An Uneasy Truce: John F. Kennedy and Soviet-American Détente, 1963

Cold War History

Volumn 2, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 161-194

  See, Jennifer W ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 3042638570     PISSN: 14682745     EISSN: 17437962     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713999948     Document Type: Review

References (115)

1. Richard J. Walton, Cold War and Counterrevolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy (New York, 1972);
2. Louise FitzSimons, The Kennedy Doctrine (New York, 1972), p.97;
3. Bruce Miroff, Pragmatic Illusions: The Presidential Politics of John F. Kennedy (New York, 1976), pp.64-8;
4. Thomas G. Paterson (ed.), Kennedy's Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963 (New York, 1989).
5. Burton Kaufman offers a useful summary of this historiography in Burton I. Kaufman, 'John F. Kennedy as World Leader', Diplomatic History 17 (Summer 1993), pp.447-71.
6. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, 'One Hell of a Gamble:' Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964 (New York, 1997);
7. Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (New York, 2000);
8. Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow (eds.), The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, MA, 1997).
9. See also Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev 1960-1963 (New York, 1991);
10. Kai Bird, The Color of Truth McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms, A Biography (New York, 1998);
11. Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of the War in Vietnam (Berkeley, 1999). For a highly, indeed exceedingly, sympathetic view of Kennedy
12. see David E. Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge, MA, 2000).
13. Schlesinger and Sorensen offered a participant's perspective in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston, 1965);
14. Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York, 1965).
15. John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York, 1997), p.261;
16. Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, pp.337-8;
17. Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA, 1996), p.237;
18. Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to Six Cold War Presidents, 1962-1986 (New York, 1995), p.97;
19. Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton, 1999), pp.353-402.
20. Sir John Lomax, 'The Day the Cold War Changed', The Nation, 196 (6 July 1963), p.10.
21. '[Llewellyn] Thompson's Return: What it Means', Newsweek, 13 Feb. 1961, p.21;
22. Harold Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 1961-1963 (New York, 1973), p.178.
23. Robert G. Whalen, 'The Year in Review: Major Trend in a Time of Widening Tensions', New York Times, 1 Jan. 1961, p.E3.
24. Historian John Lewis Gaddis argues that although by 1961 it was clear that the United States was winning the Cold War, Khrushchev understood this reality far better than the Americans. Gaddis, We Now Know, p.261.
25. David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York, 1969), p.64.
26. John Morton Blum similarly emphasizes the narrowness of JFK's victory in, John Morton Blum, Years of Discord: American Politics and Society, 1961-1974 (New York, 1991), pp.20-21.
27. See also, Freedman, Kennedy's Wars, p.6.
28. Barry Goldwater, 'A Foreign Policy for America', National Review, 10 (25 March 1961), p.179.
29. see Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, pp.22-3;
30. Allen J. Matusow, The Unravelling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York, 1984), pp.15-16.
31. 'A New Resolve to Save the Old Freedoms', Life, 2 Nov. 1962, p.4;
32. Edgar Ansel Mowrer, 'Brinkmanship is Necessary', National Review, 14 (26 March 1963), p.229;
33. Beschloss, The Crisis Years, p. 589.
34. Most revealing of American decisionmaking is May and Zelikow (eds.), The Kennedy Tapes. John Lewis Gaddis emphasizes Kennedy's willingness to compromise, as do Barton Bernstein and Richard Ned Lebow. Gaddis, We Now Know, pp.270-71;
35. James A. Nathan (ed.), The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (New York, 1992), pp. 55-131
36. National Intelligence Estimate, 8 Nov. 1962, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-63, Vol.5, pp.555-6
37. [hereafter FRUS with appropriate year, volume and page]; and CIA Memo, 29 Nov. 1962, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol.5, pp.582-3.
38. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York, 1994), pp.305-6.
39. On Kennedy's concern with accidental war, see also Sorensen, Kennedy, pp.513-14.
40. McGeorge Bundy, Memo for the President, 21 Jan. 1963, NSF, Box 314, JFKL. A June 1963 Department of Defense report made a similar point about the budgetary burden of the arms race and concluded that arms control was 'clearly' in the interest of both nations. 'On Nuclear Diffusion', Briefing Book, Vol. II, 20 June 1963, NSF, Box 376, JFKL.
41. Hans Morgenthau, 'Negotiations or War?' The New Republic, 3 Nov. 1962, p.9.
42. On the power of the Munich analogy for the postwar generation see Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dienbienphu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Princeton, 1992);
43. David Chuter, 'Munich, or the Blood of Others', in Cyril Buffet and Beatrice Heuser (eds.), Haunted by History: Myths in International Relations (Providence, RI, 1998), pp.65-79.
44. Letter, Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, 19 Dec. 1962, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol.6, pp.234-5.
45. M.Y. Prozumenschikov, 'The Sino-Soviet Conflict, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Sino-Soviet Split, October 1962: New Evidence from the Russian Archives', Cold War International History Project [hereafter CWIHP], Bulletin 8-9. On Khrushchev's worries over China and his domestic position
46. see Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War, pp.268-71.
47. Memcon, William Foster and Ambassador Dobrynin, 2 Feb. 1963, NSF, Box 185, JFKL;
48. Memcon, Dobrynin and Harriman, 10 May 1963, NSF, Box 185, JFKL;
49. Dobrynin, In Confidence, p.100. Khrushchev told British officials that 'The main aim of the West in calling for inspection was to conduct espionage' and that he would continue to oppose any inspection regime. Note of a Conversation between Mr Harold Wilson, Mr Patrick Gordon Walker, Mr Khrushchev, and Mr Gromyko, 10 June 1963, Moscow, WA. Harriman Papers, Box 540, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
50. Editorial Note, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol.7, pp.661-3.
51. Macmillan, At the End of the Day, pp.455-64;
52. On the Skybolt affair and subsequent Nassau Agreement, see Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, pp.360-70;
53. George Ball, Memo for the President, 'The Mess in Europe and the Meaning of Your Trip', 20 June 1963, Dean Acheson Papers, Box 100, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MS [hereafter HSTL]. Ambassador Bohlen in France found the memo's conclusions overly pessimistic. See Letter, Bohlen to Ball, 2 Aug. 1963, Charles Bohlen Papers, Box 26, Record Group 59, National Archives, College Park, MD. For an overview of Kennedy's relationship with the allies
54. On de Gaulle, see Alain Peyrefitte, C'etait de Gaulle: La France reprend sa place dans le monde, vol. 2 (Paris, 1997);
55. Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: 111 Le Souverain, 1959-1970 (Paris, 1986);
56. Pierre Melandri, 'Le General de Gaulle, la construction européene et L'Alliance atlantique', in Elie Barnavi and Saul Friedländer (eds.), La politique étrangère du General de Gaulle (Paris, 1985). The Cuban Missile Crisis apparently exacerbated de Gaulle's scepticism of American security guarantees to Western Europe. See Remarks of President Kennedy to NSC meeting no 508, notes of CIA reporter, 22 Jan. 1963, NSF, Box 314, JFKL. For Bohlen's assessment of the Franco-American relationship, see Letter, Charles Bohlen to McGeorge Bundy, 2 March 1963, Charles Bohlen Papers, Box 26, Record Group 59, National Archives. Bundy discussed this letter with the President and Rusk subsequently received a memo summarizing its contents.
57. Dean Acheson, 'Reflections on the January Debacle', 31 Jan. 1963, Dean Acheson Papers, Box 100, HSTL. It is unclear whether Acheson passed this memo on to either Kennedy or Secretary of State Rusk, though he served as an unofficial advisor on European affairs to both and as an administration envoy to Konrad Adenauer. For the France-China comparison, see Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days, p.904.
58. Telegram, Embassy in Germany (McGhee) to Department of State, 5 Aug. 1963, FRUS, 1962-63, Vol.15, pp.547, 549.
59. For Kennedy's views on German reunification, see Memo for the Record, NSC Meeting 29 June 1961, FRUS, 1961, Vol.14, p.161;
60. For the American response to the Berlin Wall, see Honoré Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis: A Case Study in U.S. Decision Making (Berlin, 1980);
61. Norman Gelb, The Berlin Wall (London, 1986).
62. On Adenauer's attitude towards Kennedy, see the memoirs of Adenauer's Ambassador, Wilhelm G. Grewe, Rückblenden 1976-1951 (Berlin, 1979), pp.446, 454-8;
63. Walther Stützle, Kennedy und Adenauer in der Berlin-Krise 1961-1962 (Bonn, 1973), pp.6, 42-3.
64. The treaty did prompt a protest to the German ambassador delivered by Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Acheson, however, thought the 'disarray' in Europe 'appear[ed] worse than it [was]'. Memcon, Dean Acheson and Ambassador Wilhelm Grewe, 30 Jan. 1963, and Dean Acheson, Memo for the President, 'U.S. Policy Toward Europe', in Dean Acheson Papers, Box 100, HSTL. 'Kennedy Turns to a "Harder" Line', U.S. News and World Report, 7 Jan. 1963, pp.25-6.
65. On this point, see Naftali and Fursenko, One Hell of a Gamble, p.336;
66. Bundy was apparently instrumental in ensuring the speech was closely held, believing that it would be diluted if State, CIA, or Defense became involved. Bird, The Color of Truth, p.247;
67. Allen Nevins (ed.), The Burden and The Glory (New York, 1964), pp.53-7;
68. New York Times, 11 June 1963, 1. 'Public Comment on the President's American University Address', Dept. of State, Public Opinion Studies Staff, NSF, Box 305-09, JFKL. 'A Strategy of Peace', The Nation 196 (29 June 1963), p.1.
69. 'In this Issue...', National Review 15 (16 July 1963), p.3;
70. Tom Wicker, 'Kennedy Sees Moral Crisis in U.S.', New York Times, 12 June 1963, p.1.
71. Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism (Boston, 1995), pp.60-65;
72. Reeves, President Kennedy, pp.507-32.
73. Blum, Years of Discord, pp.104-24.
74. 'The Two Genii', The Nation, 197 (6 July 1963), p.1.
75. Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, 2000), pp.152-202.
76. See also, Mary L. Dudziak, 'Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative', Stanford Law Review, 41 (Nov. 1988), pp.61-120;
77. 'Recent Addresses by the President', Congressional Record (10 June 1963), 88th Cong., Sess. 1, 109, 10451-52. 'Public Comment', Dept. of State, NSF, Box 305-09, JFKL.
78. 'Proposed Nuclear Test Ban and Conference with Soviet Russia', Cong. Rec., 109, 10449-50.
79. Betty E. Chmaj, 'Paranoid Patriotism: The Radical Right and the South', The Atlantic Monthly, 210 (Nov. 1962), pp.91-7.
80. See also, Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion: An American History (New York, 1995).
81. Seymour Topping, 'Russians Stirred by Kennedy Talk about the Cold War', New York Times, 13 June 1962, p.1. Telegram, Embassy (McSweeney) to Dept. of State, 13 June 1963, NSF, Box 305-09, JFKL. The embassy also suggested the USIA consider a Russian language pamphlet of the speech. Telegram, Embassy (McSweeney) to Dept. of State, 13 June 1963, NSF, Box 305-09, JFKL.
82. 'Text of Khrushchev on Kennedy Speech', 14 June 1963, NSF, Box 305-09, JFKL. For the American view see Telegram, Embassy (McSweeney) to Dept. of State, 15 June 1963, NSF, Box 305-09, JFKL; Memo (Thompson) to Secretary of State, 24 April 1963, NSF, Box 180, JFKL; FO minute, D. Wilson, 22 May 1963, FO 371/171940 (NS 103145/9), PRO.
83. Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-73 (New York,2nd edn 1974), pp.618-19.
84. Richter argues that there was a complex interaction among Soviet domestic politics, relations with China and Khrushchev's willingness to engage in détente with the US. Domestic vulnerability in the aftermath of the Missile Crisis led Khrushchev to seek conciliation with the Chinese. The consequent Chinese rebuff of Soviet overtures strengthened Khrushchev's hand against domestic critics of Soviet-American détente at the same time that it intensified the foreign policy necessity. James Richter, Khrushchev's Double Bind: International Pressures and Domestic Coalition Politics (Baltimore, 1994), p.160.
85. Memcon, Thompson and Dobrynin, 17 May 1963, NSF, Box 185, JFKL;
86. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, p.686.
87. Vladislav Zubok, 'Deng-Xiaoping and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1956-1963', CWIHP, Bulletin, p.10;
88. Prozumenschikov, 'New Evidence', CWIHP
89. See also Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963 (Stanford, 1998);
90. Richter, Double Bind, pp.162-3;
91. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, pp.826-7.
92. See also Memcon, Rusk and Dobyrnin, 18 May 1963, FRUS, 1961-63, Vol.5, p.678.
93. see Rudy Abramson, Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman, 1891-1986 (New York, 1992);
94. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (New York, 1986).
95. Telegram, Harriman to Secretary of State, 20 July 1963, W.A. Harriman Papers, Box 541, Library of Congress. See also Zubok, 'The Sino-Soviet Split', CWIHP.
96. Nevins (ed.), The Burden and The Glory, pp.58-66;
97. See also, Telephone Conversation, JFK/Senator Fulbright, 23 Aug. 1963, Presidential Recordings Transcript, 'Winning Senate Support for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 1963', POF, JFKL
98. On Fulbright see Randall Bennett Woods, J. William Fulbright, Vietnam, and the Search for a Cold War Foreign Policy (New York, 1998), pp.53-5.
99. Women Strike for Peace was a grass-roots organization of women mobilized by Russian testing in 1961. Stephanie Gervis, 'Women Speak Out for Peace', The Nation, 30 Dec. 1961, pp.523-5.
100. See also David Chalmers, And the Crooked Places Made Straight: The Struggle for Social Change in the 1960s (Baltimore, 1991). On the fear of fallout
101. see May and Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, p.16.
102. US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate, First Session on Executive M, 88th Congr., 1st Sess., 1963 (Washington, DC, 1963), pp.907-16.
103. For LeMay's testimony, see Senate Committee, Nuclear Test Ban, pp.348-9, 363, 375.
104. Telephone Conversation, JFK/Senator Fulbright, 23 Aug. 1963, 'Winning Senate Support';
105. William C. Foster, 'Political Implications of the Nuclear Test Ban', Memo for the President, 12 July 1963, NSF, Box 265, JFKL;
106. Woods, J. William Fulbright, p.55.
107. Walter Lippmann, 'A Hard Treaty', Newsweek, 19 Aug. 1963, p.15.
108. Frederick Dutton, 'Congressional Consultations on Possible Soviet Wheat Sale', 30 Sept. 1963, NSF, Box 314, JFKL;
109. Memcon, Thompson and Sergey Borisov, 19 Nov. 1963, NSF, Box 185a, JFKL.
110. Nevins, Burden and Glory, p.66.
111. On this point see Logevall, Choosing War. For an example of the argument linking Cold War consensus with Vietnam, see James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (New York, 1996);
112. Robert D. Schulzinger, A Time For War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-75 (New York, 1997).
113. According to Raymond Garthoff, a Soviet-American summit meeting was all but agreed upon in early 1965. See Raymond Garthoff, 'The Aborted U.S.-U.S.S.R. Summit of 1965', The SHAFR Newsletter 32 (June 2001), pp.1-3.
114. See also Keith Nelson, The Making of Détente: Soviet-American Relations in the Shadow of Vietnam (Baltimore, 1995);
115. Ilya Gaiduk, 'The Vietnam War and Soviet-American Relations, 1964-1973: New Russian Evidence', CWIHP Bulletin, 6-7 (Winter 1995/96). On the decision to Americanize the Vietnam War, see Logevall, Choosing War. Both Logevall in Choosing War and Robert Kaiser in American Tragedy see the US escalation in Vietnam as significantly slowing Soviet-American détente.