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In “A Totally different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course” (BookBaby), veteran journalist Marvin Kalb writes in regards to the 1963 Chilly Struggle summit between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (which he lined for CBS Information), and the concept of a possible thaw in relations between the 2 superpowers – inconceivable then, even with regard to “a distinct Russia.”
Learn an excerpt beneath, and do not miss Marvin Kalb’s commentary a few potential Trump-Putin summit on “CBS Sunday Morning” February 16!
“A Totally different Russia” by Marvin Kalb
Kennedy proved to be Khrushchev’s final probability for a significant increase in Soviet-American relations. They met for one summit in Vienna in June 1961. After two days within the Austrian capital, gloom changed their earlier hopes for a radically improved relationship. Suspicions deepened, as each leaders stumbled into harmful miscalculations about Berlin and Cuba. Quickly an unsightly wall can be operating by way of the divided German capital and, not too many months later, Khrushchev would foolishly determine to attempt to slip nuclear-tipped missiles and troops into Cuba.
Kennedy had as soon as appealed to Khrushchev as a real associate for peace. He noticed within the younger president an adversary with whom he thought he might do enterprise. For a short time, one month on the 1963 calendar, shortly after signing the historic atmospheric nuclear check ban settlement with the U.S., he allowed himself to dwell inside a wonderful bubble of hope. Now and again, with closest advisers or relations, he would think about six extra years of different main U.S.-Soviet agreements that will, amongst different issues, management the unfold of nuclear weapons, settle the Berlin disaster and result in a interval of real peace.
Why six years? he was requested.
Nicely, he’d reply, Kennedy has two extra years in his present time period, after which one other 4 in his subsequent time period, which Khrushchev was sure he would win.
What Khrushchev didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that inside a month Kennedy can be useless and inside a yr he’d be ousted from energy.
When Khrushchev heard Kennedy had been shot, he cried. His goals for a brand new and wonderful period in Soviet-American relations had simply come to a tragic finish.
From “A Totally different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course” by Marvin Kalb. Copyright 2025 by Marvin Kalb. Reprinted with permission.
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“A Totally different Russia” by Marvin Kalb
