From The Boston Globe
By James Carroll

I was a senior in high school, attending the American school in Wiesbaden, West Germany, where the US Air Force had its headquarters and where my father was stationed.

It was 1959, and the Cold War tension was focused on Berlin. Because that divided city was well inside the Soviet sector of East Germany, and because it served as an escape hatch for citizens behind the Iron Curtain, Nikita Khrushchev was pressing the French, British, and American forces to get out.

President Eisenhower was holding firm, insisting on a strict reading of the four-party treaty that had divided the city. The Soviets were looking for an excuse to call off the treaty, and that’s where I came in.

My friends and I were fans of the Formula 1 automobile racing circuit, and a Grand Prix that year was to take place in Berlin. The flashpoint city was effectively off-limits to the like of us, but we went anyway.

A US Army train crossed through the Communist zone every day, carrying GIs and their dependents through East Germany to the island city. The Soviets hated this incursion, but the treaty allowed it. The treaty also underwrote strict regulations for the train, however, and American passengers were instructed in the rules by the military policemen who served as conductors.

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