Source: Aide memoire from Khruschev to Kennedy, June 1961<\/strong><\/p>\n The peace treaty will specifically record the status of West Berlin as a free city, and the Soviet Union<\/a>, like the other parties to the treaty, will, of course, strictly observe it and measures will also be taken to see to it that this status is also respected by the other countries. At the same time this will also mean the liquidation of the occupation r\u00e9gime in West Berlin with all the consequences arising from this. In particular, the questions of using land, water and air communications<\/a> across the territory of the German Democratic Republic will have to be settled not otherwise than through appropriate agreements with the German Democratic Republic. This is only natural, since control over such communications is an inalienable right of any sovereign State.<\/p>\n Source: Kennedy Speech in response to the Aide Memoire sent by Khruschev<\/strong><\/p>\n The real intent of the June\u00a04 aide memoire is that East Berlin, a part of a city under 4-Power status, would be formally absorbed into the so-called German Democratic Republic while West Berlin, even though called a \u201cfree city,\u201d would lose the protection presently provided by the Western Powers and become subject to the will of a totalitarian regime. Its leader, Herr\u00a0Ulbricht, has made clear his intention, once this so-called \u201cpeace treaty\u201d is signed, to curb West Berlin\u2019s communications with the free world and to suffocate the freedom it now enjoys.<\/p>\n Source: Strategic Air Planning and Berlin<\/p>\n External link<\/a>\u00a0(pdf document). This is a copy of the now declassified documents that show that the US was preparing for a ‘First Strike’ option if the Berlin Crisis<\/a> led to inevitable military conflict. This illustrates the level of expectation in the US camp. It helps to explain the reaction of Kennedy to the Cuban Missile Crisis<\/a> and also the reason why the Soviet Union wanted to put missiles on Cuba<\/a> in the first place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cold War<\/a><\/p>\n Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam Conferences<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Stalin and Truman: ideological differences<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Soviet Satellite States<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Cominform and Comecon<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0US Involvement in Europe Post WW2<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Truman Doctrine<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Marshall Plan<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Bizonia<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Berlin Airlift<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0NATO: Origins and History<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The arms race and Mutually assured destruction<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Soviet rule in Hungary<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Destalinization<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Hungarian Revolution<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Berlin: Refugee Crisis<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Khruschev\u2019s challenge to the west over Berlin<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a01960: Paris Summit<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Kennedy and the Berlin Crisis<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Berlin Wall<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0President Kennedy visit to Berlin<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Cuban Missile Crisis: Why were missiles there?<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Cuban Missile Crisis: Why did Kennedy respond as he did?<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Cuban Missile Crisis: Resolution and analysis<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Vietnam War<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Berlin: Challenge to Kennedy Source Material Source: Aide memoire from Khruschev to Kennedy, June 1961 The peace treaty will specifically record the status of West Berlin as a free city, and the Soviet Union, like the other parties to the treaty, will, of course, strictly observe it and measures will also be taken to see… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":148,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":100,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1002","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1002\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Kennedy](\"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/John_Kennedy_Nikita_Khrushchev_1961-300x233.jpg\")
<\/a>