Escapes Under the Berlin Wall--and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill
Starred review from August 15, 2016
Journalist Mitchell (Atomic Cover-Up) illuminates a half-forgotten but nasty episode in the annals of Cold War history. In August 1961, infuriated by the exodus of its citizens, Soviet-backed East Germany built a 96-mile-long barrier around West Berlin. In response, Berliners, mostly students and ordinary workers, set to work tunneling underneath. Local American TV journalists loved the idea, paying tunnelers who needed money for supplies and sending cameramen. Warning that the stories would poison Soviet-American relations, the Kennedy administration pressured CBS to drop its planned coverage. NBC persisted, however, and Mitchell delivers a gripping, blow-by-blow account of one grueling dig and dramatic rescue of 29 East Germans, all caught on film. Despite the intense appeals from the Kennedy administration, which soft-
pedaled the suppression of free speech in favor of deploring “checkbook journalism,” an Emmy Award–winning documentary eventually appeared. NBC had gotten lucky. Most of the tunnels failed as a result of ubiquitous East German informers and technical difficulties. More East Germans were caught and imprisoned than escaped, and by 1970 the practice of tunneling died out. Mitchell’s tense, fascinating account reveals how the U.S. undermined a freedom struggle for the sake of diplomacy.
September 1, 2016
Although the Berlin Wall restricted 2.8 million East Germans from seeking a better life in the West in 1961, it didn't stop determined citizens from tunneling their way to freedom. Mitchell (Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady) tells of the Bernauer and Kiefholz tunnels, the people who constructed them, and the attempts by the Kennedy administration to dissuade broadcast companies CBS and NBC from airing documentaries about them in order to prevent national security breaches. CBS succumbed to the government's pleas and threats; NBC did not. The network's 1962 The Tunnels riveted the nation and won three Emmy Awards. Mitchell excels at describing the idealistic men and women who built the passageways that brought scores of refugees to safety, revealing the wall's symbolic importance and how it endured throughout the Cold War. He provides interviews with many important players who contribute to the fast-paced narrative. VERDICT A glossary of names and places would have been helpful, but its absence will not deter those interested in post-World War II history from being fascinated by this social chronicle. See also Frederick Kempe's Berlin 1961 and W.R. Smyser's Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, which place the wall and tunnels in historical context.--Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.