At that point, talks ceased, and the Soviet premier appeared willing to wait for the U.S. In the wake of this incident, there appeared to be little hope for accommodation. Although Khrushchev and Eisenhower made some progress toward mutual understanding during talks at Camp David in the United States in 1959, relations became tense after the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 spy plane canvassing Soviet territory in 1960.

Khrushchev wanted the Western garrisons out of West Berlin as a precursor to reunifying the city, but Eisenhower believed that protecting the freedom of West Berlin required an ongoing U.S. Instead, the two sides opened a foreign minister's conference at Geneva in the summer of 1959 and made an attempt to negotiate a new agreement on Berlin.

President Dwight Eisenhower became determined not to give in to Soviet demands.

The west interpreted his speech as an ultimatum, and U.S. Looking for a way to stop the flow of people from east to west and a means to check the growing military power of West Germany, Khrushchev insisted in his November 1958 speech that it was time for the United States to pull out of the city. The divided city highlighted the sharp contrast between the communist and capitalist systems, and the freedom of movement between the sectors had resulted in a mass exodus from the eastern side. At the same time, the existence of West Berlin was increasingly becoming a liability for the Soviet Union and the East German government. The United States heralded the economic success and political freedom of West Berlin as a symbol of the success of the capitalist system, and it was deeply committed to its security, so a Soviet decision to cut off land access again had the potential to lead to a more serious conflict between the two powers. By 1958, however, a similar situation would have doomed the city it was already too populous and too prosperous to be supplied via air.

In 1948, the Soviet Union sparked a crisis in the city by cutting off land access between West Germany and West Berlin, necessitating a year-long airlift of supplies to the stranded citizens before the Soviets reopened the passageways. West Berlin remained under western control, but it was located deep inside East German territory, and that made its protection from communist takeover a constant challenge for the western powers. The division of Germany and its capital city of Berlin among the four victors of the Second World War was frozen in time by the onset of the Cold War despite the postwar agreements to unify the zones. This ultimatum sparked a three year crisis over the future of the city of Berlin that culminated in 1961 with the building of the Berlin Wall. On November 10, 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech in which he demanded that the Western powers of the United States, Great Britain and France pull their forces out of West Berlin within six months.

Exodus 1958