‘President Kennedy has made a television speech.’
Kennedy had said nothing for seven weeks, since the Vienna Summit. The United States had not responded to Khrushchev’s threat to sign a treaty with East Germany and take West Berlin back. Dimka had assumed that the American President was too cowed to stand up to Khrushchev. ‘What was the speech about?’
‘He told the American people to prepare for war.’
So that was the emergency.
They were called to board. Dimka said to Filipov: ‘What did Kennedy say, exactly?’
‘Speaking of Berlin, he said: “An attack upon that city will be regarded as an attack upon us all.” The full transcript is in your envelope.’
They went on board, Dimka still wearing his holiday shorts. The plane was a Tupolev Tu-104 jetliner. Dimka looked out of the window as they took off. He knew how aircraft worked, the curved upper surface of the wing creating an air-pressure difference, but all the same it seemed like magic when the plane lifted into the air.
At last he tore his gaze away and opened the envelope.
Filipov had not exaggerated.
Kennedy was not merely making threatening noises. He proposed to triple the draft, call up reservists, and increase the American Army to a million men. He was preparing a new Berlin airlift, moving six divisions to Europe, and planning economic sanctions on Warsaw Pact countries.
And he had increased the military budget by more than three billion dollars.
Dimka realized that the strategy Khrushchev and his advisors had mapped out had failed catastrophically. They had all underestimated the handsome young president. He could not be bullied, after all.
What could Khrushchev do?
He might have to resign. No Soviet leader had ever done that – both Lenin and Stalin had died in office – but there was a first time for everything in revolutionary politics.
Dimka read the speech twice and mulled over it for the rest of the two-hour journey. There was only one alternative to Khrushchev’s resignation, he thought: the leader could sack all his aides, take on new advisors, and reshuffle the Presidium, giving his enemies more power, as an acknowledgement that he had been wrong and a promise to seek wiser counsel in the future.
Either way, Dimka’s short career in the Kremlin was over. Perhaps it had been too ambitious, he though dismally. No doubt a more modest future awaited him.
He wondered whether the voluptuous Nina would still want to spend a night with him.
The flight landed at Tbilisi and a small military aircraft shuttled Dimka and Filipov to an airstrip on the coast.
Natalya Smotrov from the Foreign Ministry was waiting for them there. The humid seaside air had curled her hair, giving her a wanton air. ‘There’s bad news from Pervukhin,’ she said as she drove them away from the plane. Mikhail Pervukhin was the Soviet ambassador to East Germany. ‘The flow of emigrants to the West has turned into a flood.’
Filipov looked annoyed, probably because he had not received this news before Natalya. ‘What numbers are we talking about?’
‘It’s approaching a thousand people a day.’
Dimka was flabbergasted. ‘A thousand a day?’
Natalya nodded. ‘Pervukhin says the East German government is no longer stable. The country is approaching collapse. There could be a popular uprising.’
‘You see?’ Filipov said to Dimka. ‘This is what your policy has led to.’
Dimka had no answer.
Natalya drove along the coast road to a forested peninsula and turned in at a massive iron gate in a long stucco wall. Set amid immaculate lawns was a white villa with a long balcony on the upper floor. Beside the house was a full-size swimming pool. Dimka had never seen a home with its own pool.
‘He’s down by the sea,’ a guard told Dimka, jerking his head towards the far side of the house.
Dimka found his way through the trees to a shingle beach. A soldier with a sub-machine gun looked hard at him then waved him on.
He found Khrushchev under a palm tree. The second most powerful man in the world was short, fat, bald and ugly. He wore the trousers of a suit, held up by suspenders, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled. He was sitting on a wicker beach chair, and on a small table in front of him were a jug of water and a glass tumbler. He seemed to be doing nothing.
He looked at Dimka and said: ‘Where did you get those shorts?’
‘My mother made them.’
‘I should have a pair of shorts.’
Dimka said the words he had rehearsed. ‘Comrade First Secretary, I offer you my immediate resignation.’
Khrushchev ignored this. ‘We will overtake the United States, in military might and economic prosperity, within the next twenty years,’ he said, as if he were continuing an ongoing discussion. ‘But, meanwhile, how do we prevent the stronger power from dominating global politics and holding back the spread of world Communism?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dimka.
‘Watch this,’ said Khrushchev. ‘I am the Soviet Union.’ He picked up the jug and poured water slowly into the glass until it was full to the brim. Then he handed the jug to Dimka. ‘You are the United States,’ he said. ‘Now you pour water into the glass.’
Dimka did as he was told. The glass overflowed, and water soaked into the white tablecloth.
‘You see?’ said Khrushchev as if he had proved a point. ‘When the glass is full, no more can be added without making a mess.’
Dimka was mystified. He asked the expected question. ‘What’s the significance of this, Nikita Sergeyevitch?’
‘International politics is like a glass. Aggressive moves by either side pour water in. The overflow is war.’
Dimka saw the point. ‘When tension is at its maximum, no one can make a move without causing a war.’
‘Well done. And the Americans do not want war, any more than we do. So, if we maintain international tension at the maximum – full to the brim – the American President is helpless. He cannot do anything without causing war, so he must do nothing!’
Dimka realized this was brilliant. It showed how the weaker power could dominate. ‘So Kennedy is now powerless?’ he said.
‘Because his next move is war!’
Had this been Khrushchev’s long-term plan, Dimka wondered. Or had he just made it up as a hindsight justification? He was nothing if not an improviser. But it hardly mattered. ‘So, what are we going to do about the crisis in Berlin?’ he said.
‘We’re going to build a wall,’ said Khrushchev.