The phone rang in West Germany's embassy in Paris. When the caller identified himself as from the Soviet embassy with an urgent note to deliver to the German ambassador, the ambassador's secretary thought it was a joke and almost hung up on the spot.
It was no joke. An aide decided on his own to ignore the explicit rule against any talk with Russians, took the message and in two hours it was transmitted to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Bonn. In it Soviet Russia declared that "it would be honored to receive in Moscow in the near future the Chancellor...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
