“[I] talked about how a nuclear exchange would kill 70 million people in 10 minutes, and he just looked at me as if to say, ‘So what?’”. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images, According to a State Department memo, Khrushchev said that if the U.S. challenged the Soviet position in divided Berlin, the U.S.S.R. “must respond and it will respond,” eerily threatening that “It is up to the U.S. to decide whether there will be war or peace.” Kennedy reacted with a statement even more chilling: “Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be war. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Kennedy made it clear to Khrushchev that signing a peace agreement with Germany was not a problem, but blocking Western rights could lead to war. Kennedy spent a lot of time defending aspects of the pre-World War II status quo, like British imperialism, that he didn’t actually want to defend. Entering the year 1961, Berlin was still divided. With Berlin and the Third World uppermost in his mind, Kennedy proposed that neither superpower attempt to upset the existing balance of power in any region where the other was already involved. Kennedy responded: " What did you expect me to do... take off my shoe and hit him over the head with it? Two months after the summit, the Soviets erected the Berlin Wall. A third of it had been the Soviet Zone and was now a part of East Germany, otherwise known as the German Democratic, a Soviet invention in 1949. For Kennedy especially, it gave him a crash course on understanding Khrushchev. It will be a cold winter.” (Yikes.). © 2020 A&E Television Networks, LLC. The afternoon meetings were no better. To the horror of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Kennedy told the premier he considered Sino-Soviet forces and U.S.-Western European forces to be fairly equally balanced. Obviously Kennedy’s ego took a hit with this summit. “It was that relationship which led to things which, I would argue, kept the peace.” Though they never met in person again, Kennedy and Khrushchev continued to communicate and develop their relationship, with both coming to understand that neither wanted nuclear war. It is up to the US to decide whether there will be war or peace. All Rights Reserved. “He had no real idea how tough it was going to be… He went in there unprepared and Khrushchev walked all over him.”, “This man is very inexperienced, even immature,” Khrushchev told his interpreter. Kennedy knew that Khrushchev likely saw him as a weak military leader for not seeing the Bay of Pigs invasion through, and he wanted to use his signature charisma to change his mind. Germany - Germany - Results of the Congress of Vienna: The men who, in the nine months from September 1814 to June 1815, redrew the map of Europe were diplomats of the old school. However, when the two leaders took a stroll later in the garden, Khrushchev relentlessly attacked both Kennedy and the US economic system. Their first meeting took place in Vienna at the residence of the US Ambassador to Austria in the early afternoon of June3, 1961. Khrushchev “thought that anyone who was so young and inexperienced as to get into that mess [i.e., the Bay of Pigs] could be taken,” the president said. 1961 Vienna Summit: Kennedy and Krushchev. “John Kennedy read and studied history,” he says, and would have learned from the first experience that he needed to prepare. The summit didn’t produce any concrete policy decisions, partly because the summit hadn’t had any set agenda or goals in the first place. “Like Putin now, Khrushchev...wanted to be seen as equals with the United States,” Reeves says. After the talks, Kennedy told James “Scotty” Reston, a New York Times columnist, about how disappointed he was with how things had gone. President Kennedy meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the Vienna Summit in June, 1961. Now, after the meetings, he felt that war was a very real possibility. Yet despite Kennedy’s desire to be taken seriously, “he really didn’t listen closely to his own advisors,” Reeves says. When the formal meetings were over, Kennedy insisted on a short private meeting with Khrushchev. In advance of his meetings with the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy's advisors attempted to prepare the President for what would doubtless be a challenging event. This encounter with Khrushchev forced Kennedy to rethink US policy throughout the world. Kennedy was convinced he could use his charm and work things out with Khrushchev. “He savaged me.”. Khrushchev’s aggression during the talks surprised Kennedy as well as Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who was shocked Khrushchev raised the possibility of war—something neither leader wanted. The meetings with De Gaulle also went well. In advance of his meetings with the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy's advisors attempted to prepare the President for what would doubtless be a challenging event. President Kennedy meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the Vienna Summit in June, 1961. Credit: Corbis/Getty Images)
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