to the Soviet Union to do something to stop this influx of the intellectual class into West Germany but Khruschev was wary of making a definitive move. It wasn't until Ulbricht asked Khruschev for more economic aid that the Soviet leader realized how bad the situation was in East Germany and how deeply it depended on the West. "Ulbricht undercut his own argument with Khruschev, however, when he asked Moscow for more economic support and especially when he asked Khruschev to provide contingency aid in case West Germany used economic sanctions to retaliate against East German moves against West Berlin." (Smyser, Page 146.) When Kennedy became president in 1961, he was eager to come to a more solid agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States in regards to Berlin for he feared that a confrontation would result in a nuclear war. Khruschev thought Kennedy weak and tried threatening him during their meeting in Vienna but in the weeks that followed the United States showed that they would not give in to the Soviets terms of unification. The United States made it clear that it would defend their rights to "the freedom of West Berlin, Allied rights in West Berlin, and Western access to West Berlin" but it made no move to fight for East Berlin. (Smyser, Page 156.) Thus, on August 13, 1961, barbed wire was rolled along the sector border between East and West Berlin; the wall itself was to follow. The Berlin Wall was a landmark occasion between East and West Germany. The Soviets had shown that they were willing to go to great lengths to protect the Soviet bloc, even if this meant walling in East Germany. In doing so, the hopes of reunifying East and West Germany faded.The second "crises" faced in the 1960s was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The tense confrontation that followed left the world on the brink of nuclear war and eventually ended in Khrushchev backing down and withdrawing their missiles from Cuba. "After the cri...
