ABSTRACT
The Taiwan Strait crisis had hardly subsided when the Western powers, not just the United States, faced the most serious crisis of all—one that sputtered on from 1958 to 1962, the crisis over the Soviet threat to West Berlin. The refugee flight was actually decreasing in 1957 and 1958, and, although it was still disproportionately composed of especially valuable professionals and highly skilled workers, more refugees were coming from the lower classes. The refugee flow was increasingly channeled, however, through Berlin; by the end of 1958 over 90 percent left through the city. Anastas Mikoyan slickly justified Soviet policies and again denied that the note of November 27 had been an ultimatum. He delivered an aide-memoire outlining a German peace treaty. On March 30, a meeting was arranged for Geneva. While political planning for the conference went on, contingency planning for military measures continued on the lines Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles had envisaged earlier.
