The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961–1989 by Frederick Taylor

The buzz words—Berlin access crisis, Checkpoint Charlie, the Cold War, the Berlin Wall—don't carry the zing they used to. It's difficult to remember that only 45 years ago, these words in newspaper headlines filled Americans with terror, real terror. After all, when Soviet and American tanks faced off across the line in Berlin in the late summer and early autumn of 1961, the threat of nuclear war was very real. The Americans had six submarines with nuclear-armed missiles cruising in the Baltic. The Soviets had their missiles, also sporting nuclear warheads, aimed at Western Europe. A miscalculation meant world war and annihilation. That was genuine terror. … Back to Article