American Diplomacy and the Berlin Negotiations

Abstract

in the failure of diplomatic negotiations. The Berlin problem is so perennial that every attempt at a negotiated settlement of it seems to have a foregone conclusion. Negotiations pertaining to Berlin, however, are as hardy in their recurrence as is the problem itself. On the last occasion of an effort for a settlement, American diplomacy displayed a patience equal to Soviet intransigence. Not that the Kennedy Administration was altogether optimistic of the outcome, but the necessity of the effort was the view with which the United States entered another round of negotiations. On January 2, 1962, Llewellyn E. Thompson, Jr., United States Ambassador in Moscow, met with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister, to explore the basis of possible negotiations. On May 30, 1962, Secretary of State Rusk met with Anatoly Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador in Washington, for the same purpose. No substantial progress resulted in the six-month period between these two meetings, although nine meetings and one formal conference between American and Soviet diplomats occurred.? The question is not only why diplomacy failed, but also why the United States government felt compelled to attempt a settlement in 1962. If the latter question can be answered, perhaps the answer to the former will fall into place. Then an insight may be gained into the impervious character of the Berlin problem. In January 1962 two other governments shared an immediate interest with the United States in the Berlin problem the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic of Germany.2 Understanding the basic positions of the three powers is a prerequisite for tracing the course of the negotiations between them. For the United States, the Berlin problem was basically derivative from the general problem of nuclear war. Diplomatic negotiations were regarded as a function of military strategy. Thus, negotiations were initiated to communicate certain American military decisions about the Berlin situation to the Soviet Union. Similarly, the Soviet Union defined its claims in the Berlin problem in terms of what it conceived to be a shift in the world balance of military power due to its new-found nuclear strength. To the Soviets, Berlin was a lever with which to force Western concessions on the German problem as a whole in recognition of the new balance of power. The objective of Soviet foreign policy in Central Europe was to legitimate the division of Germany and thereby detach the