
Walling People In
When the Berlin Wall went up on August 13, 1961, U.S. diplomats watched human tragedies unfold as family members wept across barbed wire. Many wondered if the next war would start because of Berlin. Despite the Wall’s imposing presence, President Kennedy John F. Kennedy commented to Kenny O’Donnell, his appointments secretary: “It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” After the wall fell, Assistant Secretary Thomas Niles spoke for many when he recalled, “Once the Wall was built, it created a sort of stability. It imprisoned 17 million people in East Germany, but it did guarantee, in its perverse and obnoxious way, a stability in a potentially unstable area.”