Jack Kennedy by Barbara Leaming

Author:Barbara Leaming
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2012-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Meaning of “Miscalculation”

EVEN BEFORE THE CUBAN AFFAIR, JACK KENNEDY HAD BEEN worried about how the American public would receive the news that he intended to meet Khrushchev. Part of his rationale for the Cuban adventure had been to secure political capital before the meeting was announced. Of course, the botched invasion would be no bulwark against charges of softness and appeasement; far from having made Kennedy look tough, it had, as Eisenhower had angrily pointed out, created an impression of weakness. Instead of making it easier to announce a meeting with Khrushchev, the Cuban attack, by the president’s estimate, had actually made it much more difficult.

On the day of his scolding by Eisenhower at Camp David, Kennedy sent word to Macmillan, via Caccia, seeking advice about the political difficulties that faced him over the planned meeting with Khrushchev. As a consequence of the debacle, an announcement at any time “in the immediate future” would make it seem as if Kennedy was “going to lead from a position of weakness” following a defeat at the hands of Castro. To make matters worse, Khrushchev seemed determined to cast the encounter as “an American initiative”; though early on he had sent numerous verbal messages via Menshikov to propose a meeting, Kennedy had been the first to suggest it in writing. No matter what the original sequence of events, the American public would therefore perceive its president as having reached out to Khrushchev, and that could add significantly to the damage. Kennedy wanted to know whether Macmillan thought the meeting with Khrushchev would be “a serious mistake at this time,” and indicated that he would give “great weight” to the prime minister’s advice. He had yet to have final word from Khrushchev as to the dates and location for the talks, and he could still quietly back out. Thus far there had been “no vestige of rumor or leak” about the proposed meeting. Kennedy asked Macmillan to keep the information “within the narrowest possible circle.”

The meeting, as Macmillan was quick to reply, was not so secret as the president believed. Walter Lippmann, who had recently passed through London on his way home from Moscow, had told Macmillan of Khrushchev’s pleasure at Kennedy’s suggestion of a meeting in either Stockholm or Vienna, and that Khrushchev had expressed a preference for the latter. All of this, Macmillan well understood, further complicated Kennedy’s predicament, for the information that the president had initiated the session and that Khrushchev had been receptive was now in a journalist’s hands. Should Kennedy decide against the meeting, it was still likely to become public knowledge that one had been planned, that Kennedy had been the driving force behind it, and, perhaps worst of all, that he had withdrawn on account of Cuba. Whether or not Kennedy went through with the meeting, he would be the target of criticism from those who opposed any talk with the Soviets.

As far as Macmillan could see, Kennedy was boxed in. Should Khrushchev decide to go forward with an early meeting, the president would be wisest to proceed.

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