"What nonsense this all is. We simply do not want to believe that it is the desire, the ambition of the United States to appear before the whole world as an aggressor. We would like to tell them to stop that noise with your weapons, stop the rattling, and wait until we have reasonable negotiations on equal terms.1

What reasonable human being wants war? For Walter Ulbricht to suggest above that the United States is merely a volatile hegemony with an itchy trigger finger seems remarkably lacking in insight and understanding of the precarious factors of the Cold War. Obviously, neither the United States nor the Soviet Union felt war to be necessary; John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev considered themselves and each other to be men of reason. In documentation to be later presented in this paper, it is clear that neither administration felt that the other was prepared to be the aggressor of a nuclear war. However, concurrent with the ubiquitous mistrust characterizing the time period was the understanding that the enemy’s moves were an enigma. In times of such uncertainty, it was best to be prepared. To evaluate the danger in a situation such as the Berlin crisis, o

Clearly, both countries had the military capacity to wage a nuclear war and had planned accordingly. Both powers had declared their intentions to use nuclear force if left with no alternative. All factors were in place for destruction; In fact, a phone call, an order disobeyed, a misunderstanding may have been all that was needed in 1961 to provoke the first(and likely only) nuclear altercation. The only question that remains is whether the circumstances and events involved in the Berlin crisis can be justified.

ne must look beyond the statistics and military buildup and into the mindset of the heads of the powers involved to determine whether war was an viable possibility, or simply a political device.

Some topics in this essay:
Soviet Union, Kennedy Khrushchev, Khrushchev Kennedy, West Berlin, Eisenhower Khrushchev, Chiefs Staff, Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy Congress, Pearl Harbor, Berlin Cuba, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, west berlin, soviet union, cold war, berlin crisis, treaty gdr, military buildup, declared intentions, peace treaty, peace treaty gdr, response kennedy speech, world war ii, absolute gains option,