Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House

  But Khrushchev would concede no weakness and had personal strengths that would serve him in dealings with stronger opponents. Above all, he had survived Stalin’s rule and purges. As a member of the Politburo’s inner circle, he had spent many nights at Stalin’s “frightful . . . interminable, agonizing dinners.” Compelled to sample various foods Stalin feared might be poisoned, to drink themselves into a stupor, and to stay awake through the long night’s amusements, which included various forms of humiliation Stalin inflicted on associates, the comrades lived in fear of antagonizing or even annoying the dictator. As Khrushchev said later, “when Stalin says dance, a wise man dances.” Another member of the inner group whispered to Khrushchev after one of these bacchanalias, “One never knows whether one is going home or to prison.”

  Khrushchev learned the art of intimidation from Stalin. In 1956, he had told Western diplomats at an embassy reception after Moscow had been embarrassed by the Hungarian uprising and the defeat of its Egyptian ally in the Suez crisis, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.” In the fall of 1960, when he came to the annual opening session of the United Nations in New York, his boorishness offended and frightened people. During a speech by U.N. secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld that angered him, he began pounding his fist on a desk until all other communist delegates joined in. A subsequent speech by British prime minister Harold Macmillan, lamenting Khrushchev’s cancellation of the Paris summit with Eisenhower the previous spring, provoked shouts of protest: He was compelled to answer the U.S. act of aggression sending a spy plane over Soviet territory, Khrushchev screamed at the PM. When Spanish delegates failed to applaud a speech he gave to the General Assembly, Khrushchev shook his fist, began verbally abusing them, and moved to lunge at one of them when security guards forced his retreat by standing in front of the Spaniards. Most famously, he banged a shoe on the table when a Philippine delegate accused the Soviet Union of colonizing Eastern Europe and depriving it of political and civil rights.

  Western diplomats dismissed him as “a crude, ill-educated clown” who was posturing, but no one could ignore the fact that he was the head of a powerful Soviet state armed with nuclear weapons that could devastate much of Europe. However inappropriate his behavior, he had to be taken seriously. Was he another Hitler or Stalin, who might recklessly plunge the world into a cataclysmic war? some wondered.

  Khrushchev came to Vienna intent on bullying the young, inexperienced Kennedy, whose temporizing over Cuba made him seem like an easy target. The public response to their respective arrivals in the city angered Khrushchev and made him more combative. Vienna had been chosen as a neutral ground between East and West, but the much larger placard-waving crowd enthusiastically greeting Kennedy at the airport formed a striking contrast to the silent observers of Khrushchev’s open car traveling from the train station to the Soviet Embassy. Jackie Kennedy remembered their arrival on a “dark gray day” brightened by “one of the most impressive crowds I’ve seen” lining the twenty-five-mile route into the city, “weeping and waving handkerchiefs.” The shouts to Kennedy of “Give ’em hell, Jack” and “Lift the Iron Curtain” made Austrian preferences clear in the U.S. competition with communism.

  The initial meeting at the U.S. Embassy for the opening session also put Khrushchev on the defensive: The taller, younger, more energetic Kennedy towered over the squat first secretary, giving the president the upper hand in the photo op that Kennedy seemed to thoroughly enjoy and Khrushchev smilingly endured at the start of the proceedings. When photographers asked for additional shots of the two shaking hands, Kennedy told the interpreter, “It’s all right with me if it’s all right with him.” Khrushchev grudgingly agreed.

  The minute the two sat down to talk, a battle of egos erupted. Khrushchev was determined to put the younger man in his place, especially after the opening sequence. Kennedy was just as eager to assert himself over the Soviet leader, who he assumed saw him as too uncertain to stand up to him. The initial banter reflected each man’s bid for an edge. Kennedy recalled meeting Khrushchev in 1959 in Washington, suggesting that he was no novice coming to his first meeting with a world leader. Khrushchev countered that he remembered meeting him “as a young and promising man in politics.” Kennedy replied, he “must have aged since then,” implying that he was more seasoned than he looked. Khrushchev answered that the young always want to look older, patronizingly adding that he would be happy to share his years with the president.

  The initial formal discussions went badly for Kennedy. His advisers had warned him against letting Khrushchev draw him into ideological arguments. Moreover, after complaining that Eisenhower secretary of state John Foster Dulles had aimed to liquidate communism, but that the West needed to accept that this was impossible, Khrushchev exclaimed that he had no desire to argue about the virtues of their respective systems, saying that he “would not try to convince the President about the advantages of Communism, just as the President should not waste his time to convert him to capitalism.” While Kennedy had no illusions about shaking Khrushchev’s belief in his Marxist faith, he hoped to show Khrushchev his toughness by warning against any imperial overreach, denouncing the imposition of communism on peoples eager for self-determination. Khrushchev insisted that communist governments reflected popular sentiment and then tried to change the focus of the conversation by saying, “In any event this is not a matter for argument, much less for war.” But remembering how well Nixon had done in the famous “kitchen debates” with Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959 and how he had bested Nixon in their first televised debate during the 1960 campaign, Kennedy persisted in arguing the point. The spread of communism was not a historical inevitability, he said.

  Never one to back away from an argument, Khrushchev took up the fight. The victory of communism was inevitable, he declared. It was not open to dispute because it rested on “a scientific analysis of social development.” Kennedy disputed the argument that there was anything scientific or inevitable about the rise of communist regimes. Khrushchev snidely inquired “whether the United States wanted to build a dam preventing the development of human mind and conscience,” which was “not in man’s power.” He compared such an effort to the Spanish Inquisition. Communism was an idea, which “cannot be chained or burned,” he asserted. Kennedy warned against any “miscalculation” that rested on assumptions about predictable political outcomes but instead could lead to war. Khrushchev now lost his temper or at least acted as if he did. Kennedy told an aide: He “went berserk. He started yelling, ‘Miscalculation! Miscalculation! Miscalculation! All I ever hear from your people and your news correspondents and your friends in Europe and elsewhere is that damned word, miscalculation! You ought to take that word and bury it in cold storage and never use it again! I’m sick of it!’” He added, “The United States wanted the USSR to sit like a school boy with his hands on his desk.”

  Khrushchev thought his performance overwhelmed Kennedy. He described the president afterward as “very inexperienced, even immature. Compared to him Eisenhower was a man of intelligence and vision.” So weak a president, who seemed unprepared for the rough-and-tumble of Cold War politics, impressed Khrushchev as an easy mark for a diminished U.S. presence in the international competition with communism.

  Khrushchev was not much off the mark in his assessment of Kennedy’s reaction to his hectoring. Kennedy emerged from the talks dazed. “Is it always like this?” he asked Thompson. New York Times columnist James Reston saw Kennedy as “very gloomy.” During a conversation at the U.S. Embassy, Kennedy sank onto a couch. He had a “hat over his eyes like a beaten man, and breathed a great sigh.” “Pretty rough?” Reston asked. “Roughest thing in my life,” Kennedy acknowledged. British prime minister Macmillan saw him after the summit as “completely overwhelmed by [Khrushchev’s] ruthlessness and barbarity.” Rusk said: “Kennedy was very upset. He wasn’t prepared for the brutality of Khrushchev’s presentation.” Harriman thought Kennedy was “shattered,”
and Lyndon Johnson, who thought he would have handled Khrushchev much more effectively than Kennedy, said, “Khrushchev scared the poor little fellow dead.”

  Kennedy complained to Bobby that in his discussions with Khrushchev it was the first time he “had ever really come across somebody with whom he couldn’t exchange ideas in a meaningful way.” He thought that Khrushchev was “completely unreasonable. . . . It was a shock to him that somebody would be as harsh and definitive as this.” When he returned to Washington, Kennedy wanted to send a message to Khrushchev through press leaks that his behavior was unacceptable. He told Time columnist Hugh Sidey, “[I] talked about how a nuclear exchange would kill seventy million people in ten minutes and he just looked at me as if to say, ‘So, what?’” The criticism of Khrushchev partly expressed Kennedy’s outrage at the communist’s temerity in being so high-handed and even dismissive of him. But he was also making the case for why they might have to fight a war with Moscow: Khrushchev was a madman who was not open to reason and was forcing the United States into a conflict by threatening its security.

  What had particularly agitated Kennedy was Khrushchev’s insistence on signing a peace treaty with East Germany that would invalidate all commitments stemming from Germany’s surrender at the end of World War II. Khrushchev explained that Germany inflicted terrible devastation on the Soviet Union in the war and he was determined to prevent the reunification of Germany and its revival as a military power that could threaten the Soviet Union with another war. He made no mention of his frustration over the flood of dissidents—roughly a million in 1960—escaping the communist East through West Berlin. Kennedy, recalling all the advice to stand firm against any demands for concessions over Berlin, replied that the United States and its Western allies were in Berlin “not because of someone’s sufferance,” but because they had fought their way there. “If we accepted the loss of our rights no one would have any confidence in US commitments and pledges.” He told Khrushchev that they were talking about fundamental issues of “US national security.” Khrushchev contentiously replied that if the president refused to agree to a peace treaty, he would go ahead without him. He dismissed the president’s defense of U.S. rights in Berlin, saying that “the US might want to go to Moscow because that too would, of course, improve its position.”

  Khrushchev insisted that “no force in the world would prevent the USSR from signing a peace treaty” by the end of the year, which he acknowledged would block access to Berlin. He accused the United States of wanting to start a war. “If there is any madman who wants war, he should be put in a straight jacket,” Khrushchev said. Kennedy countered that if anyone was threatening to provoke a war, it was Khrushchev, “who wants to do so by seeking a change in the existing situation.” The argument along the same lines continued on and off for the rest of the day with no change in position by either of them. Kennedy said he would be leaving Vienna with the view that they were on a collision course over Berlin. “If the US wanted war, that was its problem,” Khrushchev responded. “War will take place only if the US imposes it on the USSR.” Khrushchev concluded by repeating his determination to sign the peace treaty and end Western rights in Berlin. Eager to leave no question in Khrushchev’s mind about U.S. determination to defend its interests, Kennedy said, “It would be a cold winter.”

  Kennedy stopped in London to see Prime Minister Macmillan on his way back to Washington. Although Macmillan was twenty-three years Kennedy’s senior and a Conservative, the two shared an affinity for each other born of a delight in witty exchanges and a conviction that appeasement of aggression would bring another great war. Stopping in London was like being “in the bosom of the family,” Kennedy said. Macmillan understood that after his encounter with Khrushchev, whom Kennedy described to Macmillan as “a barbarian,” the president needed bucking up. Kennedy found some comfort in Macmillan’s support for opposing Khrushchev’s threat to Berlin with “all the force at their command.”

  On returning to Washington on June 6, Kennedy reported to congressional leaders and the public in a nationally televised address on the results of the summit. He made clear to the sixteen Senate and House members that they were facing a crisis over Berlin. He warned against provocative language that would seem to put Khrushchev in a corner, saying that his speech that evening would be restrained and implying that no one in the government should inflame the Kremlin with threats. But he also emphasized the need to convince Khrushchev that reckless action could lead to a nuclear war. In his address from the Oval Office, he said “that the Soviets and ourselves give wholly different meanings to the same words—war, peace, democracy, and popular will. We have wholly different views of right and wrong.” He urged Moscow to understand that they owed “it to all mankind to make every possible effort” to avoid a war.

  Kennedy now instructed all his diplomatic and national security associates to begin an urgent review of Berlin contingency planning. The feeling that they were facing a crisis that could erupt in war by the end of the year fixed everyone’s attention. No one shied away from offering advice, but the division of opinion that opened up between hawks and doves—those convinced that only visible preparations for war would inhibit the Soviets and those persuaded that overt military actions combined with negotiating initiatives were the wiser course—left Kennedy with difficult choices. He was eager to discourage any view of him as appeasing Moscow, but he was equally intent on avoiding some precipitous step that could take both sides closer to war. As never before, he understood what was meant by the “art of diplomacy”—finding a reasonable ground among imperfect alternatives.

  Because his White House advisers were less than reassuring on how to get through this crisis, Kennedy was eager to hear from outside voices on what he should do. But other prominent commentators were no more helpful. Mac Bundy brought Kennedy’s dilemma into sharp focus when on June 10 he described differing messages from Joe Alsop and Walter Lippmann, two of the country’s most respected journalists. Alsop was “for a strong and essentially unyielding position, carried all the way to war if necessary.” Lippmann, by contrast, was “for a negotiating solution . . . measures looking toward the genuine neutralization of West Berlin.” Alsop, Henry Kissinger, and “most of your advisers would hold that any neutralization of West Berlin would be a form of surrender.” Lippmann thought otherwise and predicted that neutralization would bring a net gain in U.S. prestige. Bundy pointed out that despite Macmillan’s support for a tough stand, the British would not be so fast to follow Alsop’s advice. On the other hand, if Kennedy followed Lippmann’s counsel, he would have to face down Adenauer. Whatever Kennedy chose to do, it was essential that he be “in immediate, personal, and continuous command of this enormous question.” That Bundy had to remind Kennedy of his need to be central to these deliberations was an indication, after Vienna, of current doubts about his leadership.

  Kennedy’s first challenge was to bring his military under control. On June 28, at a meeting with the Joint Chiefs, who predictably were urging robust demonstrations of American preparedness in case of a communist interdiction of West Berlin, Kennedy said he valued their counsel but saw them as more than “military men and expected their help in fitting military requirements into the over-all context of any situation, recognizing that the most difficult problem in Government is to combine all assets in a unified, effective pattern.” He was making clear that a military solution to the Berlin challenge was not his preference. He was also trying to discourage the Chiefs from stimulating public support for a confrontation with the Soviets or sending messages that might provoke Moscow into more aggressive action. As matters stood, U.S. opinion was already inclined to face down the Soviets: Surveys between June 23 and June 28 showed 82 percent in favor of a continued U.S. military presence in Berlin, despite the view of 59 percent that a nuclear conflict might be in the offing.

  Time and Newsweek published stories suggesting that Kennedy was reluctant to be as militant as the Pentagon. The leaks to the magazin
es angered him: “Look at this shit,” he told Pierre Salinger. “This shit has got to stop.” The same day as his meeting with the Chiefs, Kennedy used a press conference to take the lead on the developing crisis. He refused to take the bait when a reporter asked him what he thought of Vice President Nixon’s “dim view of your administration. . . . Never in American history has a man talked so big and acted so little,” Nixon said. Instead, Kennedy offered measured comments that could remind Khrushchev of his determination not to abandon Berlin to communist control and “make permanent the partition of Germany. . . . No one can fail to appreciate the gravity of this [Soviet] threat,” he added. “There is peace in Germany and in Berlin. If it is disturbed, it will be a direct Soviet responsibility.”

  On the twenty-eighth, Kennedy also received a report he had asked Dean Acheson to write on Berlin. Because he saw Acheson as “one of the most intelligent and experienced men around,” Kennedy believed it useful to have his judgment on how to meet Khrushchev’s challenge over Berlin. By no means, however, was he prepared to take Acheson’s advice as gospel. After all, judging from earlier policy statements, Acheson was of two minds about Berlin: In 1959 he had said, “To respond to a blockade of Berlin with a nuclear strategic attack would be fatally unwise. To threaten this attack would be even more unwise.” But by 1961 he had shifted ground: He not only favored a buildup of U.S. ground forces in the city to confront any possible Soviet attack; he also believed it essential to convince the Soviets that we were ready to use nuclear weapons if they started a war. The issue, Acheson said, was how to restore the credibility of the deterrent. “Nothing could be more dangerous,” he wrote, “than to embark upon a course of action of the sort described in this paper in the absence of a decision to accept nuclear war rather than accede to the demands which Khrushchev is now making.”