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Under both Eisenhower and Kennedy, Thompson's toughest, longest job has been protecting, without a misstep, the allied position in beleaguered West Berlin. Ever since November 1958, when Khrushchev issued his first ultimatum ordering Western troops to quit the city. Thompson spent endless hours explaining that—despite Kennedy's willingness to offer some concessions—the West would not be bargained or bullied out of Berlin.
Repetitious talk did not bother Thompson; he was used to it. He was U.S. High Commissioner and Ambassador to Austria during the era of the futile 379 meetings before Khrushchev abruptly changed his mind and agreed to sign a peace treaty giving Austria its independence.
Frank Talk. No such disposition to change his mind about Berlin was visible in Khrushchev last week . In the air corridors leading into the city from the West, Soviet MIGs buzzed U.S. planes five times within ten days; Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk in Geneva that Moscow intends to sign a peace treaty with East Germany. But Gromyko set no deadline, and chances are that when Moscow does sign the treaty, the Russians will retain some control in Berlin, since (the State Department reckons) the Russians would scarcely want to hand East Germany's Walter Ulbricht the power to provoke incidents with the West that might lead to war. Rusk told Gromyko flatly that the U.S. did not care what treaties Russia signed with whom, since the U.S. intended to remain in West Berlin just the same.
Last week Khrushchev unexpectedly invited Thompson and his wife to a farewell dinner at Khrushchev's private dacha. For three hours, they drank toasts, ate their way through eight courses including Siberian pheasant and Kamchaka crab, "more or less covered the waterfront" on diplomatic issues. "We have a very free and easy relationship," said Thompson. "He scolds me and I scold him."
With that. Thompson, who will be 58 this month, his pretty wife Jane, their three daughters, and a boxer named Valya climbed into a C-130B Flying Boxcar loaded with two tons of belongings and left for the U.S. Mission accomplished.