Part 10 (2/2)

With the Vienna Summit just nine days off, his message to the American people was that the world was growing more dangerous by the hour, that America had a global responsibility as freedomas champion, and that it thus must accept the sacrifices required. He set the bar low for what could be achieved with so difficult an adversary, saving just one paragraph for discussion of the Vienna meeting.

aNo formal agenda is planned and no negotiations will be undertaken,a he said.

MOSCOW.

FRIDAY, MAY 26, 1961.

Directly responding to what he perceived as Kennedyas shot across his bow, Khrushchev called together his most critical const.i.tuency, the Communist Partyas ruling Presidium. As usual, his decision to bring the stenographer to the meeting was a sign to its attendees that he intended to say something significant.

He told his Presidium colleagues that Kennedy was aa son of a b.i.t.c.h.a Despite that, he attached great significance to the Vienna Summit because he would use it to bring to a head what he referred to as athe German question.a He outlined the solution that he would propose, using much the same description that he had employed with Amba.s.sador Thompson.

Could the steps he was proposing to change Berlinas status prompt nuclear war? he asked his fellow Soviet leaders. Yes, he answered, and then he outlined why he considered such a conflict to be 95 percent unlikely.

Only Anastas Mikoyan among his party chieftains dared differ with the Soviet leader. He argued that Khrushchev underestimated the American willingness and ability to engage in conventional war over Berlin. s.h.i.+fting from previous attacks that focused more on West Germany and Adenauer as the threat, Khrushchev told those gathered that the United States was the most dangerous of all countries to the Soviets. In his love-hate relations.h.i.+p with America, he had turned the needle back to loathing in preparation for the Vienna Summit, a clear indication to his leaders.h.i.+p of what outcome he expected.

Khrushchev repeated his increasingly obsessive view that although he was meeting with Kennedy, it was the Pentagon and the CIA that ran the United States, something he said that he had already experienced during his dealings with Eisenhower. He said it was for this reason one could not trust that American leaders could make decisions based on logical principles. aThatas why certain forces could emerge and find a pretext to go to war against us,a he said.

Khrushchev told his comrades that he was prepared to risk war and that he also knew how best to avoid it. He said Americaas European allies and world public opinion would restrain Kennedy from responding with nuclear weapons to any change in Berlinas status. He said de Gaulle and Macmillan would never support an American lurch toward war because they understood that the Sovietsa primary nuclear targets, given the range of Moscowas missiles, would be in Europe.

aThey are intelligent people, and they understand this,a he said.

Khrushchev then laid out exactly how the Berlin situation would unfold after the six-month ultimatum he would issue in Vienna. He would sign a peace treaty unilaterally with the East German government, and then he would turn over to it all the access routes to West Berlin. aWe do not encroach on West Berlin, we do not declare a blockade,a he said, thus providing no pretext for military action. aWe show that we are ready to permit air traffic but on the condition that Western planes land at airports in the GDR [not West Berlin]. We do not demand a withdrawal of troops. However, we consider them illegal, though we wonat use any strong-arm methods for their removal. We will not cut off delivery of foodstuffs and will not sever any other lifelines. We will adhere to a policy of noninfringement and noninvolvement in the affairs of West Berlin. Therefore, I donat believe that because the state of war and the occupational regime are coming to an end it would unleash a war.a Mikoyan was alone in warning Khrushchev that the probability of war was higher than the Soviet leader estimated. Out of respect for Khrushchev, however, he put it at only a slightly greater 10 percent rather than Khrushchevas 5 percent. aIn my opinion, they could initiate military action without atomic weapons,a he said.

Khrushchev shot back that Kennedy so feared war that he would not react militarily. He told the Presidium they perhaps would have to compromise in Laos, Cuba, or the Congo, where the conventional balance was less clear, but around Berlin the Kremlinas superiority was unquestionable.

To ensure this became even more so, Khrushchev ordered Defense Secretary Rodion Malinovsky, Soviet Army Chief of Staff Matvei Zakharov, and Warsaw Pact Commander Andrei Grechkoa”who sat before hima”ato thoroughly examine the correlation of forces in Germany and to see what is needed.a He was willing to spend the rubles required, he told them. Their first move had to be increasing artillery and basic weapons, and then they had to be ready to reposition more weaponry if the Soviet Union was provoked further. He wanted a report from his commanders in two weeksa time about how they would plan to execute a Berlin operation, and he expected within six months to be able to match his tough words in Vienna with an improved military capability.

Mikoyan countered that Khrushchev was backing Kennedy into a dangerous position where he would have no option but to respond militarily. Mikoyan suggested that Khrushchev continue to allow air traffic to arrive in West Berlin, which might make his Berlin solution more palatable to Kennedy.

Khrushchev disagreed. He reminded his comrades that East Germany was imploding. Thousands of professionals were fleeing the country each week. A failure to take firm action to stop this would not only make Ulbricht anxious but raise doubts among its Warsaw Pact allies, who would asense in this action our inconsistency and uncertainty.a Not only would Khrushchev be willing to shut down the air corridor, he said, looking toward Mikoyan, but he would also shoot down any Allied plane that tried to land in West Berlin. aOur position is very strong, but we will have, of course, to really intimidate them now. For example, if there is any flying around, we will have to bring aircraft down. Could they respond with provocative acts? They coulda. If we want to carry out our policy, and if we want it to be acknowledged, respected and feared, it is necessary to be firm.a Khrushchev ended his war council with a discussion of whether he should exchange gifts with Kennedy in Vienna, according to the usual protocol.

Foreign Ministry officials suggested he give President Kennedy twelve cans of the finest black caviar and phonographic records of Soviet and Russian music. Among other gifts, his aides had a silver coffee service in mind for Mrs. Kennedy. They wanted Khrushchevas approval.

aOne can exchange presents even before a war,a Khrushchev responded.

HYANNIS PORT, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

SAt.u.r.dAY, MAY 27, 1961.

Kennedy lifted off in a rainstorm aboard Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base, bound for Hyannis Port. In just three days he would land in Paris and meet de Gaulle, and in just one weekas time he would be in Vienna with Khrushchev. His father had decorated the presidentas sleeping quarters with pictures of voluptuous womena”a practical joke from a fellow womanizer just before his sonas forty-fourth birthday.

Kennedy was retreating to the family compound to briefly celebrate and bury himself in his briefing books on issues ranging from the nuclear balance to Khrushchevas psychological makeup. What U.S. intelligence services painted was a picture of a man who would try to charm him one moment and bully him the next; a gambler who would test him; a true-believing Marxist who wanted to coexist but compete; a crude and insecure leader of peasant upbringing and cunning who above all was unpredictable.

The president could only hope that Khrushchevas background briefings on U.S. leaders.h.i.+p were less revealing. His back pain was as bad as at any time in his administration, made worse by an injury he had suffered during the ceremonial planting of a tree in Canada a few days earlier. Alongside his paperwork, he would pack anesthetic procaine for his back, cortisone for his Addisonas disease, and a c.o.c.ktail of vitamins, enzymes, and amphetamines for flagging energy and other maladies.

He was using crutches, though never in public, limping around like an already injured athlete preparing for a champions.h.i.+p match.

10.

VIENNA: LITTLE BOY BLUE MEETS AL CAPONE.

So weare stuck in a ridiculous situation. It seems silly for us to be facing an atomic war over a treaty preserving Berlin as the future capital of a reunified Germany when all of us know that Germany will probably never be reunified. But weare committed to that agreement, and so are the Russians, so we canat let them back out of it.

President Kennedy to his aides as he soaked in his bathtub, June 1, 1961, Paris.

The U.S. is unwilling to normalize the situation in the most dangerous spot in the world. The USSR wants to perform an operation on this sore spota”to eliminate this thorn, this ulcera”without prejudicing the interests of any side, but rather to the satisfaction of all peoples of the world.

Premier Khrushchev to President Kennedy, June 4, 1961, Vienna.

PARIS.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1961.

For all the adoring French crowds, grand Gallic meals, and media hype generated by a thousand correspondents covering his trip, President Kennedyas favorite moments in Paris were spent submerged in a giant, gold-plated bathtub in the aKingas Chambera of a nineteenth-century palace on the Quai daOrsay.

aG.o.d, we ought to have a tub like this in the White House,a the president said to his troubleshooter Kenny OaDonnell, as he soaked himself in the deep, steaming waters to relieve his excruciating back pain. OaDonnell reckoned the vessel was about as long and wide as a Ping-Pong table. Aide David Powers suggested that if the president aplayed his cards right,a de Gaulle might give it to him as a souvenir.

So began what the three men would come to refer to as their atub talksa in the vast suite of rooms of the Palais des Affaires trangres, where de Gaulle had put up Kennedy for his three-day stay in Paris en route to Vienna. During the breaks in the presidentas packed schedule, Kennedy would soak and share his latest experiences with his two closest friends in the White House, veterans both of World War II and his political campaigns. By t.i.tle, OaDonnell was White House appointments secretary, but his long relations.h.i.+p with the Kennedys had begun when he was Bobbyas roommate at Harvard. Powers was Kennedyas affable man Friday who kept him amused, on schedule, and well supplied with s.e.xual partners.

Between 500,000 and 1 million people had lined the streets to welcome the worldas most famous couple that morning, depending on who was counting the crowd (the French police being more conservative than the White House press office). Considering de Gaulleas frosty relations.h.i.+p with Kennedyas predecessors Eisenhower and Roosevelt, his warm reception for Kennedy was a departure. De Gaulle suspected that all U.S. leaders wanted to undermine French leaders.h.i.+p of Europe and supplant it with their own. That said, he was happy to bask in the celebrity of the First Couple, whose images adorned the covers of all the major French magazines. The difference in age also helped, allowing de Gaulle to play his preferred role of the wise, legendary man of history taking this young, promising American under his wing.

At Orly Airport at ten that morning, de Gaulle had welcomed Kennedy on a giant scarlet carpet, flanked by fifty black Citrons and a mounted honor guard of Republican Guards. All six feet, four inches of Le Gnral rose from his car in his double-breasted business suit as the band played aThe Ma.r.s.eillaise.a aSide by side,a reported the New York Times, athe two men moved all day through Parisa”age beside youth, grandeur beside informality, mysticism beside pragmatism, serenity beside eagerness.a The cheers grew so loud as the two men drove along Boulevard Saint-Michel on the Left Bank of the Seine that de Gaulle persuaded the U.S. president to rise in the rear seat of their open-top limo, eliciting an even greater roar. Despite a chill wind, Kennedy rode bareheaded and with only a light topcoat. He dressed no more warmly that afternoon as rain drenched the two men in their sweep up the Champs-lyses, an indignity de Gaulle bore without complaint.

Behind all that misleading theater was a U.S. president who was entering the most important week of his presidency as a weary, wounded commander in chief who was inadequately prepared and insufficiently fit for what would face him in Vienna. Khrushchev would be scanning for Kennedyas vulnerabilities after the Bay of Pigs, and there were plenty for the picking.

At home, Kennedy was facing violent racial confrontations that had broken out in the American South as African Americans grew more determined to end two centuries of oppression. The immediate problem revolved around the aFreedom Riders,a whose efforts to desegregate interstate transportation had won only tepid support from the Kennedy administration and were opposed by nearly two-thirds of Americans.

Abroad, Kennedyas failure in Cuba, unresolved conflict in Laos, and tensions building around Berlin made his Parisa”Vienna trip all the more fraught with risk. Kennedy was making the mental connection to Berlin even while wrestling with racial affairs at home. When Father Theodore Hesburgh, a member of his Civil Rights Commission, questioned the presidentas reluctance to take bolder steps to desegregate the United States, Kennedy said, aLook, Father, I may have to send the Alabama National Guard to Berlin tomorrow, and I donat want to do it in the middle of a revolution at home.a It seemed just another of his presidencyas early misfortunes that Kennedy had seriously reinjured his back muscles while planting a ceremonial tree in Ottawa, and the pain had grown worse on the long flight to Europe. It had been the first time since his spinal fusion surgery in 1954 that he was hobbling around on crutches. To protect his image, he refused to use the props in public, but that only aroused more pain when he was in France, by putting even greater pressure on his back.

Kennedyas personal physician, Janet Travell, who accompanied him to Paris, was concerned about his heightened suffering and the impact his treatments might have on everything from mood to endurance during the trip. The president had already been taking five baths or hot showers a day to ease his pain. Though Americans didnat know it, the real purpose of his famous Oval Office rocking chair was that it helped relieve the throbbing of his lower back, into which doctors had been shooting procaine, a potent cousin of novocaine, for nearly a decade. Travell was also treating him for chronic adrenal ailments, high fevers, elevated cholesterol levels, sleeplessness, and stomach, colon, and prostate problems.

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