The greatest enthusiasm was in the United Kingdom, which was to be the third signatory of the pending treaty. Among the allies, Prime Minister Macmillan had been the strongest and most persistent proponent of reopening negotiations, and he had worked closely with Kennedy to achieve it. The Daily Mail called the American University address Kennedy’s “greatest speech.” The Evening Standard noted a “political climate that is more refreshing and hopeful than for a very long time.”6 The Times of London praised Kennedy’s “particular contribution” of emphasizing “the need to respect each other’s interests, to accept honest differences, and to refrain from imposing alien systems on smaller countries.”7 In The Guardian, the British parliamentarian Richard Crossman called the speech “the most significant American policy declaration for many years,” adding, “The more carefully one reads the speech, the more clear it becomes that the President has at last found the courage to call off the cold war.”8
Soviet Reactions
Soviet reactions would be most vital to success. The White House carefully monitored the early Soviet reactions via U.S. government cables sent from Moscow. The news was encouraging. First, the two major newspapers Pravda and Izvestiya, which had a combined circulation of ten million readers, both carried the text of the president’s speech in full, a rarity for the Soviet press.9 Second, the Soviets allowed the Voice of America and the BBC to transmit the speech by radio without the usual jamming of the airwaves. Clearly, the Soviet authorities were intent on making the Soviet people aware of the speech. The media reactions were also generally favorable. One U.S. report cited a Soviet news commentator’s statement that “hopes have emerged for a radical improvement of the international climate.”10 The general tenor of the Soviet media was that Kennedy’s new policy proposals were a step forward, in line with the long-standing Soviet call for “peaceful coexistence.”
Of greatest importance were the reactions of the Soviet leadership. Khrushchev’s reception of the speech was just as Kennedy intended: extremely positive and open to a treaty. British opposition leader Harold Wilson met Khrushchev soon after the speech, and according to Kennedy’s special assistant, the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Wilson “found [Khrushchev] deeply impressed and considerably more open minded about the test ban.”11 Khrushchev called in Kennedy’s envoy Averell Harriman to tell him that Kennedy’s “was the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt.”12 A CIA report the day after the speech noted:
The Soviets were favorably surprised by the tenor of President Kennedy’s 10 June speech because it reflected a broad progressive approach toward solving current problems. The atmosphere created by this speech is now such that the possibilities of agreeing on a test ban treaty are very good. No chief of state would make such a speech unless he were completely convinced that agreement was probable. The only problem in the past which prevented a test ban treaty was Soviet doubt of the sincerity of U.S. intentions to enter into such an agreement … President Kennedy’s speech has gone a long way toward assuaging Soviet doubts of U.S. sincerity.13
In Khrushchev’s first public remarks on the speech, made in an interview with Pravda and Izvestiya on June 14, he was more measured and circumspect. He deemed it “a step forward in a realistic appraisal of the international situation,” and one that “stressed the need of finding ways which would rid mankind of the arms race and the threat of a thermonuclear world war.”14 Yet he also signaled many points of disagreement, including inspections, U.S. overseas bases, and the U.S. suppression of national liberation movements. Khrushchev’s hedging was likely connected to strained relations with the Chinese, who had sent a critical open letter to the Soviet Communist Party the same day.15
While the signals were not perfect, it did seem that the Soviet Union was ready for at least some agreements. To bolster those prospects and to meet with key allies in the midst of these negotiations, Kennedy headed to Europe in late June. His travels took him to raucously enthusiastic public events in Germany and Ireland, and less public stops in England and Rome. The whirlwind trip, from June 23 to July 2, was among the most memorable nine days of Kennedy’s presidency, and indeed of his life.
The Trip to Europe
John Kennedy’s arrival in Europe in late June in many ways recalled Woodrow Wilson’s arrival in Europe forty-five years earlier. In both cases, Europeans looked to the American president for deliverance. Wilson personified Europe’s hope for a just and lasting peace after the most devastating war in the continent’s long and bloody history. Kennedy embodied the hopes of Western Europe for peace and economic dynamism in the Cold War era. To a war-weary continent, Kennedy offered youth, charm, and American optimism. He no doubt had Wilson very much on his mind for more reasons than their similar receptions. Wilson’s triumphant European arrival was bookended by his failure to win Senate confirmation of the Paris peace treaty, which doomed the new League of Nations. Wilson drove himself nearly to death in his frenzied campaign for treaty ratification, suffering an incapacitating stroke in the process.
Wilson had arrived in Europe to adoring masses. “As soon as he set foot on French soil, an explosion of celebrations began. French and American soldiers lined the streets of Brest as the Wilsons rode in an open car under triumphal arches of flowers … Hordes of cheering people packed the sidewalks and hung out of every window.”16 Kennedy’s greeting was no less euphoric. Schlesinger described Kennedy’s entrance into Berlin, with “three-fifths of the population of West Berlin streaming into the streets, clapping, waving, crying, cheering, as if it were the second coming.”17
Kennedy’s itinerary was geared to the treaty negotiations. The first stops were in Germany, first Frankfurt and then Berlin, the front line of the Cold War, with a political leadership that had to be handled with care. West German leaders, especially Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, reacted nervously to any signs of U.S. rapprochement with the Soviet Union, out of fear that West Germany’s interests might be undermined in some grand bargain on European security. Whenever Kennedy took pains to emphasize that he would make no agreements at the expense of the Western allies, he had West Germany first in mind.*
Let Them Come to Berlin
The speech in Berlin marked the most remarkable occasion of the whole European trip.18 After taking a tour of the western part of the city, including a solemn visit to the Berlin Wall, Kennedy’s car slowly proceeded through throngs of cheering people, finally arriving in the city center. Kennedy’s visit was an unprecedented public event. Over 1,500 journalists were accredited to cover it,† and many businesses and schools were closed for the day.19 Hundreds of thousands of people filled the square; the empty streets of East Berlin could be seen just over the Berlin Wall. It was an emotional crowd that, in turn, moved Kennedy into a flight of improvised rhetoric that went further than he himself had intended in the prepared draft.
Kennedy delivers his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Rudolph Wilde Platz, Berlin (June 26, 1963).
“I am proud to come to this city,” he began, as he sized up the mass of humanity before him at ground zero of the Cold War:
Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was “civis Romanus sum.” Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
The huge crowd roared its delight. As Kennedy’s locution was not exact (the ein was out of place), the translator repeated Kennedy’s line, prompting Kennedy to quip that he appreciated “my interpreter translating my German!”
Kennedy then threw down the gauntlet, as Ronald Reagan would more than twenty years later when he called on another Soviet leader to “tear down this Wall.” Standing before the grim wall, in a city divided between West Berlin’s rising prosperity and East Berlin’s evident gray stagnation, Kennedy told the assembled multitude:
There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism
is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.
Kennedy continued, “I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin.” He bid his listeners to “lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow”:
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
And then he closed with his reaffirmation that “as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ ”
The crowd was euphoric, and Kennedy was exhilarated. He had achieved his political purpose: to secure the support and confidence of the German people. Still, he knew that he had gone a step too far with his anti-communist rhetoric. Swept away by emotion, his language seemed to contradict the conciliatory message of the Peace Speech. Years later, his close aides Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers recalled, “Kennedy’s fighting speech in Berlin … actually was a grave political risk, and he knew it. Such a heated tribute to West Berlin’s resistance to Communism could have undone all the success of his appeal for peace and understanding with the Soviets in his American University speech two weeks earlier.”20 To gain the political room to negotiate the treaty by winning German public opinion, while simultaneously closing the deal with Khrushchev, Kennedy had to tread a fine line.
At his next stop that afternoon at the Free University of Berlin, he dialed down the rhetoric a few notches.21 There he emphasized “the necessity of great powers working together to preserve the human race, or otherwise we can be destroyed.” He called on the Western alliance to remain strong, noting that he had traveled to Europe to bolster the alliance’s unity. For only through a strong alliance “will genuine, mutually acceptable proposals to reduce hostility have a chance to succeed.”22
On that day, Kennedy effectively cemented the Western alliance, a remarkable feat considering that only eighteen years earlier Germany was a Nazi state and Berlin was aflame and in ruins. Kennedy had encouraged the German people to be resolute in the defense of freedom. He emotionally connected them to America and the Western alliance. It was a bravura performance. Despite the heated rhetoric, the Berlin speech did not threaten the momentum toward a U.S.-Soviet treaty.‡ Most important, Kennedy would use the political capital gained in Berlin to deny the West German government’s aspirations for nuclear weapons. So, on the main point of substance, not only Kennedy but Khrushchev too triumphed that day in Berlin.
Ireland and Italy
Kennedy’s next stop was more nostalgic and personal: Ireland. Kennedy arrived with two of his sisters, Jean Kennedy Smith and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and the visit was a mix of sightseeing, public events, and memorable speechmaking, notably at the Irish Parliament, the Dáil.23 There he again called on Europe to join in the quest for peace, and emphasized that all countries, small as well as large, were needed in this global effort. The latter point was not intended for Irish ears alone.
The blood ties of President Kennedy and his hosts were close. The Parliament was welcoming home one of its own. He was proud, he said, to be the first American president to visit Ireland while in office and the first to address the Parliament. He was also, of course, the first Catholic Irish-American president.
Kennedy had come in part to sing Ireland’s praises:
This has never been a rich or powerful country, and yet, since earliest times, its influence on the world has been rich and powerful. No larger nation did more to keep Christianity and Western culture alive in their darkest centuries. No larger nation did more to spark the cause of independence in America, indeed, around the world. And no larger nation has ever provided the world with more literary and artistic genius.
Kennedy’s motorcade drives through Cork, Ireland (June 28, 1963).
Yet he had also come to speak of world peace, and of the role of nations large and small. Quoting John Boyle O’Reilly, a nineteenth-century Irish-American poet who hailed from Boston:
The world is large when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide,
But the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side.
Yes, said Kennedy, “[T]he world is even smaller today, though the enemy of John Boyle O’Reilly [the British Empire] is no longer a hostile power” to Ireland. Picking up one of his favorite themes, Kennedy noted that even ancient enmities do not last forever, and that peace is a choice:
Indeed, across the gulfs and barriers that now divide us, we must remember that there are no permanent enemies. Hostility today is a fact, but it is not a ruling law. The supreme reality of our time is our indivisibility as children of God and our common vulnerability on this planet.
Ireland, he said, must play its part, especially in the United Nations: “The major forum for your nation’s greater role in world affairs is that of protector of the weak and voice of the small, the United Nations. From Cork to the Congo, from Galway to the Gaza Strip, from this legislative assembly to the United Nations, Ireland is sending its most talented men to do the world’s most important work—the work of peace.” And, added Kennedy, other small nations should follow this lead:
I speak of these matters today—not because Ireland is unaware of its role—but I think it important that you know that we know what you have done. And I speak to remind the other small nations that they, too, can and must help build a world peace. They, too, as we all are, are dependent on the United Nations for security, for an equal chance to be heard, for progress towards a world made safe for diversity.
Kennedy’s peace campaign, in its essence, held that mankind can choose its fate, that we are not “gripped by forces we cannot control,” as he had put it at American University. So it was fitting that he gave an Irish spin to that philosophy, his abiding belief that we can shape our future by dreaming of a better world:
George Bernard Shaw, speaking as an Irishman, summed up an approach to life: Other people, he said “see things and … say ‘Why?’ … But I dream things that never were—and I say: ‘Why not?’ ”
It is that quality of the Irish—that remarkable combination of hope, confidence and imagination—that is needed more than ever today. The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were, and ask why not.
Kennedy had given Shaw’s words an interesting twist. Originally, in Shaw’s play Back to Methuselah, the words were spoken by the Serpent to Eve.24 In Kennedy’s retelling, they were the spirit of man striving to create his own Eden on Earth. Robert Kennedy would choose this phrase as the motto of his 1968 presidential campaign. And, most poignantly, we remember them as the closing words of Ted Kennedy’s moving eulogy of his brother Robert after the latter’s assassination.25
From Ireland Kennedy went to England. His first stop there was the most private of all: a heartrending visit to the gravesite of his beloved younger sister Kathleen (Kick), who had married a young British aristocrat who was killed in battle after D-Day. She herself died in a 1948 plane crash at only twenty-eight. From the late 1930s till her death a decade later, Kick had brought the young John into the dashing world of youthful British protégés of Churchill, young men who would continue to play an important role in shaping Kennedy’s worldview during his presidency. Among these was one of Kennedy’s closest confidants in foreign policy, David Ormsby-Gore, the future British Ambassad
or to the United States during Kennedy’s presidency.
Next he visited with Prime Minister Macmillan, for one-on-one meetings to coordinate positions on the upcoming negotiations in Moscow. Macmillan would instruct his negotiators to follow the U.S. lead on all points. Finally, from the United Kingdom he went to Italy. Kennedy traveled first to Rome to meet with the government and with the new pope, Paul VI, following the death of Pope John XXIII on June 3. Then, for his last stop in Europe, Kennedy went to NATO headquarters in Naples. There he put a capstone on his peace initiative, closing the European trip by declaring, “The purpose of our military strength is peace. The purpose of our partnership is peace”:
So our negotiations for an end to nuclear tests and our opposition to nuclear dispersal are fully consistent with our attention to defense—these are all complementary parts of a single strategy for peace. We do not believe that war is unavoidable or that negotiations are inherently undesirable. We do believe that an end to the arms race is in the interest of all and that we can move toward that end with injury to none. In negotiations to achieve peace, as well as preparation to prevent war, the West is united, and no ally will abandon the interests of another to achieve a spurious detente. But, as we arm to parley, we will not reject any path or refuse any proposal without examining its possibilities for peace.26
His campaign was paying dividends. As Sorensen related, “That night, as we flew back to Washington, a message radioed to the plane told of a Khrushchev speech that day in East Berlin. It endorsed an atmospheric nuclear test-ban treaty.”27
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