Who did John F. Kennedy tell to tear down the Berlin wall?

Answer 1

JFK did not tell anyone to tear down the Berlin Wall. Instead, he signaled his administration's acquiescence in its erection in August of 1961. In doing so he was accepting the fact that the Soviet Union and its client communist state, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), were acting within their sphere of influence to stop the migration of the GDR's population to free West Berlin, and from there to West Germany and the free world. East Germany was losing many of its best educated, most technically competent people to the West as it became obvious that the standard of living in West Berlin was vastly superior to that offered under the GDR's communist system.

Though the city of Berlin was on principle, dating from the end of Word War II, shared by all the four powers---the US, USSR, UK, France--it was in reality 110 miles deep behind the Iron Curtain. Though East Germany was not an officially recognized state to the West, it exercised substantial power. Aided by the Soviets, it had effectively sealed off its territory from the West with barbed wire, mine fields and guard towers. It could have sealed off the perimeter of West Berlin had it wanted to years earlier.

Prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall, in order to stop the migration, the Soviet Union had threatened to close off Berlin completely and expel the three western powers. When all three western powers stood down during the wall's construction, it effectively allowed the Soviets to back away from their threat and the situation stabilized. In the one area where it had both the right and the power to act--access to a free West Berlin at all times, the US did so forcefully in the weeks after the wall's construction. West Berlin remained free and secure right up to the collapse of the GDR.

JFK selected General Lucien Clay--hero of the Berlin Airlift of 1948--to command the army units that crossed the border with East Germany and made good his pledge to defend West Berlin. Lucien Clay had ideas of his own and ordered units under his command to practice demolition of the wall by force, but he was overruled by the Kennedy Administration before he could put his plan into action.