THE SECOND BERLIN CRISISThe last major event in 1958 was the Second Berlin Crisis. The crisis took place in November when Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered the Western Powers (the United States, Britain and France) to pull out of West Berlin within six months. Khrushchev delivered a speech wanting the powers to leave so he could turn Berlin into a communist country and carry out what former leader Joseph Stalin initially failed at. However, his efforts were unsuccessful and the United States ignored his demands to leave. They did the opposite, and kept airlifting supplies to capitalist people in Berlin. Over the next three years, the constant fight between the Soviets and Western powers to withdraw from Berlin ultimately resulted in the building of the Berlin wall in 1961.
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"We will continue to exercise our right of peaceful passage to and from West Berlin. We will not be the first to breach the peace. It is the Soviets who threaten the use of force to interfere with such free passage." -President Eisenhower, March 16, 1959