Cold War Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Rapacki Plan and Berlin Crisis of 1958β1959=== {{Further|Rapacki Plan|Berlin Crisis of 1958β1959}} In 1957, Polish foreign minister [[Adam Rapacki]] proposed the [[Rapacki Plan]] for a nuclear free zone in central Europe. Public opinion tended to be favourable in the West, but it was rejected by leaders of West Germany, Britain, France and the United States. They feared it would leave the powerful conventional armies of the Warsaw Pact dominant over the weaker NATO armies.<ref>David Stefancic, "The Rapacki Plan: A Case Study of European Diplomacy." ''East European Quarterly'' 21.4 (1987): 401β412.</ref> During November 1958, Khrushchev made an unsuccessful attempt to turn all of Berlin into an independent, demilitarized "free city". He gave the United States, Great Britain and France a six-month ultimatum to withdraw their troops from the sectors of West Berlin, or he would transfer control of Western access rights to the East Germans. Khrushchev earlier explained to [[Mao Zedong]] that "Berlin is the testicles of the West. Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on Berlin."{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=71}} NATO formally rejected the ultimatum in mid-December and Khrushchev withdrew it in return for a Geneva conference on the German question.{{sfn|Taubman|2004|pp=488β502}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page