As for Kennedy, he had long been fascinated by the idea of de Gaulle—this great and gloomy figure, pitting himself against the probabilities of history and then recording the results in such eloquent and fastidious pose. The Paris meeting increased his understanding of the clarity and tenacity, though not yet of the ferocity, of de Gaulle’s vision of Europe and the world.
3. DISUNION IN VIENNA
And so on to Austria, the great plane touching down at the Vienna airport on a gray and rainy Saturday morning. The presidential party motored through crowded streets to the American Embassy. Khrushchev had arrived the day before, and the talks were scheduled to begin almost at once. At 12:45 the Soviet Chairman came to the embassy. A few moments later they were seated in the music room, the two principals, their interpreters and aides—for the Americans, Rusk, Thompson, Bohlen and Foy Kohler, Assistant Secretary for European Affairs; and for the Russians, Gromyko, Mikhail Menshikov, the Soviet ambassador to Washington, and Anatoly Dobrynin, the chief of the American bureau in the Soviet Foreign Ministry.
Kennedy had met Khrushchev briefly in 1959 with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Soviet leader’s visit to the United States. Striking immediately a note at once jovial and edged, Khrushchev recalled that Kennedy had been late and there had been no opportunity to say much more than hello and goodbye. He had told Kennedy then, he remembered, that he had heard of him as a promising man in politics. He was gratified now to meet him as President. Kennedy replied equably that Khrushchev had remarked on his youthful appearance in 1959; he had aged since then. There was more such badinage, Khrushchev observing that he would be happy to split his years with the President or exchange ages with him. (Later, when Khrushchev contrasted the Soviet Union and the United States as young and old nations, Kennedy said, “If you’ll look across the table, you’ll see that we’re not so old.”)
Kennedy now expressed his hope that the meeting would lead to a better understanding of common problems. To his mind, the question was how two great nations, with different social systems, confronting each other across the world, could avoid head-on collision in an era of great change. Khrushchev went instantly on the offensive. The Soviet Union, he said, had tried for a long time to develop friendly relations with the United States. But it refused to do so at the expense of other peoples because agreements of this sort would not bring peace. America must understand that communism has won its right to grow and develop. The premise of John Foster Dulles’s policy had been the liquidation of communism; this philosophy could never lead to good relations. He would not hope to persuade the President of the merits of communism, Khrushchev said, any more than he expected the President to waste time trying to convert him to capitalism. But de facto recognition of the existence of communism was indispensable.
Kennedy observed courteously that Americans were impressed by the economic achievement of the Soviet Union; it was a source of satisfaction to the whole world. But, as he saw the problem, it was not that the democracies were trying to eliminate communism in areas under communist control, but that the communists were trying to eliminate free systems in areas associated with the west. Khrushchev brusquely rejected this. It was impossible, he said, for the Soviet Union to implant its policy in other states. All the Soviet Union claimed was that communism would triumph; this was not propaganda but a scientific analysis of social development. Communism was superseding capitalism today as capitalism had superseded feudalism in the past. Changes in social systems were bound to come, but they would be brought about only by the will of the people themselves. The Communists believed in their systems, as the President believed in his. In any event, this was a matter for debate, not for war. The Soviet desire for general and complete disarmament proved its intention not to resort to arms.
The great need, Kennedy commented, was for each side to understand the other’s views. The American position was that people should have freedom of choice. When communist minorities seized control against the popular will, the Chairman regarded this as historical inevitability; we did not, and this brought our two nations into conflict. Obviously we could not avoid disagreement, but we could avoid the direct confrontation of our military forces. Our interest here was to make clear why we were concerned about what the communists called inevitability.
This led Khrushchev into a sententious discourse on intellectual freedom. Did the United States, he asked, plan to build a dam against the development of the human mind and conscience? The Inquisition had burned people but could not burn their ideas, and eventually the ideas prevailed. History must be the judge in a competition of ideas. If capitalism could insure a better life, it would win. If not, communism would win; but this would be a victory of ideas, not of arms.
To this Kennedy responded that the two powers shared the obligation to conduct the competition of ideas without involving vital national interests. Khrushchev said sharply that he hoped he had misunderstood this remark. Did the President hold the Soviet Union responsible for the development of communist ideas? Did he mean that communism should exist only in countries already communist and that, if it developed elsewhere, the United States would be in conflict with the Soviet Union? This view was incorrect; and, if that was really the way the United States thought, conflict could not be avoided. Ideas did not belong to one nation. Once born, they grew. No immunization was possible against them. The only rule was that they should not be propagated by arms nor by intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. He could guarantee that the Soviet Union would never impose ideas by war.
Kennedy quoted Mao Tse-tung’s remark that power came out of the end of the rifle. Khrushchev blandly denied that Mao ever said this; Mao was a Marxist, and Marxists were against war. Kennedy repeated that Khrushchev must understand the American views; if our two nations failed to preserve the peace, the whole world would be the loser. “My ambition,” Kennedy said, “is to secure peace.” The greatest danger was the miscalculation by one power of the interests and policy of another.
The word “miscalculation” irritated Khrushchev. It was a vague term, he said, and it suggested to him that America wanted the Soviet Union to sit like a schoolboy with hands on the top of the desk. The Soviet Union held its ideas in high esteem and declined to guarantee that they would stop at the Russian frontier. He did not understand the American theory of what Russia had to do to maintain the peace. The Soviet Union was going to defend its vital interests, whether or not the United States regarded such acts as miscalculations; it did not want war, but it would not be intimidated either. Of course war would be fatal; both sides would lose equally and be punished equally. But the west should put the word “miscalculation” into cold storage, for its use did not impress the Soviet Union at all.
By “miscalculation,” Kennedy patiently explained, he meant the difficulty of predicting what any country might do next. The United States itself had made misjudgments, as when it failed to foresee Chinese intervention in the Korean War. The purpose of the meeting, as he saw it, was to introduce precision into each side’s assessments and thereby minimize the risks of misjudgment. Khrushchev, retreating to jolliness, commented that, if the meeting succeeded, the expenses of bringing it about would be well justified. If it failed, not only would the money be wasted but the hopes of the people of the world would be betrayed.
It was time for lunch. The conversation had been civil but tough. Khrushchev had not given way before Kennedy’s reasonableness, nor Kennedy before Khrushchev’s intransigence. Badinage took over again at the luncheon table. Noticing two medals on Khrushchev’s chest, Kennedy asked what they were. The Soviet Chairman identified them as Lenin Peace Medals. The American President observed, perhaps a trifle grimly, “I hope you keep them.” They traded stories about the problems of sending rockets to the moon. Kennedy asked why the United States and the Soviet Union should not go to the moon together. Khrushchev at first said no, then, reflecting, said, “All right, why not?” Kennedy observed that his wife thought that Gr
omyko had a nice smile. Khrushchev commented that some people said Gromyko looked like Nixon.
The luncheon ended with toasts. Kennedy said that, having welcomed Khrushchev to the United States in 1959, he was now glad to welcome him to this small piece of the United States in Vienna. Khrushchev rose to his feet in a free-wheeling mood and began reminiscing about Eisenhower. He had respected Eisenhower, he said, and regretted the unhappy development of their relations. He was almost certain that Eisenhower had not known about the U-2 flight but in a spirit of chivalry had decided to take responsibility for it. He was sorry never to have been able to receive Eisenhower in the Soviet Union, and he hoped to receive Kennedy when the time was ripe. The road was open, but a caution was in order. Nixon had hoped to convert the Russian people to capitalism by showing them a dream kitchen, which did not exist and never would exist. He apologized, Khrushchev said, for mentioning Nixon, an American citizen, but only Nixon could have thought of such nonsense.
He rambled on. He objected, he said, to the language of commercial bargaining so often used in dealings with the Soviet Union—‘you give this and we’ll give that.’ What was he supposed to concede? He was blamed for Communist parties in other countries, but he did not even know who their leaders were; he was too busy at home. After all, Marx and Engels had invented communism, so, if anyone was to blame, it was the Germans. He added that that was a joke. More seriously, he wanted to say that Russians admired Americans, especially their technical achievements. We might be at opposite poles ideologically, but that should not stop us from working for a better future for our peoples. He envied the President his youth, Khrushchev said; if he were as young, he would be devoting even more energy to the cause, but at the age of sixty-seven he was still not renouncing the competition.
Kennedy and Khrushchev strolled in the garden for a moment after luncheon. Then they resumed the discussion. Kennedy restated his thesis; change was inevitable, but war would be catastrophic in the nuclear age; both sides must therefore take care to avoid situations which might lead to war. As for miscalculation, every leader had to make judgments; he himself had miscalculated about the Bay of Pigs. He had to estimate what the Soviet Union would do, just as Khrushchev had to estimate about the United States. If we could only reduce the margin of uncertainty in such calculations, then our two nations might survive the period of competition without nuclear war.
All right, said Khruschev, but how could we work anything out when the United States regarded revolution anywhere as the result of communist machinations? It was really the United States which caused revolution by backing reactionary governments: look at Iran, look at Cuba. Fidel Castro was not a Communist, but American policy was making him one. Khrushchev himself had not been born a Communist; the capitalists had converted him. Kennedy’s assumption that revolution was the consequence of intervention was dangerous. And, after all, it was the United States which had set the precedent for intervention.
Kennedy disclaimed any brief for Batista; as for Iran, if the Shah did not improve conditions for the people, change would be inevitable. This, he protested, was not the issue. The issue was the disruption of the existing equilibrium of power. The Castro regime was objectionable, not because it expelled American monopolies, but because it offered communism a base in the western hemisphere. The Soviet Union, he said pointedly, did not tolerate hostile governments in its own areas of vital interest; what would Khrushchev do, for example, if a pro-American government were established in Warsaw? The United States did not object to the Marxist governments of Guinea or Mali. If governments ruled in the interest of wealthy minorities, of course they were doomed; but social changes must take place peacefully and must not involve the prestige or commitments of America and Russia or upset the balance of world power.
He now brought up Laos. Past American policy there had not always been wise. The Pathet Lao had certain advantages: they received supplies and manpower from North Vietnam; moreover, they stood for change. Kennedy noted that he himself had been elected President as an advocate of change. The solution was to let a neutral and independent Laos decide its own future: and the problem was to make the cease-fire work by setting up a mechanism for its verification.
Khrushchev, displaying no great interest in Laos, preferred to revert to the question of reactionary regimes. Our two sides differed, he said, in our understanding of what popular or anti-popular movements were. We should both agree not to interfere and to leave it to the people of the country. The worst thing for the United States to do, he warned, was to start guerrilla warfare against regimes it did not like; no undertaking was more hopeless than guerrilla action instigated from outside and not supported by the people. He did not know, Khrushchev went on, whether the balance of power was exact, but no matter; each side had enough power to destroy the other. That was why there should be no interference. But the United States supported colonial powers, as in Africa, and then was surprised when the people turned against it. Kennedy pointed out that the United States had in fact backed liberation movements in Africa and hoped that the number of independent African states would increase. Khrushchev replied with scorn that the American policy was uneven, its voice timid. It might endorse anti-colonialism for tactical reasons, but its heart was with the colonialists. Why not adopt the Soviet policy of tolerance and noninterference?
Kennedy brought up Khrushchev’s pledge to support wars of national liberation in his speech of January 6. Was this noninterference? Obviously both nations were helping groups in other countries. The problem, while we backed our respective movements, was not to clash ourselves. Khrushchev vigorously defended his speech. If subject peoples, promised independence by the United Nations, were still denied their rights, how long were they expected to wait? Wars of national liberation, he said, were “sacred” wars, and the Soviet was certainly going to support them. America itself had rebelled in this manner against Britain. Now it opposed other peoples who followed their example. The Tsars had denied the revolutionary American republic recognition for twenty-six years as an illegitimate regime. Now America refused to recognize China; “things have changed, haven’t they?” The realistic policy for the United States would be to recognize China and admit it to the United Nations. Of course, this could not be done so long as Chiang Kai-shek held his position, whether in Taiwan or the UN. If he were in Mao’s place, Khrushchev added, he would probably have attacked Taiwan long ago.
Kennedy made once again the point about preserving the existing balance of power. The entry of additional nations into the communist camp, the loss of Taiwan—such developments would alter the equilibrium. But Khrushchev energetically rejected this conception. If some African country were to go communist, he said, it might add a few drops to the bucket of communist power, were the balance of power conceived as a bucket on each side. But it would also be an expression of the popular will; and any attempt to stop it from outside would bring about a chain reaction and possibly war.
Kennedy responded with equal force that, so far as Washington was concerned, countries with varied social systems could pursue independent policies, like India, Burma, Yugoslavia. But changes which altered the balance of world power were different; perhaps the Russians might agree if, for example, Poland should join the west. No doubt America supported some governments which did not represent the will of the people; but could the Chairman be certain about the result if the Poles were given a chance to express their free choice? He felt it time, Kennedy added, to discuss Laos and the test ban in detail.
Khrushchev affected outrage over Kennedy’s reference to Poland, contending that Poland’s electoral system was more democratic than that of the United States, where parties existed only to deceive the people. As for preserving the existing balance, if this were the premise of American policy, Khrushchev said he must doubt whether the United States really wanted peaceful coexistence or was seeking a pretext for war. After all, he said, the United States might occupy Crimea on the claim that this improved its strategic po
sition. This was the policy of Dulles.
It was also, of course, contrary to Kennedy’s thesis, since the occupation of Crimea would change the balance; but Kennedy, perhaps with a growing sense of the futility of the ideological dispute, now tried again to persuade his antagonist to focus on Laos. This time Khrushchev acquiesced. After some talk, both said they might influence their clients in Laos to cooperate with the International Control Commission in policing the cease-fire. Kennedy, with a smile, said that at least they could possibly unite on this, even if they could not unite on the merits of the American electoral system. Khrushchev responded that the latter question was an internal affair of the United States.
They broke up at quarter to seven. It had been a rough day. Kennedy was impressed by Khrushchev’s vitality, his debating skill and his brutal candor, depressed by the blank wall of dogma. He said to Llewellyn Thompson, “Is it always like this?” Thompson replied, “Par for the course.”
4. PRELUDE TO BERLIN
A Thousand Days Page 44