Memorial Day Remembrance: The Last Casualty of the Cold War

On this holiday weekend, dedicated to honoring those who have fallen in defense of this nation I am going to step away from my usual comments on local issues, politics and campaigns to remember a particular passing that occurred 31 years ago.

  A Classified Briefing

East German Guard Tower, Author's Photo

In 1985 I was an Army Specialist with the 103 Military Intelligence (MI) Battalion, at the 3rd Infantry Division Headquarters in Würzburg, West Germany. For those who weren't around, or were too young to remember the last decade of the Cold War, a quick reminder of the world that we were living in at the time.

Europe had been divided between the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact nations, and NATO's alliance of Western powers for 40 years. The border separating East and West Germany had been fortified by the communist governments ostensibly to protect their citizens, but effectively imprisoning them. In the previous 15 years, the Soviets had been pushing a massive military buildup in their part of Europe, to the increasing worry of the U.S. and her allies.  The Reagan Administration had countered with the deployment of Pershing II nuclear missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, and a more confrontational stance in it's relationship with the USSR.  For it's part the Soviet leadership feared that Reagan was planning a preemptive nuclear strike against them, and as a result were even more defensive and bellicose about protecting their territory.

This atmosphere of tension and mistrust created a fertile ground where even the smallest mistake could result in an overreaction, with deadly consequences.   The shoot-down of Korea Airlines Flight 007 by a Soviet fighter jet just two years earlier had been such an incident. Members of my unit still had vivid memories of the midnight scramble as U.S. forces worldwide went into high alert afterwards.  As ever, the Cold War between the Superpowers remained balanced on a tipping point, no one knew what might send either side over the edge into a third World War.

That's why, when I and the rest of our unit of Intelligence Analysts and Linguists were called in for a special briefing by the Division S2 (Staff Intelligence), we knew something big had happened.

I can't recall whether this briefing took place one or two days after it happened, but the Captain informed us that on March 24th, a Major Arthur Nicholson a member of the U.S. Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) had been killed by a Soviet sentry when the Major was making observations of a tank shed near Ludwigslust East Germany.  

The members of the Military Liaison Mission have a unique place in the world of Intelligence gathering,  under a 1947 treaty, the officers were allowed to travel (unarmed) in areas of East Germany to observe military installations and equipment. There were strict rules in place for the treatment of Mission officers from both sides, who were essentially acting as acknowledged spies.  The murder of Major Nicholson came as a shock to us in the Intelligence community.

The Captain let us know that the Soviets had prevented the Major's driver Staff Sergeant Jessie Schatz from providing first aid, and that the Major had probably bled to death while the Soviets left him untouched for over two hours. A sense of outrage at this news filled the room, along with the cigarette smoke as several soldiers took a nervous drag.  (Remember, this was when "smoke em' if you got em'" was still a common phrase.)

Most of what the Captain told us in the rest of that meeting has since been declassified, but at that place and time the unspoken question was in all of our minds, could this be the critical moment we all dreaded? Would the balance hold?

The political and diplomatic ramifications between the U.S. and the Soviets after the incident were severe, especially in the face of the Russian's insistence that they were not at fault. But the balance did hold, and within just a few years the Soviet Union itself no longer existed.


We didn't know then that the long twilight conflict that defined the second half of the 20th Century, was coming to a close, and that Major Nicholson would later be officially recognized as the Last Casualty of the Cold War.

Major Nicholson was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, and posthumously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel by Presidential Order.


The official memorial page for Nicholson can be found here: Army Memorial Page

The Cold War Spies site also has a tribute page with an account of the incident, and links to the declassified report: http://www.coldwarspies.com/reading_room/nicholson/