Conformity and Challenges in the Eisenhower and Kennedy Years 391that he might likewise arm China with atomic weapons. On the political front,
Eisenhower, despite his friendliness with the Soviet leader at Camp David, was
not ready to change policy on Berlin, and his views were also shared by the
governments of Britain and France, the other occupying forces in Germany.
A year later, in Vienna, the Soviet premier finally met the recently-inaugu-
rated John F. Kennedy. By this time, the GDR faced a crisis as about 30,000
East Germans were fleeing to West Berlin each month. Khrushchev insisted on
ending American occupation in the West and wanted Berlin to become a “free
city”; if Kennedy did not comply Khrushchev said he would sign a separate
treaty with the Communist GDR, thus giving the East German government
full authority over all decisions regarding Berlin. Khrushchev believed the West
was particularly vulnerable on Berlin. It was, he joked, “the testicles of the
West. Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on Berlin.”
Kennedy, a committed Cold Warrior himself, would not budge. “That son of
a bitch won’t pay any attention to words,” he said of Khrushchev, “he has to
see you move.” The president thus decided to turn up the heat in Berlin, asking
Congress for an additional $3 billion for the military budget, seeking author-
ity to call up reserves, and seeking additional civil defense funds.
In August, the East Germans responded, building a barbed wire barricade
and then a concrete barrier to cut the city in half, the Berlin Wall. American
tanks took positions near the wall, prepared to break it down, and were met
with Soviet tanks on the other side. Kennedy finally defused the situation,
recognizing that a wall was better than a war against the USSR. Later, it
would be revealed that Secretary of State Dulles in the 1950s had argued that
a wall between the Berlins would be a good idea. The Berlin crisis finally dis-
sipated toward the end of 1961, with the Americans agreeing that neither
West nor East Germany should produce nor be provided nuclear weapons and
that the size of armies in both Germanys should be reduced. The Wall, how-
ever, would be the most visible symbol of the cold war for the next three
decades.
the fifties: cold waR, confoRMity, containMent, and
counteRcultuRe
The 1950s was a tremendously important era in the development of “modern”
America. The decade began as the Cold War was at an intense stage, and even
Eisenhower’s warnings, in 1953 and again in 1960, did not really create much