MB: (Interupts) Then and hot air now.

MB: (Interrupts).

MB: (Interrupts) It is true that at various points Khrushchev used rhetorical flourishes that had a flavour of nuclear danger to them but I do not think that those speeches were weighed heavily in Washington.

MB: As we considered the question of military defence in Berlin we had to recognise that we wwin a full-scale conventional war in the middle of Germany. We had therefore to use our conventional strength as the means of demonstrating our determination but we could not plan on fighting and winning large battles. We simply had to be ready to force the issue in terms of making the other guy fire the first shot and it was in that context that we had increased capabilities for asserting and maintaining our rights of access and presence in West Berlin.

MB: Well, they were the you know in overall war-fighting terms, the changes were not very large. What they had to do with was really more readiness of commanders on the scene to be prompt and quick in maintaining the existing rights and privileges in Berlin, and in that sense, the most important military step that we took was to put General Clay on the spot.

MB: Yes, but before that we had people on the scene who were alert and that and maintained our rights. I don't think there's any particular magic to that. It was simply a matter of having it clear that we would insist on the existing military rights and privileges.

MB: Well, the three essentials that were worked out and publicly stated in a lot of different forms but in essence they were the American and Western military presence effective access and the maintenance of the political rights and status of the citizens and polity of West Berlin.

MB: That's three. Presence, access and political rights.

MB: Well, I think the speech of July 25th did make clear the basic American requirements for peace in Berlin which are the three that we were just discussing and it's also true that the speech does not assert as fundamental and sort of war and peace issues, the wider rights in Berlin as a whole and that was deliberate.

MB: Well, we don't have any direct knowledge of the degree to which what was put in and what was left out of the July speech was read as permitting or encouraging or allowing actions such as those that the Soviets did take when they built the wall. But I think it is a fact that we were not going to fight about what the Soviets did on their side of the wall and that it is quite likely that Khrushchev was helped to understand that American position by the July speech. And my own view, looking back, is that's a good thing.

MB: I think the basic point to remember about the way the Berlin Crisis came out is that it came out with a reassertion and re-emphasis of the existing rights and powers and I think that was on the whole constructive. It did mean that the Western rights in East Berlin were not enforced. And the reason for that is the underlying power situation on the ground. The Soviets had the power to do what they eventually did, namely build the wall.

MB: (Interrupts) No, I would not. I do not think it was wrong to emphasise West Berlin because I think it would have been over-stretching to try to make the formal rights of the West in East Berlin effective in the 1960s.

MB: I don't have any direct recollection.

MB: I don't have any direct recollection.

MB: I haven't really reviewed that either. It was an intense period and I have to plead unprepared on that subject.

MB: If I can look and see what I said there...

PAUSE