NATO – A Bridge Across Time - Newsdesk Media

the muzak stopped and a grim voice said
in German: “Achtung, achtung. Hier
ist eine Meldung. President Kennedy ist
erschossen.” (“Attention, attention. Here
is an announcement: President Kennedy
has been shot and killed.”)
At first nothing happened. There was a
jolt in the babble as if someone had said
something particularly silly. Kennedy
was a demi-god in West Berlin. He had
visited in June. He had guaranteed their
protection. He had said he was a Berliner.
Then the message was repeated.
Chaos. Pandemonium. Hysteria. Women
screaming, men swearing in a continuous
torrent of oaths. I threw a fistful of
D-Marks on the table, asked the girl to
settle up (not that anyone was going to
worry about asking for the bill) and ran for
my office car by the kerb. It was an East
German car, a Wartburg, often daubed with
insults by West Berliners who presumed I
must be a high-ranking communist to have
permission to come over.
Checkpoint Charlie was like the Marie
Celeste. The GIs, stunned, stared out of
their booth but did not emerge. The East
Berlin barrier swung up eventually and I
reported to the Custom shed. Never had I,
nor did I since, see those arrogant young
guards, chosen for their fanaticism, so
utterly terrified.
Even back then, before email, texting,
or any knowledge of cyberspace, you could
not block out the radio waves. They all
listened. They all knew. They begged me to
assure them there would not be war. And
this was before we learned that Lee Harvey
Oswald was a communist, had defected to
the USSR and been sent back. When that
came through, even the Foreign Ministry
begged me to tell the West it was not their
fault. That evening on the Wall, edging
towards midnight, the only Westerner
at the crossing, surrounded by nearhysterical
border guards, wondering if one
would see the dawn, is one I will not forget.
Harold King had trained me well.
The training cut in. I raced back to the
office and started to field the torrent of
calls from equally terrified East German
officialdom. I filed a story but I don’t
think it ever saw print. That night it was
Dallas, Dallas, Dallas.
A month later, the East Berlin
authorities relented in their complete ban
on West Berliners entering East Berlin.
Many of those who had fled were young,
but Papa and Mutti had remained behind.
For some reason Pankow (the government
suburb) decided to let visitors in for
Christmas reunions. It was supposed to
be a propaganda triumph. Actually, it just
underlined the brutality of the concrete
The Atlantic Council
monster that kept people apart.
The allocated crossing point was the
Chausseestrasse crossing and at the
appointed hour a huge seething mass of
citizenry appeared on both sides. Both sets
of authorities lost control. Young West
Berliners were trying to find relatives
while buffeted officials tried desperately
to examine their passports. A hundred
George Smileys could have slipped through
and that had the Stasis in hysterics.
Wanting to get the feel of this mass
of humanity, I hopped on a car bonnet,
then the roof and from there to the top
of the Wall. Then I walked down it to the
edge of the crossing zone. I had a British
sheepskin car coat (the temperature was
10 below) and a Finnish wolf fur hat. Very
sexy. And very spooky, it seems.
Cameras began snapping unseen from
east and west. I do not know how many
agencies have a picture of me towering
over the chaotic mass of humanity,
pushing and shoving at the crossing point
that afternoon, but it was a great story and,
as I was the only one there, an exclusive for
Reuters. Head Office sent me a congrats
on the story and a warning, which I think
came from MI6, not to play “silly buggers.”
Eventually a squad of hysterical East
German People’s Police stormed up to
grab me off the Wall. I came down, putting
on my Bertie Wooster what-have-I-donewrong
act and they let me go. I went home
and filed the story.
Not quite so funny was the occasion I
nearly started World War Three. To this
day I protest it was not entirely my fault.
For a young Westerner, private life
was a social Sahara – even meeting and
conversing with someone from the free
world could mean, for an East Berliner,
a snatch and interrogation by the Stasis.
But there was one place that was usually
lively late at night – the Opera Café.
So one night, April 24, 1964, at about
one in the morning, I was driving home
when, at a junction, I was stopped by a
Russian soldier planted foursquare in
the road, back to me, arms spread. As
I watched, a massive column of Soviet
military-might rolled past; guns, tanks,
mechanized infantry bolt upright in their
trucks… I spun round and tried another
road. Same result; column after column
of Soviet armor and I realized it was all
heading straight for the Wall.
Twisting and turning down the blackened
back streets I made it to my office,
then typed and sent the story. I did not
exaggerate; I did not explain because I had
no explanation. I just reported what I had
seen. Then I brewed a strong black coffee
and sat by the window to wait for dawn.
All across Europe the ministry lights
were going on. The British Foreign
Secretary was dragged from his bed. In
Washington, the Defense Secretary was
whisked from a dinner in Georgetown. It
took two hours and some frantic messages
to Moscow to sort it out.
It was one week to May 1st and the
silly bastards were rehearsing the May
Day Parade. In the middle of the night.
Without telling anyone. With the mystery
explained a large number of bricks rained
down on Reuters’ man in East Berlin.
Well, how was I to know? No one else did.
I left East Berlin that October after 13
months. Quietly, with my car parked by
my office. Alone, walking with a single
grip through Checkpoint Charlie. Once
safely in the West I could fly out of
Tempelhof to London.
The fact is, I had been having a torrid
affair with a stunning East German
girl. She explained she was the wife of
a People’s Army corporal, based in the
garrison at faraway Cottbus on the Czech
border. She was an amazing lover and
rather mysterious.
She was immaculately dressed and
after our almost-all-night love sessions
at my place refused to be driven home,
insisting on a taxi from the railway station.
I wondered about the clothes, and the
money for taxis. One day I spotted one
of the drivers at the station whom I had
seen at my door picking up Siggi. He said
he had taken her to Pankow. That was a
very upscale address, the Belgravia of East
Berlin. On a corporal’s salary?
It was in a bar in West Berlin that two
buzz-cut Americans who screamed CIA
slid over to offer me a drink. As we clinked
they murmured that I had a certain nerve
to be sleeping with the mistress of the
East German Defense Minister.
It was not the minister I worried about
as I drove back through the Wall. It was
his political enemies who would love to
arrange his downfall and a show trial for
me. Time to go. A week later I walked
through the Wall for the last time.
I saw its destruction in November 1989
on television. But I was there October 1,
1990, the formal reunification of the two
cities and the two Germanys. I noted that
a team of workmen was at Checkpoint
Charlie – turning it into a tourist
attraction. So I went to a bierstube, ordered
half a liter of Schultheiss and raised it in
their general direction. Cheers, it was a
fascinating year behind the Wall.
Frederick Forsyth is a best-selling author,
whose works include The Day of the
Jackal and The Fourth Protocol.
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