The 'Hot' War in Cold War Southeast Asia

This article originally appeared in Cicero Magazine on 3 July 2014.

The popular understanding of wars past is an important determining factor how wars in the future will be received or perceived by the general public. Policymakers have come to understand this and turn it to their advantage. Equating an intervention with upholding democracy plays well when compared with WWI, when the world was “made safe for democracy”. Interventions involving the liberation of oppressed masses or a gathering existential threat are compared with WWII. Opponents of interventions latch on to these comparisons as well, equating them with quagmires in Vietnam and Iraq. As time goes on, the general memory and popular factual understanding of these wars weakens despite more historical and archival evidence presenting a truer picture being opened by governments or discovered by academics. Despite having ended only 25 years ago, the Cold War presents such a case.

The Cold War was not one war fought in one place, but several wars fought in different theatres in different ways. The most familiar narrative of the Cold War focuses on the struggle in Europe between the United States and the Soviet Union. The American view of the Indochina Wars was that they were but another theatre in the war against international communism—the Global Cold War. For the French and Southeast Asians, it was a different battle. The French fought to preserve a dying colonial system; Southeast Asians, for national liberation and/or a new system based on communist principles.

The Cold War in Southeast Asia bore little resemblance to the Cold War in the West. The Southeast Asian Cold War was not “cold” at all…

The Cold War in Southeast Asia bore little resemblance to the Cold War in the West. The Southeast Asian Cold War was not ‘cold’ at all and, rather than a state-centric battle fought with nuclear threats, espionage and military-industrial production across clearly drawn map lines, the Indochina Wars were ‘hot’ wars featuring weak central governments with soft borders, the main driver of which was to capture the ‘hearts and minds’ of the people of Southeast Asia, who largely determined the course of the wars.

The Western Cold War

The Cold War in the West was a battle between states in two clear blocs along clear national borders. The map-lines of Cold War Europe were drawn at the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. The “Iron Curtain” fell along the Oder-Neisse Line, running from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Czech border in the south, then traced southwards to the Mediterranean through Austria and Italy, divided in half between joint occupations. Control of defeated Germany and its capital, Berlin, was also split between the US, UK, France and the USSR. Following 1948 elections, Italy joined NATO as a full member of the West bloc. In 1955 Austria became a neutral state and occupation troops withdrew. Otherwise, national borders and lines between East and West in Cold War Europe remained largely unchanged for 45 years until German re-unification and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta, 1945.

The Cold War was an ‘imaginary war’ in which the two sides threatened each other with annihilation, but no direct military battles were fought. The deterrent effect of nuclear weapons and collective security guarantees of NATO and the Warsaw Pact made the cost of war in Europe too high. The sides confronted one another along their border. Many such scenes played in Berlin, including the 1948 Blockade and Airlift and the 1961 confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie. The two sides also tried to out-produce one another, engaging in a statistical battle in which agricultural, industrial and military production were weapons. They engaged in an arms race to produce and field more and better nuclear weapons in different forms and faster than the other. The only fighting in any real sense was between intelligence services in a “shadow war of espionage, counter-espionage and covert actions. The armies were the security and intelligence agencies of West and East, the CIA and the KGB, and the multitude of other forces lined up on one or the other side. In the war that could never become a real war…”

The Western Cold War was a state-centric conflict prosecuted through nuclear posturing, national military-industrial production and covert intelligence operations fought across tightly-controlled national borders. It is telling that many of the most intense military confrontations of the European Cold War–and much espionage activity–hinged on the ‘German question’ and the fate of a single city, Berlin, issues not finally resolved until the fall of the Wall and the collapse of European communism.

The ideological battle to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of Europeans was an important component, but the “center of gravity” in the European conflict–to use Karl von Clausewitz’s phrase–was the governments of the states involved. Governments and their security apparatuses could control the behavior of their citizens. Though the threat of nuclear war hung over their heads, the fighting was not real in its literal sense. Which side the average European fell on depended on where they lived, determined for them by the Big Three at conference tables in Yalta and Potsdam.

The Cold War in Southeast Asia

Pandora’s Box

Pham Van Dong & Ho Chi Minh, 1966.

In contrast to the West, the Southeast Asian Cold War, rather than ushering in the beginning of a new struggle, was the continuation of a struggle which had begun for some, such as Ho Chi Minh, as early as the 1920s. The struggle for Indochina predated the Cold War. The Japanese invasion in 1941 and return of the French in 1945 “opened Pandora’s box”, creating the opportunity to fight return of French rule to Indochina—something Southeast Asians may not have pursued nor achieved without the break in French control created by the war. The post-WWII period for Indochinese marked the resumption of two intertwined battles—that of liberation from French colonial rule and between communist and anti-communist forces to determine which system would govern independent Indochina.

Hot War

Arguably, the Cold War in Asia was not ‘cold’ at all. Unlike in Europe, where opposing forces stared each other down across borders but never fired a shot, the Southeast Asian Cold War was ‘hot’. Real armed battles were fought between colonial and nationalist and communist and anti-communist forces almost from the very beginning. During the First Indochina War, there would also be violent ethnic, religious and factional fighting among differentIndochinese populations alongside the battle for independence. Over two decades, troops would invade, occupy and fight in, to varying degrees, all of the Indochinese states in the First and Second Indochina War, resulting in hundreds of thousands of total casualties—something unthinkable in Cold War Europe.

Soft Borders

The battle in Southeast Asia was not between governments behind clearly drawn borders on either side of a clear line of demarcation between democracy and communism. Borders mattered little in the Southeast Asian Cold War. There was no Oder-Neisse Line in Indochina. The 1954 17^th parallel border between North and South Vietnam came to matter very little due to communist infiltration and American bombing.

In Southeast Asia, Western governments were unwilling to commit fully to total war and unwilling or unable to take, occupy and hold territory they had won.

Under French rule, the states of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos had all been one large colony–Indochina. There had always been interchange between these regions-cum-states, each with significant diaspora in the others. Many national leaders of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos would be born or spend significant time in neighboring states. Close lingual, religious, cultural and ethnic relations facilitated ‘softer’ borders.

Much of the fighting during the Second Indochina War took place in South Vietnam and spilled over the border into Cambodia and Laos. Communist and anti-communist forces throughout Southeast Asia cooperated with kindred factions and used each other’s territories to transit through or as a sanctuary from their own fight across the border. The famous Ho Chi Minh and King Sihanouk Trails used by communist forces to transit the borders of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are examples. Governments in distant Saigon, Phnom Penh or Vientiane could do little to control their frontiers. The porous nature of these borders has been blamed specifically for “enlarging” the Second Indochina War beyond Vietnam.

Weak Eastern Governments and Lack of Western Will

French propaganda poster following defeat at Dien Bien Phu, 1954.

Governments had far less power in Southeast Asia than their counterparts in Europe. Throughout most of the Cold War, Southeast Asian states had two or more governments which claimed rule. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia experienced periods in which territory in each was controlled by opposing governments, dividing the country, each claiming to hold legitimate power over the whole.

The sides hurled propaganda. South Vietnam was called a puppet of the United States, while North Vietnam was a creature of Beijing. The governments of Cambodia and Laos claimed neutrality, but received aid from all sides in a constant tug of war between North Vietnam, America, Russia and China. There was no grand post-WWII modernization and development plan like the Marshall Plan for Europe. Efforts to form effective Asian collective security regimes, such as SEATO, were stymied by the Geneva Accords requirement Indochinese states remain neutral.

Government heads did not stay in power long and there were constant overthrow attempts by both communist and anti-communist forces. There were multiple mutiny or coup attempts from 1960 against Ngo Dinh Diem in the lead up to his 1963 assassination, a trend which continued with his successors until 1966. Loyalties also shifted. King Sihanouk of Cambodia was seemingly onevery side of the struggle in Cambodia at one time or another—monarchist, republican, anti-communist and finally with the Khmer Rouge communists.

Ngo Dinh Diem, 1955

In previous modern wars such as WWI and WWII, large-scale troop deployments and naval, air, armor and artillery support were central features and the war was prosecuted largely by one army defeating the enemy militarily and advancing to occupy ever more territory until the state leadership was destroyed or it capitulated. Capitols, major population centers and industrial areas were particular targets of bombing campaigns. It was total war. Both world wars ended when belligerent governments surrendered. Their troops stopped fighting and normal life returned.

In Southeast Asia, Western governments were unwilling to commit fully to total war and unwilling or unable to take, occupy and hold territory they had won. French commanders decided, rather than occupy Indochina with enough troops to guarantee security, they would pursue a “hedgehog” strategy of fighting the war through forays into enemy territory from a series of heavily fortified encampments, leading to their encirclement and 1954 surrender at Dien Bien Phu. The US, having just fought an unpopular war in Korea, was unwilling to commit to another war in Asia. Eisenhower did not want America to be seen as supporting French imperialism in Indochina and would not act without diplomatic support from Britain and Australia.

There was no line of advance as there had been during WWII, behind which the war was over and civilians viewed themselves as ‘liberated’. Conversely, Southeast Asians saw the Westerners, especially the French, as ‘occupiers’. Communist forces, in territory and a culture much more home to them than their white counterparts, returned wherever they left. The moment Western troops left an area, they lost control of it. They controlled Vietnam only “100 yards on either side of all major roads”. Though America used its fire support assets to great effect and multiplied the effectiveness of its troops, the enemy did not abate for it.

Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Robert McNamara, John F. Kennedy, 1963.

The U.S. government policy, championed by Robert McNamara, of relying on “body counts” and statistics as metrics to determine victory led America tolose focus on other factors. Despite the focus on killing the enemy, America often refrained from bombing North Vietnamese government targets in the capital, Hanoi, as a tactic to keep them at the negotiating table while using B-52’s to carpet bomb entire swathes elsewhere in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. This angered civilians and turned them into refugees, fleeing into the arms of communists—particularly benefiting the Khmer Rouge. The French and American governments sought to end their wars in Southeast Asia as soon as they began and both eventually pursued negotiated settlements. They did not win the wars.

Those Who Forget History…

The popular conception of past wars and what, where, how, who and why they were conducted is often incomplete and the accuracy of the picture fades over time despite the clearer image produced by years of academic study after the fact. The Cold War is a perfect example, with the story of the Western or European Cold War the dominant narrative over what was a “hot war” in Southeast Asia. Since the dominant narratives or popular conception of wars past determines how wars are perceived in the future, it becomes all the more important to look deeper into even recent history for an accurate picture of events. Why? As ever—those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Two Views of Intelligence

This article originally appeared in Cicero Magazine on 19 June 2014.

The purpose of intelligence is to speak truth to power. Intelligence agencies exist to provide decision-makers with absolute, unbiased facts or, failing to obtain absolute facts, to provide as clear, unbiased and true a picture of a situation as possible using what facts are available to enable decision-makers to reach informed conclusions as to what course of action to take. Rarely is it the case that Intelligence can present a picture of a situation that is purely fact-based. There are common intelligence requirements, such as determining the intent of another party, which can never be known for certain because their very nature prevents certain, permanent determination. ‘Gaps’ in fact while attempting to form as clear, accurate and true a picture of a situation as possible can only be filled with conjecture or informed ‘guesswork’ based upon past actions, history, logic and/or statistical probability. Informed ‘guesswork’ is what intelligence analysts do.

One of the central arguments in the field of intelligence analysis regards which angle estimative or predictive strategic intelligence analysis should be approached. Two schools of thought have emerged: Straussians, based around University of Chicago political scientist Leo Strauss, and Kentians, around Sherman Kent, founding father of CIA’s estimative process.

Values or Truths?

The Straussian view of analysis is founded on the idea that the ‘regime’—specifically the form of government and society a state adopts—provides a window through which the political thought, intentions and actions of a state can be observed and predicted. It assumes there is a continual human search for which form of regime is ‘best’ and a qualitative analysis of the differences between these different forms is the route to determining which regime is ideal. For example, Strauss believed during the Cold War that the essential qualitative differences between American democracy and Soviet communism was the most important issue of the day.

At first read, there appears to be nothing controversial about that idea. However, the Straussian view requires that the judgment of the quality of a regime be based upon how well it provides public goods such as liberty, freedom, justice and so forth. This invites what can be called a ‘values’-based judgment into the process using determinants which are subjective in nature. This conflicts with the objective focus of mainstream notions of the social scientific approach which focusses on facts over values judgments and pictures measureable differences between regimes as a matter of different degrees of focus in pursuit of universal human pursuits.

The Kentian view of analysis is based firmly in the belief that intelligence analysis should be approached as an intellectual subject in the liberal social science tradition. Analysts were certainly not to make values judgments, but rather search for the underlying universal ‘truths’ common to man. Kent, a Yale historian, shied away from establishing or applying theoretical analysis based in international relations to intelligence, preferring instead more practical empirical frameworks and methods. He held that the intellectual and emotional detachment of his analysts allowed them to produce better estimates than military analysts or policymakers and their staffs because they focused on academic ‘truth’ as their goal without an attached or vested interest in their particular ‘regime’. Kent’s belief in the value of this objective analytical system was such that he held it to be more valuable than clandestine intelligence collection. No number of microphones or satellite photos could substitute for the value of being able to objectively divine the meaning of long-term trends in order to accurately estimate future actions.

While Kentian objective analysis can lead analysts down blind alleys due to strategic deception, Straussian analysis can lead one to look at regimes such as the Soviet Union or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in light of worst-case scenarios because of their (supposed) diametrical opposition to the U.S. regime.

Kent created a system for intelligence analysis with the goal of creating ‘institutional memory’ so knowledge would become cumulative and not be lost between generations. While building CIA’s analysis structures Kent was very much committed to the professionalization of intelligence analysis. Besides its academic commitment to neutrality, the Kentian view was also shaped by organisational factors. The positioning of CIA’s early estimative body between the military and political leaders required it to maintain a reputation for objectivity so as not to become a target for either. Kent held up the CIA’s performance in more accurately estimating Soviet capabilities during the Bomber and Missile Gaps of the late 1950s compared with military intelligence estimates as an example of its detached view of analysis discouraging it from inflating estimates to support its own organisational goals. The Air Force was accused of inflating Soviet bomber and ICBM estimates in order to justify an ever greater share of the defence budget going to its SAC and U.S. ICBM programmes.

Leo Strauss never worked, studied or wrote about intelligence analysis. He was a political scientist. However, as Gary Schmitt and Abram Schulsky argue, Strauss’ work on political analysis can be related to intelligence analysis. Strauss argued that political and social sciences could never be true or ‘hard’ sciences because of ‘deception’. Atoms and particles do not attempt to hide, conceal or deceive their observers. Human beings can and do. Strategic deception should always be a consideration in intelligence analysis, especially when dealing with a foe aware of interest in their activity and have counterintelligence capability.

Hall of Mirrors

When applying a detached, academic analysis to a problem, how can one account for strategic deception by the enemy? The annals of intelligence are filled with tales of strategic deception. Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese diplomats continued to conduct negotiations, not allowing U.S. analysts to narrow the field of Japanese intentions. Operation Mincemeat saw the body of an RAF officer carrying fake plans released into Spanish waters by submarine and successfully duped German intelligence into believing the allies would invade Greece rather than Sicily. Operation Bodyguard supported the pre-conceived German view that D-Day would come at Calais, not Normandy.

Some deception debates still continue today. Col. Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU military intelligence officer, was the highest ranking source the West had in Moscow during the Cold War. The intelligence he provided on Soviet nuclear capabilities is claimed to have directly influenced President Kennedy’s actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, he was compromised, arrested, put on show trial and apparently executed. Questions remain. Penkovsky’s job did not give him access to the material he provided, so how did he get it? At what point was he compromised and how? Was he executed as a spy or was it a Soviet deception operation from the beginning?

Strangely, after his execution the CIA went to unprecedented lengths to get Penkovsky’s story out, granting full access to the authors of the generously-named The Spy Who Saved the World. Was it to exploit the psychological effect of such a high-ranking source against the USSR? Or was it to cover up the fact they had been comprehensively duped themselves? All this to say that strategic deception is a vital consideration in intelligence analysis and part of James Jesus Angleton’s ‘hall of mirrors’. Is this what they are doing? Or is it what they want me to think they are doing?

While Kentian objective analysis can lead analysts down blind alleys due to strategic deception, Straussian analysis has led in some equally undesirable directions. The values-based judgment Straussian analysis invites can lead one to look at regimes such as the Soviet Union or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in light of worst-case scenarios because of their (supposed) almost diametrical opposition to the U.S. regime. Those who place primacy on a qualitative analysis of regimes and their ideology and view another regime as possessing an opposing ideology come to view that foe as a major threat where an objective analysis of the same regime considering its past actions, current posture and capability might see the same foe as posing only a minor threat.

From Cuba to Iraq

In 1976, President Ford approved an exercise in competitive analysis, pitting a junior team of CIA analysts applying standard Kentian methods against an external team applying Straussian methods to an analysis of Soviet nuclear capabilities. The episode has come to be known as ‘Team B’. Team B accused CIA of ‘mirror imaging’—assuming the foe holds the same universal principles and goals as the analyst does. Its analysis focused on Soviet intentions, ideas, aspirations and motivations rather than capabilities. It drew conclusions as to intentions based upon an assumption that the Soviet regime not only wanted to defeat the U.S. militarily, but destroy its regime politically, socially and economically. Team B began its analysis from that anchor point and used data to reinforce the assumption as opposed to drawing conclusions from data.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Team B’s analysis of Soviet capabilities was conclusively proven to be flawed. As an example of how far off path such methods can lead, Team B cited the lack of proof that the Soviet Union had developed an advanced submarine detection system as proof that it did in fact have it. They found it hard to believe the Soviets had not yet done so, so assumed that they had. The continued application of this kind of thinking is exhibited by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s 2002 statement on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction that ‘the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’

However, Kentian analysis has also failed at times, most famously in failing in successive National Intelligence Estimates, utilising the entirety of America’s intelligence machinery, to predict the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba, leading to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1964, Sherman Kent authored his own well-written post-mortem of how it came to pass, since becoming a classic of intelligence literature. He writes that one of the hazards of the profession of intelligence analysis is filling in gaps in fact with informed guesswork. These gaps are filled with conjecture based upon past actions. That Khrushchev would place missiles on Cuba exhibited a different posture from any of his past actions. Khrushchev ‘zigged’ when they expected him to ‘zag’. Kent goes so far as to say CIA got the estimates wrong because Khrushchev had made such a poor decision that it caught them by surprise.

Returning to the Straussian argument about the Kentian susceptibility to strategic deception, Khrushchev clearly intended to surprise the United States with nuclear missile placements on Cuba and to use them as a bargaining chip against President Kennedy. By suddenly changing posture in a way out of character for Soviet leadership, the Soviet Union was able to fool CIA analysts. Applying Straussian thinking to the situation may have led analysts to assume the USSR would attempt to place missiles on Cuba at some point because of its strategic intent to destroy the United States and look for data to support the assumption. U.S. imagery intelligence did discover missile placements on Cuba, but only because DCI John McCone had suspicions about Khrushchev’s intentions and told them to keep watch over Cuba despite Sherman Kent’s estimates. If estimators began with the assumption Khrushchev would try, they may have been discovered earlier.

This argument about which method of analysis is best suited to producing strategic intelligence estimates has gone on since the beginning of the U.S. Intelligence Community. As episodes from WWII through the Cold War to the Iraq War show, there is no sign of it being decided any time soon. The purpose of intelligence is to speak the truth to power, but the job of analysts is to determine what the ‘truth’ will be before it happens. Whether thinking like Sherman Kent or Leo Strauss, attempting to peer into the future while surrounded by the hall of mirrors is a task anyone is bound to fail at from time to time.

‘Nobody intends to put up a wall’: Walter Ulbricht, Khrushchev and Building the Berlin Wall, 1961

March 2014

Drawing predominantly on the work of Harrison, Maddrell, Slusser and Zubok, this essay will argue that the Berlin Wall was not conceived of nor built by Nikita Khrushchev alone, that building the Berlin Wall served the immediate needs of East Germany’s Walter Ulbricht more than Khrushchev’s international goals, and that Khrushchev was heavily influenced by Ulbricht’s campaign to pressure him into finally allowing the DDR to erect the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961.

Khrushchev’s International Goals v Ulbricht’s Immediate Needs: Maximum & Minimum Objectives
Much of the early Western-based literature on the Berlin Wall Crisis of 1961, and indeed throughout the Cold War, pictured Nikita Khrushchev as a puppet-master, pulling the strings of satellite states. It portrays Khrushchev as the sole architect and decision-maker on Soviet and socialist bloc policy in Berlin. However, this is a misrepresentation (Slusser,1973:ix). Archives and recollections of Cold War actors show Khrushchev did not decide alone to build the Berlin Wall. Khrushchev’s decisions were especially influenced by East German head-of-state Walter Ulbricht, First Secretary of the German Social Unity Party (SED) of the German Democratic Republic (DDR). Harrison (2000:53-74) discusses at length the lack of study of ‘super allies’ in the Cold War that led to the focus solely on ‘super-powers’. As Leffler (1996:120-135) argues, the picture developed from Cold War archives is more complex.

Slusser (1973:2) holds many Western scholars have reduced Ulbricht’s role because it was official Western policy that the DDR did not exist, that Ulbricht and the DDR had no recognised rights in Berlin, and there were no official ties between the DDR and Western governments in 1961 (Slusser, 1973:2). Bonwetsch and Filitow (2000:155-56) point out responsibility for die Mauer and Ulbricht’s role was and continues to be deflected onto Khrushchev by many former-DDR officials attempting to avoid public and criminal liability since the Wall fell in 1989. Khrushchev and the USSR are no longer there to defend themselves.

Harrison (1993:7-8) lists comprehensively motives ascribed in the literature to Khrushchev in the 1961 crisis: ‘to prevent West Germany from having access to nuclear weapons, to get Western recognition of the East German regime and thus stabilize that regime, to show Khrushchev's domestic opponents how strong and successful he was, to show Khrushchev's Chinese critics that he was not "soft on the imperialists," to divide the Western alliance, to force the West to accept the Soviet Union as its political and military equal, to test the rules of the new nuclear game to see if nuclear weapons could be used for coercive purposes, and to force the West to a summit conference to discuss German and disarmament issues.’ Khrushchev’s concerns in 1961 Berlin had more to do with global issues and the position of the USSR and socialism than with the future of Berlin itself.

Walter Ulbricht had much more immediate concerns. For the DDR, West Berlin in 1961 presented three threats to its very existence (Harrison, 2002:99). First, Berlin, with free movement throughout all sectors of the city guaranteed by the post-WWII four-partite agreement, was a ‘loophole’ that could not be closed by the DDR. The borders throughout the rest of East Germany had been secured since 1952 (ibid.; Schaefer, 2011:509) However its citizens could still freely cross into West Berlin and fly out of Tempelhof Airport, leaving the DDR permanently behind. Western powers did not recognise the DDR had any control in Berlin which would allow them to close the border. 1,000 people per day were fleeing the DDR into West Berlin (Schake, 2001:29). In June 1961, The Economist reported that since 1949 2.5 million citizens had fled the DDR (Slusser, 1973: 67). The annual number rose from 120,230 in 1959 to 182,278 in 1960 (Harrison, 2002:108) and continued to rise in 1961 (ibid.; CIA, 1961:2). Pictures and press testimonials of Germans leaving the DDR was bad publicity for the DDR, USSR and socialism as a whole. Additionally, many of those leaving were skilled professionals. According to CIA:

‘The high proportion of professionals, engineers, and intellectuals has been of particular concern to the (DDR) regime. From 1954 through 1960, the refugees included 4,334 doctors and dentists, 15,330 engineers and technicians, 738 professors, 15,885 other teachers, and more than 11,700 other college graduates. In addition, industrial managers have been leaving East Germany in significant numbers, many of them Socialist Unity Party (SED) members of long standing’
(CIA, 1961:2).

The flood of migrants not only reflected bad light on socialism, but also represented a ‘brain drain’ of skilled workers from East to West Germany.

A second threat was the economic impact of Grenzgaengern (Harrison, 2002:99): the estimated 50,000 East Germans who worked in West Berlin, were paid in West Marks and who returned home daily to East Berlin to enjoy the advantageous exchange rate against the East Mark. The term also included West Berliners who crossed into East Berlin to shop, also enjoying the exchange rate and contributing to scarcity of goods in the East, thus increasing prices for less-wealthy East Berliners (ibid.). The number of East Germans working in West Berlin rose from 50,000 to 65,000 in 1961 alone (ibid.:108).

The third threat was to DDR security. Western intelligence agencies used Berlin as a transit point for intelligence material and agents. Maddrell (2006:829-847) argues that while the DDR refugee crisis and the economic situation were the main impetus for building the Berlin Wall, DDR security concerns regarding Western espionage were a more important factor than often cited. Western intelligence agencies used Berlin as a major base of operations, obtaining information from refugees and using the free movement of Grenzgaengern to conduct espionage, ferry information and meet agents. To be fair, the East bloc used it in the same manner against the West. The DDR State Ministry for Security—the Stasi—was concerned that Western intelligence would use the fragile state of the DDR in 1961 to incite an uprising in East Berlin similar to that of 1953, which Ulbricht had blamed on subversion coming from West Berlin (US State Department, 1954), ending in a massive uprising against Ulbricht’s government that was only eventually put down by Soviet tanks. Maddrell (2006:833) points out, ‘in the whole history of states, it is hard to think of a state which has suffered an espionage and subversion crisis as grave as that which gripped the DDR in the years up to 1961.’ For Ulbricht, choking off this attack point was vital to DDR survival.

Slusser (1973:9) argues that for Khrushchev, Berlin was a ‘lever’ to be used in the larger struggle with the West, while for Ulbricht Berlin was not a means to an end, but the end itself. For Ulbricht, Berlin was the prize to be won (Harrison, 1993:11). Ulbricht sought elimination of the embarrassing refugee problem, the ‘brain drain’, Grenzgaengern, security worries and the vanishing prestige of the DDR itself. Building a wall could do that. Khrushchev’s international concerns were secondary to him. Harrison (2002:103) agrees Khrushchev’s goals in Berlin were larger, global concerns, whereas Ulbricht’s were DDR-specific and could be immediately addressed by building the Berlin Wall. During 1961, it was Ulbricht who was impatient, confrontational and aggressive, while Khrushchev was patient and more restrained (ibid.). As Ahonen (2011:40-56) points out, for Ulbricht controlling the borders was about the legitimacy of the DDR.

Slusser (1973:93) adroitly describes this tension between Khrushchev’s larger international goals and Ulbricht’s immediate needs as a choice between ‘maximum’ and ‘minimum’ objectives. He describes Khrushchev’s maximum objective as, ‘inflicting a major diplomatic defeat on the Western powers by forcing them to accept the fait accompli of a Soviet-East German peace treaty, bringing with it the end of Western occupation rights in West Berlin.’ Ulbricht’s minimum objective was, ‘shoring up the East German regime by shutting off the escape route via West Berlin.’ In the end, Khrushchev set aside his maximum objective and in favour of Ulbricht’s minimum objective.

Ulbricht Probes Khrushchev and the West on the Border
Why would Khrushchev, premiere of the Soviet Union, be influenced by Walter Ulbricht, the leader of a divided country dependent upon aid from Moscow and not even recognised by Western powers? Zubok (1993:11-12) argues Khrushchev was tied politically and sentimentally to Ulbricht because of their history. During the 1953 East Berlin uprising, Khrushchev sided with Ulbricht over other Soviet leaders and accused them of abandoning socialism in the DDR, thus tying himself politically to Ulbricht’s success. While Khrushchev faced uprisings in Poland and Hungary in 1956, Ulbricht swiftly quelled protests and had no quarrel with Soviet troops on East German soil and in fact welcomed them, a story explored further by Granville (2006:422). Ulbricht’s commitment to building socialism in East Germany won him Khrushchev’s praise (CWIHP, 1993:60), though it was these very ‘collectivisation’ policies that caused the economic hardship in the DDR that precipitated the refugee crisis. Zubok (1993:11-12) says Khrushchev did not want to lose the DDR, a place millions of Russians died to win in WWII, a place where a higher standard of living was enjoyed than anywhere else in the socialist bloc (CWIHP, 1993:61), and the place Westerners could most easily come into contact with socialism to be ‘won over’ by it. Khrushchev developed a similar affinity for the embattled socialist island of Cuba (Zubok, 1993:12). In 1961, Ulbricht ‘masterfully exploited’ Khrushchev’s fears of losing the DDR to force a confrontation with the West over Berlin (CWIHP, 1993:58).

Talk of a Berlin Wall neither began in 1961 nor just between Khrushchev and Ulbricht. There is evidence that Wilhelm Zaisser, the first head of the DDR’s Stasi, put forward a plan to build a wall to separate the two halves of Berlin in the early 1950s (Maddrell, 2006:833). Though DDR security officials such as Erich Honecker, charged with erecting the Wall, claimed the operation was a surprise to and great success against Western intelligence (Harrison, 2002:113), that the border may one day be sealed was no surprise at all to them. In fact, Western intelligence had been planning and instructing its agents regarding the possibility since 1953 (Maddrell, 2006:833). The Soviets had been turning down DDR requests to seal the border in Berlin for at least that long (Harrison, 2002:96). Erecting a barrier between East and West Berlin was not a new concept in 1961.

The rest of the DDR border outside Berlin was sealed since 1952 (Schaefer, 2011:509). The East Berlin border was temporarily sealed during the 1953 uprising, but soon reopened. The DDR announced in 1957 that it was now illegal for East Germans to leave the country without official permission (Maddrell, 2006:833). Until 1960, attempts by Ulbricht to secure the Berlin border were limited to controlling transit of East Germans into the West. However, from 1960 Ulbricht began to probe Western responses—and Khrushchev’s—to increased security measures affecting West Berliners and the Western allies. He acted without consulting Khrushchev and often even against Soviet cautions.

On 21 September 1960, Ulbricht, frustrated with Khrushchev’s slow approach on a permanent solution regarding the status of the DDR and Berlin, decided to press the issue by requiring Western diplomats obtain DDR Foreign Ministry permission to enter East Berlin. He had not notified Moscow and under the post-war four-partite agreement on Berlin (to which the DDR was not a party) he had no recognised authority to do so. The Soviet response was negative as they wanted no reciprocal restrictions made against them (Harrison, 2002:105).

On 17 October 1960, the Soviet embassy cabled Moscow that, ‘Our friends [East Germany] are studying the possibility of taking measures directed towards forbidding and making it more difficult for DDR citizens to work in West Berlin, and also towards stopping the exodus of the population of the DDR through West Berlin. One of such measures by our friends could be the cessation of free movement through the sectoral border and the introduction of such a process for visiting West Berlin by DDR citizens as exists for visiting the BRD [West Germany].’ (Harrison, 2002:107; Zubok, 1993:18). The next day, 18 October, Ulbricht wrote to Khrushchev directly defending the restrictions, arguing they should stand firm against the Western powers which did not recognise the DDR’s right to control its own borders, a fundamental right of any state. In a 30 November meeting, Khrushchev instructed Ulbricht to refrain from measures on the border (Harrison, 2002:107). Ulbricht tried again. On 19 May 1961 Soviet Ambassador Pervukhin reported that an impatient Ulbricht was not following Soviet guidance and wanted to immediately close the border to address the growing economic and refugee problems (ibid.:110-11).

On 15 June, Ulbricht held an infamous press conference. He offered, ‘there are people in West Germany who would like us to mobilise the building workers of the DDR capital to put up a wall. I am not aware of any such intention…Nobody intends to put up a wall.’ This only two months before the Wall would go up. It has since become a phrase many Germans repeat when someone is not being completely honest. Ulbricht went on to mention Soviet/DDR control of Berlin would mean closing Tempelhof Airport, the main escape route for refugees, and that Berlin would become a neutral city, ‘free’ from ‘disturbance’ by Western forces (Slusser, 1973:8-10). Slusser argues that rather than just a blatant lie or an attempt to calm tensions, Ulbricht’s intent—and the effect—was to increase the panicked atmosphere in Berlin to force Khrushchev to bring a swifter conclusion to the crisis.

Ulbricht’s probing continued. On 28 June, Ulbricht ordered all foreign air traffic to notify DDR controllers upon entering and exiting DDR airspace, a move quickly brushed aside by the Western allies (ibid.:43). On 8 July, the East Berlin police chief refused entry of West German delegates to an All-Germany Protestant church conference. That day, 2,600 refugees crossed into West Berlin. Throughout July, DDR ministers continued to publicly push the issue of DDR recognition and control of Berlin. On 16 July, the Ministry of Justice publicly released a detailed plan for the administration of West Berlin under DDR control (ibid.:63). Western figures show that over 100,000 refugees left the DDR in the first six months of 1961 alone (ibid.:66).

Rather presciently, on 30 July US Senator and Kennedy-ally William Fulbright remarked to the press that he did not understand why the DDR does not build a wall in East Berlin, as he considered it their right to do so (ibid.:94; Zubok, 1993:29). It appears Khrushchev made the decision to finally agree Ulbricht’s request at just this time.

There is no ‘smoking gun’ record of when exactly Khrushchev decided to agree to Ulbricht’s continuous request to seal East Berlin. Harrison puts the period between 15 and 25 July 1961 and argues that it came about broadly as a result of Khrushchev’s disappointment with the Vienna talks with Kennedy in June (2002:110). Slusser (1973:93-4) believes the decision fell on 27 July and came about after Khrushchev read Kennedy’s 25 July television speech in which he announced a large increase in US defence spending, which Khrushchev interpreted as an escalating US response to his own recent decision to increase Soviet defence spending. Zubok (1993:26-7) also places the decision on or around 27 July, citing Khrushchev’s own recollections.

Khrushchev also claims credit for the idea of building a concrete wall, not just a barbed wire barrier. Literally interpreted, Khrushchev may be said to be responsible for a Berlin ‘Wall’, not just a Berlin fence. Khrushchev recalls Ulbricht, upon being informed of the decision said, ‘This is the solution! This will help. I am for this’ (ibid.). Ulbricht sent Khrushchev a copy of the speech he would deliver at the coming 3-5 August Warsaw Pact conference on Berlin, stating that in regard to sealing the borders, ‘we have prepared all the necessary measures’ (Harrison, 2002:111). The Berlin Wall would be erected as planned on 13 August 1961.

Conclusion
Contrary to much of the early Western-based literature on the Berlin Wall, more recent literature based on archival research shows Khrushchev did not make the decision to build it alone. Building the Wall served Ulbricht’s immediate needs to stabilise the DDR more than they did Khrushchev’s larger international goals in the Cold War. Ulbricht had been seeking to seal the DDR’s Berlin border for several years and his probing campaign, beginning in late 1960, played a key role in pressuring Khrushchev to finally allow DDR forces to build the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961.



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