Johnson and Clay arrived on Sunday afternoon. A dense crowd awaited them, prey to strong emotion. Nearly 500,000 people, many of them crying, lined the streets in the pouring rain to welcome them. Johnson made no new promises, but his snaps gave Berliners what they needed most:some hope. “We are determined to defend your freedom and the sacred cause of human freedom,” he said among other things. On Sunday the troops arrived. The Johnson mission left the next day for the United States, the city was reassured. The United States had at least realized the fear gripping West Berliners. Adenauer even alluded to the fact that the Federal Republic might reconsider its entry into NATO. On August 30, Kennedy named General Clay his personal representative in Berlin. The West was determined to stand firm.
Nevertheless, the East Germans continued their efforts to eat away at Western rights. In October, tanks clashed at the "Char-lie" checkpoint, the East Germans having tried to force an American official to show his papers, which would have constituted an acknowledgment of Germany's "right" of the East to fully control the East Berlin sector. Again the tanks appeared when the East Germans wanted to build a barrier across the checkpoint.
But however firm the West, the Germans had and much changed the status quo. Any negotiation could only lead to the recognition of the new situation and consequently of the division of Germany.
The problem of West Berlin remains, it is a city whose population is aging rapidly and which is supported only by subsidies provided by Bonn. A decade has passed since the construction of the "wall" and many Westerners would agree that in the long run the United States was justified in not seeing this wall as a bad thing. He stabilized the East German economy. The standard of living has improved. An important source of friction between the powers has been dried up. The barbed wire, the sand, the cement that divides Berlin cost millions of marks but one day, perhaps, Westerners will share the communist point of view and recognize that it was a good investment.