On this day in 1961, President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev met in Vienna for a two-day summit. In a letter delivered to Khrushchev in March, Kennedy proposed the two leaders meet for an informal exchange of views. Accordingly, they conferred without a set agenda.
Subsequent accounts, including Kennedy’s, confirmed that the summit did not go well. Khrushchev took a particularly harsh stance over Berlin, a Western enclave within communist-controlled East Germany, where the United States, Britain and France had maintained a symbolic military presence since the German defeat in World War II.
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In addition to Berlin, Kennedy later told reporters, Khrushchev had berated him on a wide range of Cold War issues, including “wars of national liberation” and nuclear weapons.
“I never met a man like this,” Kennedy told Hugh Sidey, Time magazine’s White House correspondent. “[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?’”
At their final meeting, Kennedy sought to improve the chilled atmosphere over Berlin. “It is up to the U.S. to decide whether there will be war or peace,” Khrushchev said. “Then, Mr. Chairman,” Kennedy responded, “there will be war. It will be a cold winter.”
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In the wake of the failed summit, Kennedy won congressional approval for an additional $3.25 billion in defense spending, a tripling of draft calls, a call-up of reserves and a beefed-up civil defense program. Khrushchev responded by resuming above-ground nuclear tests. Then, on Aug. 13, the East Germans began building a wall that quickly divided Berlin in two. Kennedy, in turn, sent Vice President Lyndon Johnson to the city, along with an Army battle group, to reaffirm his commitment to maintain Western access.
Source: “President Kennedy: Profile of Power,” by Richard Reeves (1993)