the Assistant Chief of the Mission at Berlin (Lightner) to the Ambassador to Yugoslavia (Kennan)1
Dear George: Thank you for sending me a copy of your letter of February 92 to Tommy Thompson, expressing your misgivings over the Berlin Mission’s views on the Berlin problem. I have not seen the airgram that led you to write that letter but your summary of the basic assumption behind this airgram sounds closer to the views of some Berliners than to the views of the U.S. Mission or of responsible city leaders. However, the Mission’s thinking is so far apart from yours that it seems hardly necessary to point out wherein the assumptions you ascribe to us are inaccurate. We do not, for example, oppose discussions of the Berlin problem and we do not look with unconcern on the developments that might follow if it proved impossible to reach agreement on some kind of modus vivendi on Berlin. At the same time—and this is a basic difference between us—we believe it would be most harmful to United States interests to want a modus vivendi so desperately that we might be led to make concessions to the Soviets that would have the effect of selling out this part of the free world. We also believe that free Berlin can only be preserved if we counter firmly every act of aggression or local harassment even on minor matters.
It is not localitis that supports these judgments. The Mission reports on local attitudes and opinions and worries from time to time about Berlin morale and confidence, which are important to the present and future viability of this city, but this has never led us to regard the Berliners as our political counselors on Soviet policy. Nor are we conscious of any insidious sentimentality toward the Berliners. The Berliners can, perhaps, be forgiven for believing that they live at the hub of the universe, but the Mission is well aware that Berlin is a mere pawn in the game and that what we are really talking about is United States policy towards the Soviet Union and towards the Ulbricht regime, as it pertains to Berlin and to Germany. We also know that there is no simple formula to help chart the right course in the days and weeks ahead. The Western Allies must be alert and flexible and ready for any opportunity for any settlement that might avert the catastrophe of an atomic war. And we must not be bound by preconceived ideas or blind to changes within the Communist orbit.
[Page 866]Conditions are not static within the orbit, but we see no sign that Soviet goals have changed. Khrushchev may be an improvement over Stalin, but the assumption that his continuance in power should be an objective of Western policy is unproven, despite Yugoslav efforts to sell that idea. I hope United States policy is not based on any such assumption. Even if it were accepted, what constructive ideas could we propose to the Soviets on Berlin that have not been proposed many times before? Short of abandoning Berlin and ultimately all of Germany, what have we not done that we still could do to further peace with honor on the continent of Europe?
You dismiss our endorsement of firmness and strength in this local situation as a “passive and negative attitude”, but I ask you, what more would you have us relinquish? In the post war years, we have gradually reduced our access routes to one autobahn, one railway line, and the three air corridors; our freedom of movement within the city has been reduced to Western Berlin itself as a result of unilateral action by the Communists in erecting the Wall. We have on record, as you know, a long series of proposals, for a Berlin-Germany settlement. They have not been acceptable to the other side because they would have preserved Berlin’s freedom.
You imply that a weak Ulbricht regime in East Germany is dangerous for us as it prevents the Russians from “happily and passively” accepting the situation. You imply that our objective should be to strengthen the Ulbricht regime in order to stabilize East Germany; and that the best contribution we could make in that direction would be to meet the Communist demands regarding West Berlin. In short, your thesis seems to be that we can have peace only if the Soviets are made happy and content; that the existence of free Berlin makes them unhappy in central Europe; and hence we should give the Soviets what they want in order to preserve the peace.
What historical or psychological experience leads you to believe that further accommodation to the present regime in the Soviet Union would help pave the way to peace? When indeed have concessions to totalitarianism ever succeeded? If Khrushchev’s totalitarianism is of a different kind, what evidence do we have aside from the whispered advices of the Russians and the satellites, that this is so? I have uneasy memories of the years before World War II when the responsible statesmen threw Czechoslovakia and Austria on the sacrificial altar in a vain effort to feed the insatiable appetites of Nazi Germany to win “peace in our time”.
As a long time admirer and friend of yours, I find this a most difficult letter to write, but you have attacked the integrity and judgment of the United States Mission in Berlin. You have furthermore refrained from suggesting any alternative course of action except, by inference, a [Page 867] policy that, if adopted by our Government, would lead us to the infinitely greater danger of total capitulation to the Communist system. We cannot permit the threat of a thermo-nuclear war to blind us to the dangers of sacrificing freedom and security through erosion and weakness. Within this century we have seen the catastrophe caused in part by appeasement and conciliation of a totalitarian regime, and that lesson is just as valid in the thermo-nuclear age.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Germany. Confidential; Official-Informal. Copies were sent to Rusk, Bundy, Dowling, and Thompson.↩
- Document 286.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩