Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed
By NATHAN THRALL and JESSE JAMES WILKINS
Published: May 22, 2008

IN his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s special assistant, called those sentences “the distinctive note” of the inaugural.

They have also been a distinctive note in Senator Obama’s campaign, and were made even more prominent last week when President Bush, in a speech to Israel’s Parliament, disparaged a willingness to negotiate with America’s adversaries as appeasement. Senator Obama defended his position by again enlisting Kennedy’s legacy: “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that’s what he did with Khrushchev.”

But Kennedy’s one presidential meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, suggests that there are legitimate reasons to fear negotiating with one’s adversaries. Although Kennedy was keenly aware of some of the risks of such meetings — his Harvard thesis was titled “Appeasement at Munich” — he embarked on a summit meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, a move that would be recorded as one of the more self-destructive American actions of the cold war, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age.

Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy’s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year: “Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?”

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was “very unwise” for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them.

If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate.

Nathan Thrall is a journalist. Jesse James Wilkins is a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia.

but when you consider that no one's been troubled by the late USSR since 123191, and that pieces of the Berlin Wall are sold as souveneirs, well..... there's winning and there's WINNING, and sometimes it's not apparent in the heat of the immediate moment which is which.

hiding under my school room desk, and preparing to kiss my ass goodbye.  You have to wonder would the world have been better off had we seemed stronger - I've often thought about that.  But it was a very strange time - we were just recovering from a very real "twilight zone" type of environment called "McCarthism"  where we could not trust that our neighbot was not "one of them" - we were increasing our presence in Viet Nam... and Kennedy was a short period of time away from his own watershed incident in Dallas....

Since, as a nation we have faltered.  We doubt ourselves and find ourselves either unable to take action or worse - taking an inappropriate action.  We are not bold.  We have let special interest groups (much minority) ruin our economy, we have lowered our standards in the name of "equality" and asked little of our citizens.  We ask that our news, sports and entertainment be dumbed down.  And there is little of hope on the political scene.

It is a sad day indeed - when we have both a black man and a woman competing for the highest post in the land, and our news commentators are obsessed with lapel pins and pants suits.  Nothing of substance is asked.

What are we going to do in a world where foreign demand for energy is increasing exponentially (China & India) and we are not allowed access to our own natural resources?

What are we going to do when our academic institutions fail to participate in our communities and act as if they were insulated from what happens around them?

What are we to do when any person who is totally unqualified is able to "pronounce" truth without a full and complete disclosure of all the facts (and here I am thinking of the Hollywood elite Demanding the release of cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal)?

What are we to do when our intelligence agencies are so unreliable as to cause our invasion of a foreign country under what turns out to be false pretense?

What are we to do when at least 4 of our recent presidents fail to provide moral and just leadership (Nixon, Carter, Clinton and the current GW)?

yea, sadly I am coming to the opinion of the rest of the world about my country -which I dearly love.... We have lost our way.  

Things will get worse - energy and water demands will get more agressive...   and we will loose our privaledged way of life.

Soviet Union trouble me?  nah... radical Islam trouble me?  nah...   the likes of our MOC - they trouble me deeply.

Bizzy, there is great wisdom in what you have written.  but consider the sadder part of it -- these  failures you point out are, in the main,  of intellect and courage.  we needn't have been a colussus to have made better  decisions, a weakling could have done better in most of these instances, and all of our strength seems to have helped us out here very little.

anybody who wants to stay the course onto the fucking rocks.

Chuck Darwin
Your evolution got mutated some where during the process.

You don't make a bit of sense but just spew shit.

In every negotiation one must know the enemy's strength, weakness and motivation. Otherwise, you are screwed.

It is well fact Internationally that Kennedy did not do well and so will your Messsiah Obambi.

There is no hope for evolution mutation (EM), medical science is not interested in dealing with it. So, you are kind of stuck!

Let us know when you figure out what you want to say.

that these judgments made by Khrushchev caused him (in the following year) to bring the entire world to the brink of nuclear holocaust, the actual results of which raised the power and prestige of the Soviet Union and lowered ours. And then we spent twenty more years in a silent war that killed far more people than most of us will ever realize (not to mention the Vietnam war).

But hey, it all turned out OK in the end, so, no worries?

Now just think, Khrushchev was a seasoned politician. A well reasoned and probably sane man, but he WAS driven by his own version of politically realized ideology and zealotry. But I dare say his ideology and zealotry were absolutely no match for that of Achmadinijad. The only thing BHO has going for him vs. JFK is that Achmadinijad doesn’t have Khrushchev’s nukes. . .  yet.

BTW, you didn’t see Khrushchev trying to pull any of that shit on Eisenhower, now did’ya?


-- Modified on 5/22/2008 6:55:03 PM

that any 5th grader could infer puts him into the same category as yourself? The same category that 99% of your posts occupy.

it's a waste of fucking time listening to people who think like GW talks.

During the Carter and Clinton years, militarily, we had very little strength. Carter hamstrung the military to the point where, (of this I have first hand knowledge), we were unable to maintain the B-52 nuclear bomber fleet in an acceptable combat ready status. When Clinton had Gore 'reinvent' the government, they hacked 300,000 troops from the active duty rolls. Then they bragged about how they had reduced government spending which, among some smoke and mirror action, allowed them to balance the budget.

he is perhaps the worst pres ever, course the current dolt in the office seeme bound and determined to beat him and for my money - it is too close to call....

We cannot elect a leader until and unless politicians quit using polls to tell them what to follow.

Why do I keep fucking with them?  Why do I fuck with retards?  Because it's a fairly harmless way to amuse myself until something more serious comes along.

no, but you did see Mao and company create 2 crises in 4 years over the Offshore Islands [remember them?].

your points are well-taken, but they depend critically upon whether Kennedy's vacilation in Berlin was the deciding, or even one of the critical factor, in the Soviet decision to place nukes in Cuba.

there is much to worry about in the world, my point, being in the middle of the problem does not allow you the best possible vantage point

Iran and nukes remains to be seen, but given the same interests who pushed the Iragi/Saddam/nukes line, perhaps that little boy finally cried wolf one time too many.

time will tell. but be sure, even when the Iranian nuke threat is gone [if it ever is, or if it even exists] another threat will replace it.

for what it's worth, everything I've ever read about the CMC considered it a "win" for Kennedy and a "loss" for Khrushchev, so much so that it was one of the motivations for Nikita's eventual removal from power in 1964 ["harebrained scheming"].  you may be thinking that the CMC was one of the critical factors leading to the Soviet ICBM buildup obver the next 2 decades?

Because he is a moron. Chaney does all the thinking for them both.

Khrushchev suffered personally from the CMC but I think that the SU as a whole, it gained, mostly in internal prestige but also externally as well. Brezhnev and company knew that Khrushchev “blew it”, in that he had taken things too far and they used that fact to bring Khrushchev down.

The CMC certainly was no ice breaker when it came to Soviet/US relation, just the opposite of course.

If Kennedy hadn’t been martyred I really do not think his Presidency would be rated very high today.

BTW, You said “being in the middle of the problem does not allow you the best possible vantage point”. Funny how there are so few that believe that applies to evaluating our current Presidency.


-- Modified on 5/23/2008 6:02:06 PM