ABSTRACT
The freeze in the Cold War that had existed since the Hungarian Revolution continued into early 1959, especially with the Berlin crisis. In January, 1959, the Soviet Union drew up a draft peace treaty with East Germany, to give substance to Khrushchev's threat of November, 1958, that unless a settlement was reached on Berlin within six months he would sign a peace treaty with East Germany, which would give control over the access routes from West Germany to Berlin to the East Germans. In May, 1959, Averell Harriman, who had been American ambassador to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and more recently Governor of New York, 1955-1958, visited the Soviet Union and met leading Soviet figures, including Khrushchev. In September, Khrushchev came to New York to attend the meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
