John F. Kennedy declared himself to be a Berliner two years after the construction of the wall that had sealed off the only remaining open space between East and West Germany. The Berlin Wall saved the German Democratic Republic from gradually losing its population and thus its very existence; it also turned West Berlin into an island within a Soviet-controlled communist German ocean. President Kennedy's declaration of solidarity with the plight of West and East Berliners alike (on his own behalf as well as on behalf of the free world) met with tremendous enthusiasm by those attending the rally on June 26, 1963, and I think it was a high point in his presidency. Within less than half a year, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

I moved to Berlin in January 1991, just over a year after the wall's demolition, to take up my position as deputy director of the Hungarian Cultural Institute. I stayed until May 1992, so I have some justification to call myself a onetime Berliner.

After nineteen years with Editio Musica Budapest, I had realized that unless I cut the umbilical cord that tied me to the publisher and to Hungarian musical life—one that I had felt for sometime to be slowly coiling round my neck—I would have to stay until retirement. I found the world I was moving in (even though I continued to travel regularly all over Europe and sometimes also overseas) increasingly claustrophobic, while the enthusiasm that had kept me going was flagging.