After the Cuban Crisis-Three Articles

...It is, of course, always dangerous to predict Moscow's behavior on matters involving Berlin...

...When the treaty is signed, the Pankow Government will have much greater freedom of action, including complete control of German nationals and vital goods moving in and out of West Berlin...

...At least it is fairly certain that each is now more conscious that the other now recognizes his fundamental interests and his main anxieties...

...firmness may pay dividends in deterring further Soviet provocations, Kennedy's failure to consult his allies before taking decisions which might have produced retaliation against them has strengthened Europe's desire for nuclear independence...

...Dictators have been known before to have little regard for the security and future of their own nation at a moment of impending personal eclipse...

...Denis Healey, a regular contributor, is Labor party Spokesman for Commonwealth and Colonial Affairs...

...Carried to its logical conclusion, exclusive concentration on the legality of military traffic could result in U.S...

...This, though, is as much to Kennedy's advantage as to Khrushchev's, for the U.S.' earlier threats against Castroism greatly damaged its standing in the Western Hemisphere...

...Also, while the demonstration of U.S...

...When the United States Navy threw its cordon sanitaire across the Caribbean, an astigmatic attempt was made to keep one eye on America and the other on Berlin...

...There are increasing indications here that, after four years of threatening, the Soviets are finally preparing to conclude some sort of peace treaty with the East German regime...

...The Diplomatic Turning Point By Denis Healey London President Kennedy has confounded his critics and won a stunning tactical victory in his second Cuban adventure...

...For if the negotiations fail, the Cuban affair makes it inevitable that relations between East and West will dramatically worsen...

...produced concerning the Soviet missile bases has been largely dispersed by Khrushchev's own admissions...

...The years of coalition wrangling have borne little fruit, and it may be that a large measure of delegated trust is imperative if the human race is to find a way back from the abyss...

...In any case, this is by far the best answer to NATO's strategic problems, and would produce a military context in which for the first time problems of German reunification might be realistically discussed...

...President Kennedy set the tone in his October 28 message, which praised Premier Khrushchev's statesmanship in agreeing to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba...

...His short-lived offer to dismantle Soviet missile bases in Cuba in exchange for the removal of similar NATO bases in Turkey suggests that, despite repeated innuendoes seemingly intended as threats, Moscow was really not interested in linking Cuba and Berlin at the present time...

...One remark heard here is that "we are taking care not to dismantle Khrushchev along with the Cuban bases...

...So talks must soon begin, as Khrushchev suggests, between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries to control conventional and atomic forces in a large area on both sides of the Iron Curtain...

...This is a prospect that ought to be faced candidly...

...This time he avoided all the mistakes which made last year's abortive invasion so damaging to the United States' reputation...

...American officials are aware of the split within the Kremlin, a division that seemed unnervingly evident on October 26, when two Russian notes came in swift succession, one conciliatory and the other truculent...

...It was not the existence of legal roadblocks, however, that stopped Premier Khrushchev from making an immediate move in Berlin...

...Prospects for Berlin By Kenneth Ames Bonn At the height of the crisis over Cuba, the temptation to equate that "offshore island" with the landlocked island of West Berlin proved almost irresistible here...

...This virtually unanimous support distinguished the Federal Republic's reaction from that of the U.S.' other allies...

...Generally speaking, there is no division of German opinion over the necessity for NATO bases-of which, incidentally, Berlin is not onearound the periphery of the Soviet Union...

...From the moment President Kennedy announced the partial blockade of Cuba, there was never any hint of disagreement, or tendency to argue, on the part of West German officials...

...Western Europe, however, cannot be expected to consent to progress along these lines unless it is relieved of the massive Soviet military threat in both ground forces and intermediate-range missiles...

...Everything now depends on the course of the global negotiations which must begin, in the first place, between the U.S...

...Khrushchev's position as leader of the Soviet Union probably now depends on his ability to offer the Russian people new perspectives of peace in compensation for the failure of his Cuban adventure...

...The Bonn Government, including the Social Democratic Opposition, stood foursquare behind the Administration...

...Castro is indeed still in power, but he is hardly the same man...

...This deepened understanding is the principal gain of a week which shook the world...

...mainland itself...

...and the Soviet Union refuse to give any nuclear knowledge or equipment to their allies...

...In his television statement on the crisis, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was the first statesman to say bluntly that the initial Soviet action, if completed, would have quickly been followed by a military adventure against a Latin American country, or against the U.S...

...His reputation was cruelly impaired when the Russians confirmed his status as a puppet by wholly ignoring his demands for the removal of the Guantanamo naval base...

...superiority in the strategic nuclear field...

...More probable is some effort to block civilian access routes...

...According to the prevailing thesis here, the Russians placed the missile bases in Cuba in order to demonstrate the impotence and weakness of a liberal democracy when it confronts a purposeful monolith...

...In this view, had the Soviet missile bases in Cuba reached operational readiness before they were discovered, the conditions for achieving such startling diplomatic successes would have been at hand...

...Let it also be said on behalf of President Kennedy that his management of crisis diplomacy thus far has been a model of coolness, precision and responsibility...

...By far the best way of approaching an understanding on these problems is for the Great Powers deliberately to strengthen the authority and power of the United Nations...

...In fact, in this city, so much nearer the epicenter of world conflict than most Western capitals, the introduction of Soviet missiles to Cuba was seen as a deliberate move away from the tacit agreement-which has prevailed since 1945-not to alter forcibly the lines of confrontation between the U.S...

...Yet the Soviet Union cannot be expected to accept as a "balance" of power a U.S...

...Clearly, the Soviets have no intention of easing the yoke on the backs of 17 million East Germans, but it is also true that the Kremlin is becoming increasingly apprehensive over the underswell of opposition to Ulbricht...

...One item subject to negotiation is the Turkish base that the Soviet Union wanted the West to baiter for the missile sites in Cuba...

...Karl E. Meyer is Washington correspondent for the New Statesman, where this article also appeared...

...French and German pressure for nuclear weapons from the U.S...

...Yet no one here underestimates Castro's continuing capacity to make trouble, especially since the Russians have mauled him where he is touchiest-his ballooning ego...

...Yet it is the movement of Germans in and out of the city which is of supreme importance if West Berlin is to continue as a viable economic unit...

...The three Western powers have tended to concentrate almost exclusively on the question of Allied military access to, and mobility within, Berlin...

...It has, in any event, already had a significant educative effect in this respect on Conservative party ministers in Britain...

...In other words, the Cuban affair has doubled the stakes now involved in negotiations between East and West, and may have halved the time available for their success...

...Moreover, the animated discussion about the effects of the European Common Market now going on in the Russian press indicates that East-Central Europe may be on the threshold of far-reaching reforms and a liberalization of its whole economic structure...

...The greatest single test of U.S...

...Without question, the central issue, nakedly exposed by the Cuban crisis itself, is to stabilize the military balance between Russia and the U.S...

...Clearly, some attempt to reach agreement on maintaining minimum deterrent forces on both sides is the primary condition of halting the Great Power arms race...

...For the first time in his dealings with the Soviet Union on a momentous matter, the President dealt directly with Moscow without using the elaborate machinery of coalition diplomacy...

...Though President Kennedy rejected an offer couched in blackmail terms, he has been careful not to rule out a withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Turkey in the context of a more general agreement on disarmament and European security...

...Moreover, whatever happens to its leadership, the Soviet Union would be forced into supporting Chinese policy in Asia as the only alternative to a settlement with the United States: Formosa might then become Khrushchev's tit-for-tat for Cuba...

...After all, a new Berlin crisis might ultimately deprive the Soviet leader of his most useful trump card in global affairs-a card he has until now been able to play again and again with what, from his point of view, have been eminently successful results...

...In Europe, whatever the apprehension and criticism, the evidence here is that the outcome increased respect for the Chief Executive, especially in Paris and Bonn...

...The least likely possibility is Soviet interference with the trickle of Allied military traffic to and from the city, which lies 110 miles by road inside the Soviet Zone, since this would have the disadvantage of forcing some form of Western retaliation...

...President Kennedy, who last month contained Russian missiles, has to contain Republican missiles this month...

...They were able to act swiftly, flexibly and effectively in a way that simply would not have been possible with extensive consultation...

...Nevertheless, for the moment it seems clear that Khrushchev is none too eager for any sort of major showdown...

...A handful of officials-15 at most-were involved in the minute-to-minute decisions during the fortnight of crisis...

...Kenneth Ames, now with Newsweek's Central Europe Bureau, has reported on Germany for a decade...

...On this all hope of progress toward disarmament and political settlement must depend...

...Although the Berlin wall was built in August 1961 with the consent of Moscow, it is now an open secret that Khrushchev has been having his differences with Ulbricht, an unswerving Stalinist...

...For they could be so profound as to touch the fundamentals of Communist thinking and affect the whole Soviet nation as well as its satellites...

...And each was manned by a numerically insignificant body of foreign troops...

...This, in turn, depends on further agreements affecting countries allied to the Great Powers...

...Hence there is now a conscious effort here to help bolster the saner faction in Moscow by building up momentum for a d?©tente while the shock of the near collision is still fresh...

...Already, Ulbricht has introduced the Laufzettel, a kind of temporary pass, for journeys through the Soviet Zone...

...and USSR, but which will ultimately involve every other nation in the world...

...But at this point the similarity ends...

...Initially, allied as well as neutral opinion was shocked by the U.S.'s readiness to violate international law when it feels its security threatened, and the new precedent of a maritime blockade in peacetime may well be turned against the West on future occasions...

...And Berlin is still high on the list of candidates...

...There are signs that the Cuban crisis may have persuaded them of this...

...The President defined his objectives carefully, held to them and reached an agreement within their limits-resisting the pressure to invade Cuba or bomb out the missile sites...

...In addition, even if the peace treaty gave Pankow only formal sovereignty, there could be serious interference with Allied civilian and military air traffic to Berlin...

...From this it would be only a short step to demanding full-scale visas, with the waiting time for passport certification strung out as long as the East Germans desired...

...For Berlin-and this has to be said at the risk of repeating the obvious -is essentially an enclave mutually agreed upon by the Soviet Union and the West in their legally arranged lines of confrontation across the center of Europe...

...The reasons for Soviet caution, it is believed here, were strictly selfish: A sudden action in Berlin could result in loosening the grip of the Communist Party apparat, led by Party Secretary and Premier Walter Ulbricht, over the sullen and disenchanted East German population...

...formerly, both West Germans and Berliners were able to travel without any special permit...

...Some of the same politicians who privately grumbled that the crisis was politically motivated are now themselves doing all they can to wring partisan advantage out of an agreement that saved the world from holocaust, but left Fidel Castro in charge in Havana...

...The Russians, it was felt, would certainly take complementary action against the former German capital...

...But in any event, there was no need for a new blockade of Berlin, demands for visas for German travelers through the Soviet Zone, or renewed threats from Ulbricht...

...During the week of October 22-28, the world was never closer to thermonuclear war-just how close only the President himself can say...

...And even in the Soviet bloc it may become increasingly difficult for Russia to intervene by force as it once did in Hungary...

...Let it be said on behalf of a bolder leadership that it may constitute the best hope for reaching a fundamental accord with the Russians...

...A host of supplementary ideas is also being studied, including a Brazilian proposal at the UN that would make Latin America a denuclearized zone and point the way to a similar status for Africa...

...But all this depends on keeping intact the precarious balance of rationality in Moscow and Washington...

...In both Bonn and West Berlin, Premier Khrushchev's proposal of a Cuba-Turkey quid pro quo was considered entirely unrealistic...

...All this may seem a lot to ask, especially when the West is still smarting from Soviet duplicity over the Cuban missile bases...

...The real value of a Great Power agreement to ban atomic tests-which must be a first aim in the talks-lies in the effect this may have in pressing third countries to drop atomic weapons programs...

...Khrushchev's capitulation on Cuba has heightened the prospects for another move elsewhere in the world...

...and the USSR-notably de Gaulle and Adenauer in the West, Walter Ulbricht and Mao Tse-tung in the Communist bloc...

...Unless they can agree not to exploit such changes for their own military advantage, any attempt to stabilize the military balance will inevitably break down...

...But the victory was not without cost...

...Behind these military issues lurks the other major problem symbolized by Cuba...

...In Latin America, the leadership from Washington was greeted less by vexation than with relief...

...At every stage his actions were precisely calculated to achieve a specific objective...

...Yet this in itself should be a further incentive to both sides...

...agreement and by the President's evident determination to treat it, not as a humiliating defeat for Khrushchev, but as the basis for intensive negotiation on the wider problems which Cuba symbolized...

...would attempt to destroy all Soviet retaliatory forces first, and still keep enough striking power in reserve to destroy Russia's civilization should any surviving forces bomb American cities...

...There is even hope that the momentum may make possible a fresh initiative on Berlin...

...The Soviet Union is not without problems in its part of Germany...

...The symbolic difference in Washington is that the night lights are now burning at the Disarmament Agency, where a resolute effort is being made to pull out concrete proposals that could be swiftly agreed upon...

...The whole operation could serve as a model in the textbooks of diplomatic gamesmanship on which the RAND Corporation spends so much ingenuity...

...Kennedy saw the Soviet missile bases in Cuba as upsetting the existing balance...

...Kennedy's friends abroad have been heartened, too, by the terms of the Soviet-U.S...

...Ironically, Premier Khrushchev wound up by demonstrating the reverse: that a democratic system can respond massively and resourcefully when it feels that its survival is threatened...

...Not since his campaign in 1960 has Kennedy seemed more sure of himself or more in control of events...

...Cuba was a gamble that did not come off...

...For revolutionary political changes such as have already occurred in Cuba, Iraq, Laos and the Congo are certain to be a feature of world history over the next 30 years-at least in Southern Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and perhaps in Eastern Europe as well...

...But then Nikita Khrushchev is not the first dictator to make this mistake...

...and the USSR...

...At present, paradoxically, we may be closer to peace than we have been in years...

...There has been neither official gloating nor public jubilation...

...would be almost impossible to resist if there are no new security arrangements in prospect for Western Europe...

...As a result, President Kennedy may well resemble Roosevelt more and Eisenhower less in his role as leader of an alliance...

...Nevertheless, the initial disquiet aroused in Europe by the inconclusive evidence the U.S...

...If Castro tasted wormwood, President Kennedy savored an unexampled personal triumph, one that may leave a lasting imprint on his relations with the Atlantic Alliance...

...now seems committed to forgo any further attempts to overthrow Castroism in Cuba if the USSR takes no military advantage of its political and economic links with the regime...

...East Germany recently has been beset by recurrent economic problems, thanks to a top-heavy industrial economy, the brutal nationalization of agriculture, and massive mismanagement of planning and distribution...

...As the direct result of a complex of valid international agreements, the West has a legal stake in Berlin...

...In the longer run, the allies themselves, as well as neutral countries with a nuclear capacity, will have to forswear nuclear weapons and accept international control...

...Army convoys moving to and from a dying city whose 2.4 million population had no freedom of movement or lines of supply...

...The doubts created by his October 22 speech were resolved by the care he displayed in slowing the tempo of events, in bringing the United Nations into a catalytic role, and in leaving an honorable way out for the Russians...

...Finally, the success of brinkmanship in an area where Russia's tactical weakness was extreme and its stake small could encourage similar tests of will in areas where neither side could afford to withdraw-as, in Korea, General MacArthur's success at Inchon encouraged the disastrous crossing of the 39th Parallel...

...Doubtless there will be powerful opposition to such negotiations in each camp from those who think to benefit by obstructing all agreement between the U.S...

...If the talks break down, similar dangers might arise on the Western side...

...For neither of the Great Powers could afford to freeze, let alone reduce, its strategic forces if third countries were able to upset the balance by producing their own nuclear striking power...

...Several paths of action are open to the Russians if they choose to attempt to embarrass the United States and its Allies in Berlin...

...Most important of all, he made it clear that his political aim was a limited one-to secure the removal of the Soviet missile bases-but that he would go to any lengths necessary to achieve it...

...Except in the Soviet bloc, the third countries themselves will not tolerate Great Power intervention to prevent political change...

...Can the Great Powers reach agreement on how to react to political changes inside countries both in their own spheres of influence and in neutral areas...

...Fortunately, there is good reason to believe that Khrushchev and Kennedy may have risen in one another's estimation by their respective handling of the Cuban crisis...

...In the short run, the spread of atomic weapons can be substantially slowed down if the U.S...

...Alternatively, and even more seriously, if Ulbricht feels that his days as leader of East Germany are numbered-and there are many signs that the Soviets are grooming 48-year-old Deputy Premier Willi Stoph to take his place-he could engage in one last desperate adventure against Berlin, without the full cognizance or consent of the Russians...

...and Soviet wisdom, therefore, lies in the need for toleration and restraint when faced with such situations...

...After the Cuban Crisis - Three Articles Back From the Abyss By Karl E. Meyer Washington In the capital today you would hardly realize that the United States had just won its most decisive victory since the beginning of the cold war...

...Superficially at least, Cuba and Berlin appeared to have a great deal in common: Each represented a small outpost of one of the two major powers, close to the territorial frontiers of the other...

...Conceivably, the Kremlin feels that resounding diplomatic successes abroad are needed to distract attention from these impending changes...

...a superiority so overwhelming as to allow Secretary of Defense McNamara to state that, in general war, the U.S...

...In some respects Khrushchev gains handsomely by the agreement, since the U.S...

...Adenauer also pointed out that the establishment of the Cuban missile bases was the obvious explanation for recent Soviet caution over Berlin, which had nothing to do with the approaching American elections...