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When President John F. Kennedy set foot in West Berlin on June 26, 1963, his presence crystalized the city's iconic status as a "defended island of freedom" on the Cold War world stage.
Standing before a crowd of thousands, he declared that "today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner'" ("I am a Berliner"). To West Berliners who lived under the shadow of Soviet encroachment, the president offered assurances that "all free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin." Not only did Kennedy's remarks underscore U.S. support to his immediate audience, they also reminded the American public of why West Berlin mattered in the larger Cold War contest. It was there, in West Berlin, where U.S. commitment to democracy would be tested—and, ultimately, where the Soviet hold on Eastern Europe would begin to crumble, brick by brick.
Sixty years later, Kennedy's visit to West Berlin remains an iconic moment in U.S. presidential history. Images of Kennedy peering over the Berlin Wall, visiting Checkpoint Charlie, and speaking to thousands of West Berliners packed into the Rudolph Wilde Platz highlight the stark divide between East and West. The text of the president's address also continues to fascinate. Part of this is due to popular lore, such as the humorous but inaccurate story that Kennedy had declared himself to be a jelly doughnut (known by some as a "Berliner"). [This is not, in fact, what he said.]
Kennedy's visit to West Berlin also provides a striking example of how U.S. presidents often invoke place as an argumentative strategy. Ever since Theodore Roosevelt's travel to the Panama Canal Zone in 1906, chief executives have used their international travels to expand the United States' geopolitical, military, and ideological influence abroad while also reminding the U.S. public of the merits of that influence. At the conclusion of the First World War, Woodrow Wilson went to Versailles to broker a peace deal. During the Second World War, Franklin Delano Roosevelt traveled to Tehran and Yalta to meet with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. Images of the "Big Three"—with FDR in the middle chair—became symbolic of Allied unity against Axis powers.
These visits increased exponentially during the Cold War. In early 1960, as Eisenhower administration officials fretted over what to do about Fidel Castro's rise in Cuba, the president embarked a 10-day tour of South America designed to reassert U.S. political and psychological influence in the region. Richard Nixon shocked the world when, in July 1971, he announced that he would visit the People's Republic of China (PRC) to formalize diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the PRC after 22 years of no contact. While many recall the Cold War as one that was waged with words and images, U.S. officials also deployed the president's own body as a way to demarcate the boundaries of American influence abroad. Where the president went—or chose not to go—made manifest what certain places or regions meant for U.S. foreign policy. Such was the case with JFK's visit to West Berlin.
In June 1963—less than two years after the Berlin Wall went up—Kennedy and his advisors understood that seeing and being seen in West Berlin was as important as his speech itself. To be sure, the president's oratorical performance at the Rudolph Wilde Platz was memorable and gripping, but to focus exclusively on Kennedy's verbal address is to miss a crucial aspect of the story. In fact, it was Kennedy's deliberate placement—and the way the president deployed the symbolism of West Berlin as a rhetorical resource—that made all the difference.
Almost 60 years later, in February 2023, President Biden adopted a similar strategy. Just days before the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the president made a historic visit to Kyiv. It was a bold and risky move, a trip that unfolded under the cover of darkness on a nondescript airplane, a train that has become known as "Rail Force One," bereft of U.S. military presence with only two journalists and a handful of aides present. Despite the security concerns, the White House announced that Biden decided to go to Ukraine because "he wanted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Volodymyr Zelensky and remind the world . . . that Kyiv still stands and the United States will not be deterred from standing with Ukraine."
Biden has argued that Ukraine is a symbol of a much larger global struggle to protect democracy, and his visit to Ukraine allowed the president to see—and be seen in—Kyiv. His presence in the besieged city was a powerful symbol of U.S. commitment to the defense of freedom on the global stage. By the time most Americans awoke on the morning of his visit, images of Biden shaking hands with Ukrainian President Zelensky and strolling through the courtyard of St. Michaels' Golden-Domed Monastery were splashing across television screens and social media platforms throughout much of the world.
It was not just that Biden went to Kyiv that mattered. It was that Ukrainians, Americans, and even Russians could see the U.S. president in a city that many predicted would fall in a matter of days.
By going to Ukraine, Biden also reminded the U.S. public of what is at stake. Ukraine, like West Berlin, has become a symbol of democracy versus tyranny, freedom versus oppression. The president's historic trip communicated the United States' steadfast commitment to Ukraine in a way that words alone could not. It was physical embodiment of the nation's pledge to, as Biden wrote in a note left for Zelensky at his home, "[stand in] solidarity and friendship with the freedom-loving people of Ukraine."
And like Kennedy did in West Berlin, Biden used his visit to Kyiv to underscore the United States' commitment to defending democracy on the global stage—an idea which has as much purchase today as it did 60 years ago.
Allison M. Prasch is assistant professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her first book, The World Is Our Stage: The Global Rhetorical Presidency and the Cold War, was published in January by the University of Chicago Press.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
