The Kennedy Imperative

1.

The crisis began in the early hours of August 13 with barbed wire strung across the Potsdamer Platz. Armored personnel carriers were stationed at key intersections and platoons of East German militia were disgorged into the gloom of the empty square to shield construction crews against the few jeering onlookers.

By breakfast on that warm Sunday morning, several miles had already been completed along the east-west divide. At noon, a crowd of five thousand gathered to demonstrate at the Brandenburg Gate as it was systematically sealed, then protests moved to the City Hall in Schöneberg where the numbers swelled to over a hundred thousand. Inside his office, Mayor Willy Brandt was powerless to prevent the bisection of his city, just like any of the other allied leaders: Kennedy, Adenauer, Macmillan, de Gaulle. Despite the guarantees and the treaties, all had been outmaneuvered and rendered impotent by the sheer rapidity of events. By evening, the entire western side of Berlin had become a sealed enclave within the Soviet bloc, the democratic hostage of a totalitarian empire, and the Cold War was finally frozen into position.

In the days and weeks that followed, an armada of heavy equipment created mountains of rubble as barriers of steel, concrete, brick and cinder block reinforced the wire forming a hundred mile barricade. To build what became known simply as der Mauer, the Wall, neighborhoods were bulldozed, streets were ripped up and houses evacuated. Some people were separated from their loved ones, others from their places of employment. Free passage between the occupation zones as stipulated in the postwar agreement was unilaterally terminated by the Soviets and many citizens now felt so trapped that they risked death in their attempt to escape. They clambered over debris, ran across rooftops, jumped from windows and crawled through sewers but most never made it. Walter Ulbricht, chairman of the East German politburo, ordered his soldiers to shoot their compatriots on sight and although some shirked such onerous duties, many more were only too willing to carry them out, either for the sake of Socialist ideology or, far more common, because that was the only job they could find.

The hurried construction of the Wall was meant to stem the endless flow of migrants to the west, already up to twenty per cent of the East German population and the cause of critical labor shortages. Yet in doing so, it not only severed a living city but came to symbolize the rift between entire hemispheres. This was now the world that Orwell had predicted. Continental forces faced each other with thermonuclear warheads, each a thousand times more lethal than the device which destroyed Hiroshima, and both sides’ entire defense policies were based on M.A.D., the laughable acronym for mutually assured destruction. Under such conditions, a single error by a fatigued corporal could trigger an escalation that would render the entire planet lifeless.

It was within this maelstrom, this newest locus of human folly, that Philip Thomas Marsden was awarded his initial field assignment.

In appearance, he was unremarkably average in both height and build, the kind of individual nobody would ever notice on a crowded street, with a pale everyman’s face topped by an unkempt thatch of mousy hair. However, it wasn’t for his physical prowess that the CIA had so readily scooped him out of the gentle backwaters of academia; it was for an exceptional intellect which only revealed itself in the secluded depths of the gray-green eyes that seemed to perceive everything even as they exhibited nothing. A political science prodigy who spoke fluent Russian, he’d been recruited directly from Harvard where he’d studied under an exceptional young professor of German origin by the name of Henry Kissinger.

The scheduled mission was relatively mundane and his own role secondary: to accompany a military officer across the recently sealed border for an officially sanctioned but otherwise clandestine rendezvous with equivalent ranking members of the Soviet Armed Forces and the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, the state security service more commonly known by its abbreviation, KGB. The meeting had been scheduled to finalize protocols for the eight city checkpoints, including B for Bravo on the southern edge of Berlin at Drewitz near the Wannsee and C for Charlie in the heart of the city center. It was not meant as a strategic debate, more a tactical discussion of procedures to cope with the inevitable stupidities and misunderstandings that were bound to arise during the course of any given day.

The mid-morning briefing was a tense affair with no less than twelve attending, ten military and two CIA, perhaps a touch of overkill considering the nature of the task, but these were still early days of the new scenario and nobody really knew what to expect. Since the mission came under the nominal leadership of the former General Clay, it was appropriate that the session was taking place at the complex known as the Clay Headquarters of the USAB, the Berlin Brigade of the US Army, situated on the main artery now called Clayallee. Both the base and the street had been so named after the general’s leadership during the Soviet military blockade of 1948/49, when the western sectors had been supplied by airlift for a full fifteen months, a monumental feat of logistics for which the citizens of West Berlin were immensely grateful. However, since Clay himself was still Stateside, this morning’s meeting was held under the chairmanship of a barrel-chested New Yorker, Colonel William Fairfax of military intelligence.

On the wall of the conference room was a highly-detailed city plan, updated by the hour with tiny colored pins to indicate the Wall’s construction, which the gravel-voiced Fairfax had just finished using to indicate the precise route that the lone Jeep would take. After the requisite Q&A session on geography, he now turned their attention to the key figures involved by tacking up grainy file photos while reading out their biographies from his notes. On the Soviet military side would be a certain Major Semyon Gavrikov, a decorated hero of Stalingrad, plus a representative of the KGB, Yuri Vasiliyev, about whom little was known. For the US, the mission commander would be a rangy, chisel-faced major from Wyoming by the name of Hank Leland, a veteran of Normandy and the Bulge; but since everyone in attendance already knew him and his well-earned reputation, Fairfax spent considerably longer on the credentials of the CIA junior who would be along for the ride, acquainting them especially with the young man’s most unique talent, the ability to speak the Soviets’ own language.

It was Leland himself who addressed this very topic: Just out of interest, how good is it, your Russian? he said directly to Philip Marsden. I mean, I get that you’re fluent and all, but what exactly does that mean, fluent? What do you sound like when you speak?

Philip saw all eyes turn his way, felt the cynical attitude of uniformed officers towards a fresh-faced civilian. My mother’s Russian, he replied quietly.

Thanks, I read the file, said Leland. We all read the file. But what I asked was how do you sound? How broad’s your accent? What kind of dialect do you speak, what kind of slang? You understand why it’s so critical I know this?

No, not exactly.

Leland was beginning to show his frustration. It was all too obvious he didn’t like the notion of being saddled on this expedition with a rookie, magnified by the fact that there was no love lost between the military and the agency at the best of times. It’s because if you have to speak, I need you to sound like an American, someone who learned Russian by the book in a classroom. Any worse than that, they’ll just dismiss you as incompetent. Any better, they might start to think you’re a defector and that would change the whole tone, you follow me?

I understand.

Ah, you understand, do you? he said as if talking to a child. Good, good, I’m glad you understand. In that case, maybe you’d be so kind as to answer the... He took a breath. He’d been about to swear but managed to hold himself in check. Just answer the question, will you?

Philip was determined to remain polite, his attitude cool but accommodating. I can sound like anything you want. My mother’s from Khovrino, so I can sound like I come from there. But, if you prefer, I can also sound like I learned it all at Langley.

Where’s Khovrino?

It’s a district in the north of Moscow.

In that case, gimme Langley.

Philip gave a single nod of acknowledgment which ended the interchange and allowed the meeting to move on.

At the end of the table, Colonel Fairfax took a moment to sort through his agenda while a couple of others used the opportunity to get up, stretch a little and refill their coffee mugs. Apart from Philip, the only other person not in uniform was the CIA liaison officer from Berlin Operations Base, a mid-level functionary who was only there to take notes and report back. He glanced briefly at his young colleague but they hardly knew each other and there was little complicity between them.

Despite his outward calm, Philip Marsden was only too conscious that he was on his own here, seconded to military intelligence for the duration of the assignment but neither wanted nor appreciated. Yet at the same time, he recognized that he was here to learn, that he was being put to the test, and he resolved once again to keep the more impulsive side of his nature safely hidden. It had emerged on sporadic occasions throughout his youth and had invariably caused so much disruption to himself and others that he’d been obliged to subjugate these inclinations in case they totally derailed his ambitions.

At precisely 09.00 on the morning of Thursday, September 3rd, Philip Marsden was ready and waiting in the Jeep’s passenger seat when Hank Leland clambered in beside him, stashed his cap and his attaché case, then made himself comfortable behind the wheel. Any animosity that might have lingered from the briefing seemed to have dissolved and the major had taken on a spirited, almost jaunty mood.

So, kid, you ready for this?

Ready as I’ll ever be.

While Leland was clad in his dress uniform bedecked with campaign ribbons, Philip had today abandoned his dark suit and tie, which he’d never liked anyway, in favor of an open blue shirt, loose khaki slacks and a black, golf-style zippered jacket that made him look like he was on a sightseeing excursion.

Once Leland was settled, he opened up the choke, coughed the engine into life and crunched into gear as if it were a symbolic gesture of departure. Then he gave a cheery wave towards the small dispatch committee led by Colonel Fairfax and eased out on to Friedrichstrasse, the central thoroughfare that had been sliced in two by the Wall like a shovel through an earthworm. Directly ahead was Checkpoint Charlie, as delineated on this side of the divide by the hastily-rigged control booth and the iconic sign inscribed in English, Russian, French and German: You are leaving the American sector.

As they drove on past, the military police officer on duty offered a salute which Hank Leland returned. Here we go, he muttered.

The young man didn’t respond. He just kept his eyes focused on the Soviet emblem that loomed just a hundred yards beyond the windshield. From behind the red-and-white striped barriers, several Grenztruppen, guards of the East German border control, appeared to be watching them intently, one with binoculars, and Philip wondered how they were feeling at this moment: whether they were merely Communist automatons as imagined in the west, or whether they, too, were subject to the same fears and apprehensions. Were they truly aware of the stakes involved? How would they behave in a crisis? What would their response be to a direct challenge? Such were the realities they had to consider on this mission; the kind of critical, on-the-ground issues that would never be examined in the context of a Harvard thesis.

Next to Philip, Hank Leland was deliberately holding back the velocity of their approach, perhaps in a subconscious attempt not to spook the guards unnecessarily. In theory, the postwar treaty allowed military and other official personnel to travel anywhere in the city without hindrance but circumstances had changed with the Wall and it seemed judicious not to test such limits. They therefore came to a complete halt at the first barrier and Leland offered a salute to a senior officer, the only one in a Soviet uniform.

"Guten Tag, Leland announced. Then, just for good measure added the Russian equivalent Dobry den with atrocious pronunciation. Both phrases represented the limit of his language abilities so he continued the introductions by reverting to English. Major Henry Leland, US Army... this is Agent Marsden... here to attend a conference with Major Galganov."

The Soviet officer didn’t reply, didn’t display any noticeable expression to indicate that he’d understood before returning inside a metal-sided cabin, while three other men just stood and watched. All carried Kalashnikov automatic rifles slung casually over their shoulders. Beyond the immediate barrier were two more horizontal poles, and beyond that, the continuation of Friedrichstrasse, almost deserted, with dilapidated buildings still pockmarked by war damage even after sixteen years. Leland left the Jeep’s motor running but after a full minute, nothing had happened. He exchanged a glance with his passenger but neither of them spoke. There was little they could do but sit there and wait. Another minute passed. Ultimately, the Soviet officer emerged, striding purposefully into the pale sunlight. He called out instructions in Russian-accented German and one of the men opened up the barrier.

Leland drove through but was again obliged to stop because while the arm dropped down behind, the second barrier ahead remained closed, trapping the Jeep between the two. Nevertheless, he patiently allowed the game to be played out, undoubtedly assuming that the guards who’d been given this unenviable sentry duty were as mixed up as everyone else about the new crossing protocols. This was, after all, why the conference had been scheduled.

By this time, the senior officer was gazing over towards the passenger side. You are Philip Marsden? he asked in a hesitant version of English. When Philip acknowledged, the man said: Please exit.

It didn’t sound like a request, it sounded more like a command, so Philip simply deferred to Hank Leland.

Excuse me, is there a problem here? asked the major. Like I said, we’re expected at a conference...

He didn’t even get to finish the sentence before the officer interrupted.

Philip Marsden, please exit. Further orders were given and two of the guards walked around the Jeep to the passenger side and just stood there. They didn’t try to open the door and their weapons remained in place on their shoulders but, nevertheless, the meaning was clear.

Now just a minute... replied Leland, his combat instincts in danger of superseding his diplomatic mandate. Then, quietly, to Philip: Sit tight, kid.

Again, the officer spoke in English, repeating the same order but far more insistently: Philip Marsden, please exit. He seemed to have learned that one word exit specifically for the occasion.

In very short order, the situation had escalated and Hank Leland was left with a tough decision to make. He could choose to hold his ground, daring them to take physical action, but if it were indeed just a misunderstanding, such a reaction could provoke a serious incident and he wouldn’t be thanked by anyone for that. On the other hand, he could just allow the confrontation to evolve and perhaps cooler heads would prevail. Stand firm or acquiesce: these were the apparent choices and he didn’t need a degree in political science to comprehend the sensitivity involved or the potential consequences of a misstep. In the end, much against his inclination, he came down on the side of caution and simply nodded his assent.

Philip now had no choice but to obey the mission commander. Somewhat reluctantly, he opened his side door, stepped out onto the roadway and instantly sensed the two guards edging in closer, one on each side, as if he’d now committed himself into their custody. He saw no further objection from Hank Leland, who appeared to have given up his leverage with that single nod. The young man was therefore obliged to follow the guards around the Jeep and into the cabin.

The last Philip saw of the major was an expression of encouragement, assuring him that this was no more than a slight hiccup, that all would soon be resolved.

Major Leland? You there?

Yes, sir, right here.

Leland was back at Berlin base, on the phone to Washington. The long-distance connection was not all that clear but the familiar voice of former General Lucius D. Clay boomed through the crackling.

What in hell’s name happened?

Leland took a moment to breathe. It would be the fourth time he’d debriefed but this was now the man himself. I’m as furious about it as you are, sir.

I seriously doubt that. Now spit it out, Major, every damn detail. Start from the beginning.

Well, sir, there’s really not that much to tell. We arrived at their side of the checkpoint on schedule for our meeting. I announced who we were, what we were there for, and they just ordered the kid out of the Jeep.

The kid?

Sorry, sir, I meant Agent Marsden, of course.

Were they Russian or German?

The officer was Soviet. The others were East German.

Who spoke, the Russian?

Yes, sir, he seemed to be in command.

And what did he say to you? Exactly.

He spoke only to Agent Marsden. He said ‘Philip Marsden, please exit.’

He said this in English?

Yes, sir.

And he used Agent Marsden’s first name?

Yes, sir. Then he repeated the instruction and two of the guards came around to Marsden’s side of the vehicle. In my view, sir, it was a direct threat.

Were they armed, these guards?

Yes, sir... AK-47’s.

Leveled?

No, sir.

So why didn’t you just back up your vehicle. Did you think they’d fire on you?

I was between the barriers, sir. It would have been impossible. And besides, I didn’t want to risk an incident.

So what the hell do you call this? All right, go on.

Not much else. At that point, I gave Agent Marsden permission to step out. He was then escorted by the guards into the hut. That was the last I saw. Only at that point did they raise the barrier and order me back.

Order? And since when do you take orders from them?

Sorry, sir, poor choice of words. They indicated that I should return and I decided that it would be the best course of action.

So you deserted a fellow officer in the middle of an altercation? Is that what you’re telling me?

Sir, with all due respect, I was trying to prevent an escalation.

Damn it, Leland, you didn’t put up a struggle? You didn’t even object?

Sir... Leland was about to erupt but managed to control himself in time. Already, he could foresee how this would pan out. They’d need a scapegoat and he was it, ready to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Yet he couldn’t just remain silent. He had to say something in his own defense, if only because he felt he’d genuinely tried in all good conscience to consider the bigger picture. He began again, this time with a tone of exaggerated patience. "Sir, we’ve been instructed endlessly over the past few weeks, ever since they carved the city in half, that we must show restraint, that we must appreciate how sensitive the situation might be. I thought... I believed I was doing the right thing."

The rebuke was sharp. Well, obviously, it wasn’t the right thing, was it? Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this damn mess.

Leland didn’t answer, because there was nothing more he could think to say. The pause extended while the general was either considering the matter or speaking to someone else in his office. Meanwhile, the phone line hissed and Leland just waited.

All right, said Clay eventually. "Go back to your unit and wait there until further notice. You do not talk to anyone about this, you hear?"

Yes sir.

Not your buddies, not your family, no one. Are we clear?

No one. Got it, sir. How about my C.O.?

I’ll be talking to him myself, rest assured.

Yes sir.

All right, enough. Now I gotta go explain all this to the White House. Helluva thing.

Good luck with that, sir.

What? yelled Clay. Is that insubordination I’m hearing, on top of everything?

Hank Leland didn’t feel like reminding Clay that it couldn’t be insubordination if the general was no longer a serving officer but he held back. Instead, he just replied: No sir, not at all. He already knew he’d be fortunate to make it out of this without a court-martial. Perhaps his service record would save him; or then again, perhaps not.

Nobody had yet said a word to Philip Marsden: neither the Soviet officer at Checkpoint Charlie, nor the middle-aged civilian in the bad suit who now sat with him in the back of the black Volga, bumping and bouncing on worn shocks through the colorless streets of East Berlin. Of course, he’d demanded to know what was happening, at first politely, then more vociferously, but there had not been a single word of response. Was the man a diplomat, a bureaucrat, or KGB? Philip had no way to tell. Was he, himself, a guest or a prisoner? He didn’t know that, either.

As his eyes took in the drab cityscape beyond the window, he tried to force his mind to work. Everyone always said he possessed a good intellect but he was finding it difficult to piece together evidence from the scant information he’d been able to glean so far. He assumed, for example, that there was some logical reason for this action and that since they’d spoken his name, he’d been deliberately targeted. This wasn’t just some random arrest. He also figured that they must want something from him, otherwise why go to all this trouble?

Where were they heading? This was another good question. He’d done his due diligence of the city grid but it was all very different viewing it at street level from the back of a car. The districts with their decrepit pre-war architecture looked pretty much alike and there were few landmarks he could recognize, just anonymous sections of the Wall or the river from which he tried to gauge their direction. As far as he could tell, they were heading east, away from the center.

This was his first time in the Soviet sector and his primary impression was in terms of the negative: all the features that were conspicuous by their absence. Here were no neon signs, no bright windows, no branded hoardings, not even much traffic. Everything seemed to be in monochrome, including the pedestrians who seemed to trudge the sidewalks like... His first thought was zombies but he quickly revised that opinion. These were not zombies, just sad people who’d long been deprived of normality. Within their lifetimes, they’d endured hyper-inflation, severe economic depression, devastating bombardment, the rape of invasion and grueling oppression; and they’d lost two generations of youth, sacrificed to the gods of war. Now, as if that weren’t enough, they were being made to suffer the spiritual degradation of hopelessness. The past was bad but perhaps even worse was the lack of any future, which was why so many had tried to escape. Of course, any historian – or any political science graduate come to that – could make the argument that they’d brought this on themselves, that so many had been enthusiastic, even fanatical participants in their own extreme ideologies from Fascism to Communism that they possibly deserved their fate. For Philip Marsden, however, looking out at these people from the car window, it was all so bleak and somber that he couldn’t bring himself to sneer like so many back home. The only emotion he could feel at their tragic state was pity.

It was less than a half-hour later that the car stopped in front of high barred gates for inspection. Beyond was a building he thought he recognized from the intelligence photographs he’d seen: a broad, three-story main structure with a sloping roof and a distinctive faux-classical entrance. On each side were extensive wings and behind, he knew, were yet more blocks and barracks, because this compound housed not only several military units but also the headquarters of the KGB. They’d arrived at the notorious Karlshorst complex in the borough of Lichtenberg.

Once inside the main front doors, Philip was escorted along echoing gray corridors, all the way through to an adjoining segment of the building, before being guided into a well-used cell. The paint on the walls was peeling, the cement ceiling was flaking and the bars on the door which closed behind him were thick with rust. The space measured about twelve feet square and was completely empty save for a single wooden bench. There was no sink, toilet or other facility and the only light came from a high cracked window, also barred, through which he could see nothing but a pale rectangle of cloud. He breathed a long sigh, then reluctantly sat himself down on the bench and stared at the filth-encrusted concrete floor beneath his feet. Somewhere under there, an extensive tunnel had once been dug all the way from the American sector by his own CIA in cooperation with the British. The aim was to tap into the Karlshorst telephone lines but the ruse had been discovered by the Soviets before it could be put to use; and although Philip Marsden knew the story, any idea that he could somehow drill through