President Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961.
OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
THURSDAY MORNING, JANUARY 19, 1961.
The oldest president in U.S. history reckoned it was time to introduce the youngest man ever elected to the office to the most fearsome part of the job. It was Inauguration Eve, and in less than twenty-four hours, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, age seventy, would hand off Americaas nuclear football to Senator John F. Kennedy, age forty-three, transferring to him the most destructive capability any single country had ever possessed.
And he would have it at a time when Eisenhower feared that miscalculation over numerous U.S.a"Soviet flashpoints around the world, the most sensitive of them all being Berlin, could trigger a nuclear exchange. So Eisenhower planned to take Kennedy aside for a private chat on how such a war would be conducted, a session he would close with a memorable bit of show-and-tell using the paraphernalia of the worldas most powerful individual.
Eisenhower worried about Kennedyas readiness for such responsibility. Among friends, he dismissed Kennedy as aLittle Boy Bluea or athat young whippersnappera when he wasnat mocking him as athat young genius.a As Supreme Commander of all Allied forces in Europe during the last two years of World War II, Eisenhower had overseen the invasion and occupation of France and Germany. As a Navy lieutenant, Kennedy had piloted nothing more significant than a PT boat, a torpedo-bearing vessel so small that its squadrons were called amosquito fleets.a It was true; Kennedy had been decorated as a war hero after saving the lives of eleven crew members, but only after he had inexplicably allowed his PT-109 to be rammed by a lumbering j.a.panese destroyer. Eisenhoweras military friends didnat buy the adark-of-night, fog-of-wara explanation, and instead suspected Kennedy of negligence, though he was spared an investigation.
Eisenhower doubted young Kennedy ever would have achieved the presidency without his father Joeas deep pockets and insatiable parental ambition. During the war, Joe Sr. had tasked his cousin Joe Kane, a Boston political insider, to game the electoral viability of both his eldest son Joe and Jack. It also was his father who placed the story of Jackas bravery with author and family friend John Hersey. Its publication in Readeras Digest and then the New Yorker helped launch Jackas political career. A year after Jackas anointment as a hero, Joe Jr. died in action while piloting an experimental, high-risk bombing mission. He was supposed to have ejected from an explosive-laden B-24 Liberator before the plane, now a guided missile, continued by remote control toward a German V-bomb basea"but it detonated prematurely. Those who knew the family best wondered if his death hadnat ultimately been the result of the sibling rivalry their father had nurtured over the years. A reckless gamble to outdo his younger brother may have cost Joe Jr. his life.
On the cold, overcast morning, Kennedy pulled up to the White House at 8:57, after an eight-minute drive from his Georgetown home. It was a rare show of punctuality for the habitually tardy Kennedy. The morning newspapers were sprinkled with Kennedy family biographies and artistsa renderings of Cabinet wivesa elegant ball gowns. The dowdy Eisenhower era was over. On a more serious note, General Thomas S. Power, chief of the Strategic Air Command, announced that for the first time the U.S. would conduct round-the-clock nuclear-armed bomber flights to keep America in a constant state of readiness against surprise attack.
Ahead of the meeting, Kennedyas transition chief, legendary Washington lawyer Clark Clifford, had sent Eisenhoweras people a list of issues that Kennedy wished to discuss, since they might bite him during his first days in office: Laos; Algeria; the Congo; Cuba; the Dominican Republic; Berlin; disarmament and nuclear test talks; basic economic, fiscal, and monetary policies; and aan appraisal of war requirements versus capabilities.a That last point was Kennedyas shorthand for an issue that had come to occupy him more the closer he got to occupying the Oval Office: aHow would I fight a nuclear war, if it comes to that.a He wasnat at all certain he or the American peoplea"the voters required for his reelectiona"would be willing to deliver on solemn U.S. commitments to defend Berlin if those commitments required the risk of a nuclear war that could cost millions of American lives.
After their first transition meeting on December 6, Eisenhower had revised some of his negative views of Kennedy. Eisenhower told Democratic political operative George E. Allen, a Clifford friend, that he had been amisinformed and mistaken about this young man. Heas one of the ablest, brightest minds Iave ever come across.a Though still uneasy about Kennedyas youth and lack of experience, Eisenhower had been comforted by Kennedyas grasp of the issues he would be facing.
Kennedy had been less taken with aIke,a whom he referred to among friends as athat old a.s.shole.a He told his younger brother Bobby, who was to become his new attorney general, that he had found the outgoing president to be intellectually ponderous and inadequately informed about issues he should have known intimately.
Kennedy believed the Eisenhower administration had accomplished little of consequence, having treaded water in a dangerous riptide of history that could pull the U.S. under. The most obvious example was the festering problem of Berlin. He was designing his presidency for greater accomplishment, taking as his role models Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. In contrasting Eisenhower with Kennedy, French Amba.s.sador Herv Alphand saw the president-elect as a man who had aan enormous memory of facts, of figures, of history, he had complete knowledge of the problems he had to discussaa will to achieve for his country and for the world a great design, to be, in other words, a great President.a There were two great obstacles to his quest for greatness: his lack of any clear mandate after the narrowest electoral victory since 1886, and the fact that Lincoln and Roosevelt had found their place in history through war, a horrifying prospect to be avoided, since these days that could mean a nuclear holocaust.
Kennedy was perplexed that he had been elected with only a fraction less than 50 percent of the vote, over a man like Nixon, whom he considered so personally unappealing. aHow did I manage to beat a guy like this by only a hundred thousand votes?a he complained to friend Kenneth OaDonnell, who would become a White House aide.
And his coattails had been short. Though the Democrats had kept their commanding majorities in Congress, they had lost one Senate seat and twenty House seats. The Southern Democrats, who had gained the most, would form a caucus with the Republicans in favor of a hard line toward the Soviets and Berlin. Kennedy likely would not have won at all had he not in the campaign been more hawkish toward Moscow than Nixon. To further burnish his conservative anti-Soviet credentials, and perhaps to prevent release of damaging intelligence about his past, Kennedy had also made the unconventional decision to keep in office Eisenhoweras CIA and FBI directors, Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover. A curious similarity between Kennedy and Khrushchev was emerging: both were being coaxed by their domestic const.i.tuencies more toward confrontation than conciliation.
His meager margin over Nixon made Kennedy all the more keen to observe Eisenhower that day, figuring he could learn a great deal from the calm and rea.s.suring manner that had won the outgoing president two terms and such widespread public affection. Kennedy would have to build his personal popularity as quickly as possible to take on all the issues in front of him.
During his transition briefings on nuclear strategy, nothing concerned Kennedy more than the fact that Eisenhower had left him such limited and inflexible war-fighting options. Should the Soviets overrun Berlin, Kennedy had no alternative to either a conventional conflict that the Soviets invariably would win or an all-out atomic exchange that he and Americaas allies would be reluctant to fight. For that reason, it would have seemed natural for Berlin contingencies to have been at the top of Kennedyas agenda that morning.
Instead, the two teams focused far greater attention on the raging conflict in Laos and the growing danger that the Southeast Asian country could fall into communist hands as the first of multiple dominoes. Though the crisis in Berlin was of greater significance, Kennedy had been told time and again that that situation was a frozen conflict without a foreseeable solution, and thus his initial energies were best spent on other matters.
A transition doc.u.ment prepared by the Eisenhower team for Kennedy warned the new presidenta"a man who prided himself on big thinkinga"that it was the small issues he had to watch out for regarding Berlin, everything from detailed agreements ensuring unfettered travel to and from West Berlin to a host of arcane practices under four-power agreements that protected West Berlinersa rights and Allied presence.
aCurrent Soviet tactics,a the memo said, aare to seek to win Berlin by whittling away at the Western position to make it hard for us to demonstrate that the real issue in each minor incident is the survival of free Berlin. Our immediate problem is to counter these asalami tactics.aaWe have tried in every way possible to convince the Soviets that as a last resort we would fight for Berlin.a The paper warned the president-elect that he would face an early effort by Khrushchev to revive Berlin talks, with the aim of gaining the withdrawal of Western troops from the city.
However, Eisenhoweras team had no good advice for Kennedy about how he could more effectively deal with all this, aside from simply standing his ground. aNo one has yet been able to devise an acceptable and negotiable formula to solve the Berlin problem separate from a solution for Germany as a whole,a the transition doc.u.ment said. For the moment, the U.S. position was that Germany should someday be unified through free elections across West and East Germanya"and no one antic.i.p.ated that happening at any point soon, if at all. Hence, the memo said, athe princ.i.p.al Western tactic has been to gain time and demonstrate determination to protect West Berlin, while seeking a basis for solution. The problem is increasingly one of convincing the USSR that the Western Powers have the will and the means to maintain their position.a Martin Hillenbrand, the director of the State Departmentas Office of German Affairs, put it more sharply in his own transition memo. He led a Berlin task force established by Eisenhower after Khrushchevas 1958 Berlin ultimatum, and it met almost daily on issues large and small. It included representatives of most agencies of the U.S. government, as well as the French, British, and German amba.s.sadors.
aWe can live with the status quo in Berlin but can take no real initiative to change it for the better,a he wrote. aTo a greater or lesser degree, the Soviets and East Germans can, whenever they are willing to a.s.sume the political consequences, change it for the worsea. However impelling the urge to find some new approach to the problem, the ineluctable facts of the situation strictly limit the practical courses of actions open to the West.a What Kennedy was hearing from multiple sources was that the stirring message of change that had gotten him elected didnat apply to Berlin, where his advisers were asking him to defend an unsatisfying status quo. It went against all his instincts, and his promises to the electorate to bring creativity to the problems the Eisenhower administration had failed to address. After weighing his options, Kennedy elected to put Berlin on a back burner while he addressed issues where it seemed he could find quicker agreement.
So Kennedyas priority with Moscow would be the pursuit of nuclear test ban talks, which he saw as a confidence-building measure to warm up the chilly U.S.a"Soviet relationship. Kennedyas logic was that once he had improved the overall tone of relations through arms negotiations, he could then return to the more intractable matter of Berlin. That would give rise, however, to what would become the first and greatest point of disagreement between Kennedy and Khrushcheva"the pace and priority of negotiating a Berlin solution.
Even before he entered the White House, Kennedy was learning that the reality of dealing with Berlin as a sitting president was a world away from the hard-line rhetoric he had employed as a senator and presidential candidate. In February 1959, Kennedy had appealed to the Eisenhower administration to do more to prepare America for the aextremely seriousa prospect of an armed showdown over West Berlinas freedom.
The following August, while putting pieces in place for his presidential run, Kennedy had declared himself prepared to use the atomic bomb to defend Berlin, and he accused the Soviets of trying to push the Americans out of Germany. aOur position in Europe is worth a nuclear war because if you are driven from Berlin, you are driven from Germany,a he said in a television interview in Milwaukee. aAnd if you are driven from Europe, you are driven from Asia and Africa, and then our time will come nexta. You have to indicate your willingness to go to the ultimate weapon.a In an article published by the Hearst newspapers within hours of his victory at the Democratic National Convention in June 1960, Kennedy had written, aThe next President must make it clear to Khrushchev that there will be no appeas.e.m.e.nta"no sacrifice of the freedom of the people of Berlin, no surrender of vital principle.a Yet aindicating willingnessa in Milwaukee as a barnstorming senator and pledging ano appeas.e.m.e.nta as a nominated candidate was a long way from nuclear weapons use as president. And Soviet nuclear capabilities were improvinga"while Moscowas conventional superiority around Berlin remained overpowering.
The president had only 5,000 troops in West Berlin, with 4,000 British and 2,000 Frencha"so 11,000 Allied troops in alla"arrayed against CIA estimates of some 350,000 Soviet troops either inside East Germany or within striking distance of Berlin.
The last National Intelligence Estimatea"the authoritative a.s.sessment from the U.S. intelligence communitya"that had been done on Soviet capabilities spoke with worry about shifting strategic trends that could undermine the U.S. position in Berlin by the end of Kennedyas first term. It predicted a Soviet emergence from strategic inequality by 1965 primarily through the buildup of their intercontinental ballistic missile force and nuclear defense systems. It said the Soviets would then be emboldened to challenge the West in Berlin and elsewhere around the world.
The CIA doc.u.ment warned Kennedy about the mercurial nature of Khrushchev, who would use aalteration of pressure and accommodation as the regular pattern of Soviet behavior.a It predicted that Khrushchev would play the role of suitor in the early days of the Kennedy administration, but that if that failed, he would aresort to intensified pressure and threats in an attempt to force the West into high-level negotiations under more favorable conditions.a So, with Berlin on hold, Eisenhower briefed Kennedy more deeply on Laos. A three-way civil war between Pathet Lao communists, pro-Western royalists, and neutralists had raised the possibility of communist takeover. The danger was clear: Kennedyas first weeks in office could be spent on a military engagement in a landlocked, tiny, impoverished country about which he cared little. The last thing Kennedy wanted was to send troops to Laos as his first foreign policy initiative. He would have preferred it if the Eisenhower administration had dealt with the issue before it left office. But as it had not done so, Kennedy wanted to know Eisenhoweras thinking and preparations for military response.
Eisenhower portrayed Laos as athe cork in the bottle,a a place where he felt the U.S. should intervene, even unilaterally, rather than accept a communist victory that could spread a contagion across Thailand, Cambodia, and South Vietnam. aThis is one of the problems Iam leaving you that Iam not happy about,a Eisenhower apologized. aWe may have to fight.a Kennedy was struck by Eisenhoweras relaxed manner as he discussed war scenarios. Nothing brought that home more than Eisenhoweras fifty-minute private tutorial for the incoming president on nuclear weapons use. Eisenhoweras personal effects had mostly been removed from the Oval Office into which he brought Kennedy. Some boxes lay stacked in corners, and the carpet had golf cleat damage from Eisenhoweras putting sessions.
Eisenhower briefed Kennedy on issues ranging from running covert operations to the kind of emergency procedures that were the commander in chiefas personal domain: how to respond to immediate attack and authorize atomic weapons use. Eisenhower showed Kennedy how to work the code-book and manipulate the computer device in its satchel that would launch a nuclear attacka"the so-called football that was always near the president.
It was the most intimate exchange possible between an outgoing and incoming president in the nuclear age.
Eisenhower made no reference to Kennedyas mistaken statements during the campaign that the outgoing president had allowed a dangerous amissile gapa to emerge in favor of the Soviets. Eisenhower hadnat corrected Kennedy at the time, much to candidate Nixonas consternation, instead preferring to protect national security secrets and avoid giving the Kremlin an excuse to arm up even faster.
Now, however, Eisenhower calmly a.s.sured Kennedy that the U.S. still enjoyed an overwhelming military advantage, particularly due to submarines armed with nuclear-tipped missiles. aYou have an invaluable a.s.set in Polaris,a he said. aIt is invulnerable.a The Polaris could reach the Soviet Union from undetectable positions in various oceans, he said. Because of this, Eisenhower thought the Soviets would have to be mad to risk nuclear war. The downside, Eisenhower said, was they just might be mad. If you judged Soviet leaders by the brutality they had used against their own people and enemies during and after World War II, Eisenhower reckoned that nuclear inferiority might not stop fanatical communists from attacking under the right circ.u.mstances. Eisenhower spoke of the Russians more as animals to be tamed than as partners with whom one could negotiate.
Like a child showing off a favorite toy to a new friend, Eisenhower then ended his Kennedy tutorial with a demonstration of how quickly the president could be whisked from Washington by helicopter in case of emergency.
aWatch this,a he said.
Eisenhower picked up a special phone, dialed a number, and said simply, aOpal Drill Three.a He put down the phone and smiled, asking his visitor to consult his watch.
In less than five minutes, a Marine Corps chopper landed on the White House lawn. It whirred on the ground just a short stroll from where they sat. As Eisenhower took Kennedy back into the Cabinet Room, where their top people remained a.s.sembled, he joked, aIave shown my friend here how to get out in a hurry.a In the presence of their staffs, Eisenhower warned Kennedy that presidential authority would not always be such a magic wand.
Kennedy smiled. Eisenhoweras press secretary later said that Kennedy showed considerable interest in the adry run.a Although his responsibilities were sobering, the powers Kennedy would soon have were intoxicating. As he drove off, he looked back with satisfaction at the building that would soon be his home.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
INAUGURATION DAY, FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1961.
The snow began to fall at noon, shortly after Kennedy left his meeting with Eisenhower. Washington dealt badly with inclement weather, even when it was on a preinaugural footing. Traffic snarled. Two-thirds of the sold-out crowd didnat show for the inaugural concert that evening at Const.i.tution Hall. The National Symphony started its performance a half hour late because so many of its musicians were caught in traffic or blocked by drifts. Frank Sinatraas star-studded gala began only after a two-hour delay.
Yet by the clear, cold, sunny morning of January 20, a battalion of soldiers and plows had cleared the eight inches of snow. The skies opened and provided perfect lighting for the most intricately planned and most widely televised inaugural show in history. Some 140,000 feet of cable ran to fifty-four television circuits, covering the inaugural from thirty-two locations, from the oath to the last parade float. Some six hundred extra telephones had been scattered around strategic locations for reporters. However else the Kennedy administration would differ from its predecessors, it would present the most televised commander in chief in history, all in living color.
When Kennedy traveled with his wife, Jackie, in their limousine the day before the inauguration, when he sat in the bathtub that evening, and again over breakfast the next morning after four hours of sleep, the president-elect reviewed time and again the latest version of his inaugural address. Whenever he could find a moment, he familiarized himself more deeply with each of its tightly crafted 1,355 words, honed through more drafts and rewrites than any speech he had ever delivered.
Back in November, he had told his chief wordsmith, Ted Sorensen, to keep the speech short, nonpartisan, optimistic, uncritical of his predecessor, and focused on foreign policy. However, when they worked through the final drafta"a process which got under way only a week before the speech would be delivereda"he still found it too long and domestic for his liking. He told Sorensen, aLetas drop the domestic stuff altogether. Itas too long anyway.a His view: aWho gives a s.h.i.t about the minimum wage anyway?a The more difficult decision was, what message to send Khrushchev? Though nuclear war with the Soviets was unthinkable, negotiating a just peace seemed unfathomable. Kennedy had campaigned from the hawkish side of a Democratic party that still hadnat resolved its internal dispute about whether engagement or confrontation was the best way to deal with the Soviets.
Dean Acheson, who had been President Trumanas secretary of state, represented the Democratic partyas hard-liners, who were convinced Khrushchev was still pursuing Stalinas goal of world domination. Other Democratsa"Adlai Stevenson, Averell Harriman, Chester Bowlesa"saw Khrushchev as a genuine reformer whose primary aim was to reduce his military budget and improve Soviet living standards.
Kennedyas inaugural speech would place him squarely in the indecisive middle of the debate, reflecting his uncertainty about whether he would be more likely to make history by confronting the Soviets or by making peace with them. It was that same ambiguity that had fed Kennedyas reluctance since his election to respond to Khrushchevas many efforts through multiple channels to establish a private conduit and schedule an early summit meeting.
On December 1, 1960, Kennedy had sent an early but indirect plea for patience to the Soviet leader through his brother Robert, who had met with a KGB officer posing as a correspondent for the newspaper Izvestia in a presidential transition office in New York. At age thirty-five, Bobby had been his brotheras campaign manager and was soon to become his attorney general, so the KGB officer had no reason to doubt it when Bobby said he was speaking for his brother.
The Soviet reporter never filed a story to his newspaper but he did send an account to his KGB superiors, which likely also reached Khrushchev, as an indication of the Kennedy administrationas foreign policy direction. It contained several messages. Bobby said the president-elect would pay great attention to the relationship, and he thought a test ban treaty agreement could be concluded in 1961. He said that Kennedy shared Khrushchevas desire for a face-to-face meeting, and that he wanted to repair the harm done to the relationship under Eisenhower.
Less encouraging to Khrushchev was Kennedyas intention to handle Berlin far more slowly than the Soviet leader wanted. The new president would need two to three months before he could engage in a summit, Bobby said. aKennedy is seriously concerned about the situation in Berlin and will strive to find the means to reach a settlement of the Berlin problem,a said the KGB report on the meeting. aHowever, if in the next few months the Soviet Union applies pressure on this question, then Kennedy will certainly defend the position of the West.a Still, that did not dissuade Khrushchev from continuing to press for an early meeting. A few days later, on December 12, Soviet Amba.s.sador Mikhail Menshikov invited Bobby for lunch at Moscowas Washington emba.s.sy. The amba.s.sador, whom U.S. officials derisively called aSmiling Mike,a cut a comic figure with his modest intelligence and supreme confidence. His fractured English once produced a much-maligned toast to the women attending a Georgetown c.o.c.ktail party: aUp your bottoms!a However, the direct messages he carried from Khrushchev made even his detractors take his invitations seriously.
Menshikov argued to Bobby that U.S.a"Soviet misunderstandings were often a result of the two countriesa leaders leaving crucial matters to mid-level officials. He said Kennedy and Khrushchev were unique individuals who together could find a way around their bureaucracies to achieve historic outcomes. He thus urged Bobby to get his brother to embrace the idea of an early meeting between the two nationsa leaders, to achieve a aclear and friendly understanding.a Two days after meeting with the presidentas brother, Menshikov reached out with much the same message to Khrushchevas favorite American, Averell Harriman, the U.S. amba.s.sador to Moscow under President Franklin Roosevelt. A day later, Menshikov again pressed his campaign for an early Khrushcheva"Kennedy meeting through the well-connected New York Times correspondent Harrison Salisbury. aThere is more to be gained by one solid day spent in private and informal talks between Khrushchev and Kennedy,a he told the reporter, athan all the meetings of underlings taken together.a Kennedy was the target of some similar lobbying from two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, an erstwhile rival, who was trying to position himself for a major administration job. Stevenson phoned Kennedy at his fatheras house in Palm Beach to volunteer himself as a middleman who could fly to Moscow immediately after the inauguration and put matters on track with Khrushchev. aI think itas important to find out whether he wants to expand the Cold War,a Stevenson told Kennedy.
Kennedy did not take the bait. Stevenson had failed to endorse Kennedyas nomination before the time of the Democratic convention, and that had likely cost him the post of secretary of state that Kennedy had dangled as incentive. If that werenat enough, anticommunists on Capitol Hill considered the former Illinois governor an appeaser. And Kennedy was unwilling to run his foreign policy in anyoneas shadow. Beyond that, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had made clear through press leaks that what worried him most about the Kennedy administration was the prospect they would bring in someone as soft on Moscow as Stevenson to lead his foreign policy. So Kennedy made Stevenson amba.s.sador to the United Nations instead, and he would not take up his offer of mediation with Khrushchev.
Weary of Khrushchevas lobbying barrage, Kennedy asked his friend David Bruce, whom he had tapped as amba.s.sador to London, to help him frame a response to Khrushchevas extended hand. Bruce was a veteran diplomat who had run Americaas spy service in London during the war, and he had been Harry Trumanas amba.s.sador to Paris.
After much eating and drinking at Menshikovas residence on January 5, the Soviet amba.s.sador gave Bruce a letter without letterhead or signature, which Menshikov said held his personal thoughts. Its unmistakable message: Khrushchev urgently wanted a summit and would go to great lengths to arrange it.
Menshikov told Bruce that Khrushchev believed under the Kennedy administration, the two countries could aresolve existing and dangerous differences.a However, the Soviet leader believed they could only relax tensions once the two great powers at the top levels had agreed on a program for peaceful coexistence. He said this would revolve around atwo outstanding problemsaa"achieving disarmament and solving athe German question, including West Berlin.a Khrushchev wanted to meet Kennedy before the incoming president sat down with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, meetings Menshikov said he had heard were scheduled for February and March.
Bruce told the Soviet amba.s.sador that the meetings with those key U.S. allies would occur later than that, but this did not alter Khrushchevas underlying message: He hoped Kennedy would depart from the usual protocol of consulting with allies before meeting with his adversary. Menshikov said that Khrushchev was willing to accelerate preparations for such a meeting through either private or official conduits. As further incentive, Menshikov sent Bruce a hamper full of his countryas best vodka and caviar after the meeting. A few days later, he invited Bruce to lunch again to underscore his message.
Just nine days before his inauguration, Kennedy had sought from George Kennana"whom he would make his amba.s.sador to Yugoslaviaa"further advice about how to handle this flurry of Soviet communication. Kennedy had been communicating on Soviet matters with Kennan, the legendary former U.S. amba.s.sador to Moscow, since January 1959. In one letter, Kennedy had praised Kennan for standing against the aextreme rigiditya toward Moscow of Dean Acheson, President Trumanas secretary of state.
Kennan had inspired the U.S. foreign policy of Soviet communist acontainmenta with his long telegram from Moscow as a diplomat, which was followed by his famous and anonymously written Foreign Affairs article in July 1947, aThe Sources of Soviet Conduct.a Yet Kennan now opposed the hard-line doctrines toward Moscow that he had done so much to inspire. He thought the U.S. and its allies were now strong enough to enter into talks with Khrushchev, and he complained about U.S. militarists who had misinterpreted his thinking.
During the campaign, Kennan told Kennedy that as president he should aheighten the divisive tendencies within the Soviet bloc by improving relations with Moscow,a not through formal summits and agreements but rather by using private channels of communication with the Soviet government, aimed at reciprocal concessions. aThese things are difficult,a Kennan had said, abut they are not, I reiterate, not impossible.a He said such contacts helped end the Berlin blockade in 1948 and the Korean War. He had urged Kennedy in an August 1960 letter that, should he be elected, his administration should amove quickly and boldly in the initial stages of its inc.u.mbency, before it becomes enmeshed in the procedural tangles of Washington and before it is itself placed on the defensive by the movement of events.a Kennedy wrote back that he agreed with most of Kennanas recommendations. Now that he was about to be president, however, he wanted guidance of a more concrete and immediate nature. While speaking to Kennan on a flight from New York to Washington on his private jet, the Caroline, Kennedy briefed Kennan on the barrage of Soviet messages and then showed him the Menshikov letter.
Kennan frowned as he read. He concluded by the letteras stiff and tough language that it had been drafted in Khrushchevas office but cleared by a wider circle that included both those who were for and those who were against closer relations with the U.S. Contrary to his earlier advice that Kennedy move fast to open up a dialogue with Moscow, he now told Kennedy the Soviets had no right to rush him in this manner, and that the president-elect should not respond before taking office. That said, Kennan suggested he should at that time communicate privately with Khrushchev, breaking Eisenhoweras habit of making almost every exchange with Khrushchev public.
Asked by Kennedy why Khrushchev was so eager to meet with him, Kennan said with characteristic insight that the U-2 incident and the growing intensity of the Chinesea"Soviet conflict had weakened the Soviet leader, and he needed a breakthrough with the U.S. to reverse that trend. Khrushchev, Kennan explained, ahoped by the insertion of his own personality and the use of his powers of persuasion he could achieve such an agreement with the United States and recoup in this way his failing political fortunes.a For Kennedy, it was the clearest and most convincing explanation of Khrushchevas behavior he had heard. It coincided with his own understanding that domestic politics drove foreign policy issues more than most Americans understooda"even in the authoritarian Soviet Union. It made sense to Kennedy that Khrushchev was seeking help to improve his imperiled political standing at home, but that was insufficient reason for Kennedy to act before he was ready. The president-elect again determined that Khrushchev could waita"and so could Berlin.
Thus, Kennedyas inaugural address would be his first communication with the Soviet leader on Berlin, however indirect and shared with tens of millions of others. The most compelling line was also the one most quoted in Berlin newspapers the following day: aWe shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to a.s.sure the survival and the success of liberty.a Yet Kennedyas soaring rhetoric concealed a dearth of policy direction with regard to the Soviets. Kennedy was leaving all options open. Multiple rewrites altered only nuance, putting his indecision in more memorable form and excising language his speechwriter Ted Sorensen had drafted that might appear too soft toward the Soviets.
A first version read, for example: aanor can two great and powerful nations forever continue on this reckless course, both overburdened by the staggering cost of modern weapons.a Kennedy, however, did not want to call the U.S. course either arecklessa or unsustainable. So the final text took those two ideas out and instead read: aaneither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present coursea"both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons.a An initial draft read: aAnd if the fruits of cooperation prove sweeter than the drugs of suspicion, let both sides join ultimately in creating a true world ordera"neither a Pax Americana, nor a Pax Russiana, nor even a balance of powera"but a community of power.a A final text nixed the notion of a acommunity of powera with the communists, which congressional hawks would have called naive. The final version read: aAnd if a beachhead of cooperation can push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of lawa.a He mentioned no countries or places by namea"neither the Soviet Union, nor Berlin, nor any other. The German newspaper Die Welt praised the anew winda from America, which was ahard but refreshing. What we Germans notice, though: No word on Berlin!a Instead of mentioning Khrushchev by name, Kennedy spoke only of those awho would make themselves our adversary,a having changed the word aenemya to aadversarya at the suggestion of columnist friend Walter Lippmann. Kennedy prescribed projects of potential cooperation: exploration of the heavens and oceans, negotiation of arms control and inspection regimes, and cooperation in science to cure disease.
There was enough in the speech to please Americaas hard-liners. Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona applauded enthusiastically after the line about paying any price for liberty. Having achieved no progress in getting his boss an early meeting with Kennedy, Soviet Amba.s.sador Menshikov sat impa.s.sively throughout with a gray hat pulled down over his eyes, a white scarf pulled up over his neck, and his frame wrapped in a large, gray overcoat.
Just as important as his words that day was Kennedyas appearance, which in the compet.i.tion for global favor was more than a superficial factor. The world was inspired by the charismatic smile that lit up a face bronzed during his preinaugural vacation in Florida. What no one sensed was Kennedyas underlying ill health: he had swallowed a c.o.c.ktail of pills that day for his bad stomach and his aching back, and he had taken an extra dose of cortisone to control the telltale swelling that came with his treatments for Addisonas disease. As he had looked in the mirror just four days before his swearing-in, Kennedy had spoken with shock to his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, about the impact of his treatments. aMy G.o.d, look at that fat face,a he said. aIf I donat lose five pounds this week, we might have to call off the Inauguration.a Evelyn Lincoln would help monitor the multiple medications for a young president who in many respects was far less healthy than Khrushchev, twenty-three years his senior. Kennedy could only hope that the KGB operatives digging up whatever they could find on the true state of his health did not discover the truth. To knock down rumors about his illnesses, the Kennedy team had put two doctors before the press. And just two days before the inauguration, the magazine Todayas Health, working from a report issued by the Kennedy team, had covered the president-electas medical history more extensively than it had any other previous presidentas. It quoted his physicians on his asuperb physical conditiona that made him aquite capable of shouldering the burdens of the Presidency.a The article said that the fact he had overcome his many ailments demonstrated ahis barb wire toughness.a It said he drank and smoked little, that he enjoyed an occasional cold beer at dinner, and that his only c.o.c.ktail was a daiquiri. He didnat smoke cigarettesa"only a cigar now and again. It reported authoritatively that he kept his weight at 165 pounds and that he had no special diet, which concealed the fact that he preferred bland foods because of a bad stomach.
A closer read left plenty of reason for concern. The article listed adult health issues that included aattacks of jaundice, malaria, sciatica, and two back injuries.a All it said about his Addisonas disease, without mentioning it by name, was that Kennedy takes amedication by mouth for the aftermath of adrenal insufficiency and has an endocrinologic examination twice a year.a It noted he wore a quarter-inch lift in his shoes aand even beach sandalsa to ease back pain caused by a slightly shorter left leg.
Perhaps never in American presidential history had youthful image and ailing reality stood in such contrast. While others at the inauguration wore top hats and heavy coats against the chill, Kennedy took the oath of office without overcoat or hat. With only an electric s.p.a.ce heater to warm him in an open reviewing box, he watched the inaugural parade for more than three hours with his new vice president, Lyndon Johnson.
The next morningas papers around the world painted the portrait of Kennedy that he wanted. Columnist Mary McGrory of the Washington Evening Star compared him to a Hemingway hero. aHe has conquered serious illness. He is as graceful as a greyhound and can be as beguiling as a sunny day.a Yet for all Kennedyas success at shaping media coverage ahead of his inauguration, he would quickly discover he had less influence over the actions of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. When Kennedy woke up at about eight in the Lincoln Bedroom on his first morning in office, he found that atop the congratulatory cables from around the world was the offer of an inaugural gift from Moscow that would be the first gambit in U.S.a"Soviet relations during his presidency. Given the right conditions, Khrushchev would release the two airmen of the RB-47 reconnaissance plane who had been sitting in a Soviet prison since their capture the previous summer.
It would be an early introduction for Kennedy to the world of U.S.a"Soviet intrigue that swirled around Berlin, a place where, he would quickly learn, even seeming victories often contained hidden dangers.
The aSnipera Comes In from the Cold.
JANUARY 4, 1961.
David Murphy, the chief of the Central Intelligence Agencyas Berlin base, was hungry for success stories. So his heartbeat accelerated when he heard that his most valuable a.s.seta"a Polish agent with the code name of Heckenschtze, or Snipera"had phoned the secret number he had been given for emergencies over the Christmas holidays. Certain that his cover had been blown, Sniper wanted to defect. aAre you ready to give me and my wife protection?a he asked.
Murphy had warned the CIA stationas special Berlin switchboard operators that if they missed Sniperas call on the number that was designated only for him athey would be on the next boat home.a The caller had only said he was pa.s.sing on the message on behalf of a Herr Kowalski, a code that began a set of prearranged responses. Sniper had planned his defection well. First, he had deposited perhaps three hundred photographed doc.u.mentsa"including the names of several hundred Polish agents and organizational tablesa"in Warsaw at a dead drop inside a hollowed-out tree trunk near his home. The CIA had already recovered the treasure trove.
Now it was the early afternoon of January 4, and a senior CIA official who had flown in from Washington was waiting with other operatives at the American consulate in Berlin, where they had arranged that Sniper would come in from the cold. The consulate, which was open to civilians, rested conveniently beside the military section of a U.S. compound on West Berlinas Clayallee. Murphy had already arranged for an impressive office, wired with microphones and recorders, where Sniper would have his first debriefing.
Murphy would recall later that he and deputy John Dimmer felt even greater tension than was usual for such high-profile cases, partly because after two years of receiving letters from Snipera"sometimes valuable though often indecipherablea"no one had yet met the mysterious agent nor knew who he really was. Beyond that, Murphyas Berlin Operations Basea"known in clandestine cables by its acronym BOBa"had been fighting a losing battle in the worldas most important and extensive spy war in a city that hosted more foreign and domestic intelligence agents than any other place on Earth.
The CIA also needed a victory after having just lost its only penetration agent inside Soviet military intelligence, Colonel Pyotr Popov, through either sloppiness or infiltration. And by any measure, the United States was being outspied by Soviet and East German services in Berlin. The problem, in Murphyas view, was that the CIA was a relative newcomer to the espionage business and too often combined the fierce determination of the youthful with the dangerous naivet of the uninitiated. In that respect, Murphy reckoned BOB reflected the optimistic if not always fully professional American character as the United States embraced a more global role. Berlin was a place where both Murphyas spies and America in general had been doing a lot of growing up in the decade and a half since World War II.
Murphyas most insuperable compet.i.tive problem was recruiting local talent, and in that respect he had fallen far behind both Moscowas KGB and the East German Ministry for Security. The sad truth was that it was far easier for the communists to infiltrate the Westas open society, to manipulate key individuals, and to plant agents than it was for the CIA to operate within Ulbrichtas strictly controlled and monitored East Germany.
The CIA had evolved rapidly from the wartime Office of Strategic Services into Americaas first peacetime civilian intelligence service. It had drawn together in a single agency both clandestine operations and intelligence a.n.a.lysis. By comparison, the KGB was both more experienced and more extensive. It was a proficient external and internal intelligence service that had been forged during the Russian Revolution, then battle-hardened through Stalinas purges and war with n.a.z.i Germany. Despite the Soviet Unionas distracting political power struggles, it had operated with stunning continuity and ongoing successes.
Murphyas most immediate concern was the increasing effectiveness of the East German secret police, which in just a decade and a half was already outperforming its predecessor, the Gestapo, as well as the KGB. A widening army of internal informants, a data-gathering system of German efficiency, and a broad network of agents in key Western positions of influence were allowing Ulbricht and Moscow to foil many CIA case efforts before they could even get started.
With BOB already operating in full-alert status, a caller phoned at 5:30 p.m. saying that Kowalski would arrive in a half hour. The caller asked that Mrs. Kowalski be given special attentiona"the first indication that Sniper was not coming alone. At 6:06 p.m., a West Berlin taxi dropped off a man and woman, each of them carrying small bags. The chief of the stationas Eastern European branch watched briefly as they apprehensively walked toward the consulate entrance, and then quickly ushered them inside.
As is so often the case in the spy business, matters were not what they had initially seemed. Sniper explained that the woman was not his wife but his mistress and that he would want asylum for her as well. He then asked that she be removed from the debriefing room because she knew him only as the Polish journalist Roman Kowalski. In fact, he said, he was Lieutenant Colonel Michael Goleniewski, who until 1958 had been the deputy chief of Polish military counterintelligence. He had acted as a double agent, reporting not only to the CIA but also to the KGB on anything the Poles might be hiding from their Soviet masters.
The CIA would whisk him by military aircraft on the following day to Wiesbaden, West Germany, and then on to the United States. Goleniewski would provide the names of countless Polish and Soviet intelligence officers and agents. He would help unearth a spy ring at the British Admiralty, uncover George Blake as a KGB spy in British intelligence, and expose Heinz Felfe, a KGB agent who had served as chief of West German counterintelligence. Of potentially greater importance, Goleniewski pointed to the presence of an undiscovered mole burrowed deep in U.S. intelligence.
There was only one problem: even before his briefings had ended, mental illness began to cloud Goleniewskias credibility. He drank to excess and played Victrola records of old European songs at high volume. He would later insist that he was Tsar Nicholas IIas son, Alexei, the only surviving heir of the Romanov imperial family, and that Henry Kissinger was a KGB spy. The most senior CIA operatives would never agree upon whether he was a genuine defector or a Soviet provocateur.
Kennedy was entering a world of intrigue and deception for which he had only inadequate preparation.
4.
KENNEDY: A FIRST MISTAKE.
The United States Government was gratified by this decision of the Soviet Union and considers that this action of the Soviet Government removes a serious obstacle to improvement of Sovieta"American relations.
John F. Kennedy, at his first press conference as president, on the Soviet release of captured U.S. airmen, January 25, 1961 Each day, the crises multiply. Each day, their solution grows more difficult. Each day, we draw nearer the hour of maximum danger. I feel I must inform the Congress that our a.n.a.lyses over the last ten days make it clear that, in each of the princ.i.p.al areas of the crisis, the tide of events has been running outa"and time has not been our friend.
President Kennedy, five days later, in his State of the Union Address, January 30, 1961 THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW.
10:00 A.M., SAt.u.r.dAY, JANUARY 21, 1961.