from the first unrig the system summit from new orleans. watch it in its entirety tonight starting at 8:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. university of vogue miller center convenes scholars looking at the complicated history between u.s. and russia over the last century. focus of this next session is between government and khrushchev in each 1960s. this is about an hour and two minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to our second panel assessing u.s. soviet relations in the 1960s and 1970 gs. i'm not going to chair the panel but i'll turn it over to the professor perry who will anchor the panel.

barbara, is herself a noted scholar sft kennedy era and clan. she's also the director of presidential studies here at the miller center. she is a very seasoned export, oral historian as well as written historian. and for many years she helped lead the oral history program here at the miller center which was one of the signature undertakings that we do in interviewing the leading members of presidential administrations from the ford years on up until the present. or at least i should say the recent past. we have completed oral histories under her leadership and russell riley of every administration through the george w. bush administration and we are planning to lay seeing to the obama administration and we'll find out what the trump administration what their

attitude is towards being interviewed for oral history when we get to that. in any case, barbara is going to take us forward and i'll turn things over to her. >> thanks so much, will. and of course to mel and stephanie for conceptualizing and organizing and executing such a timely yet history based battle conference this year. and of course this is the very essence of miller center scholarship and programming. i am delighted to moderate this 11:00 panel. we'll go to about 1:00 and we'll do this intro halves. first session is miller center colleague to myself mark silver stone associate professor at the miller center and chairs the recordings program which and lysing, transcripts and annotates the secret white house tapes, particularly from the kennedy johnson and nixon administrations. and if you watch the ken burns

vietnam series you'll have seen marc's names prom nately displayed in the credits because they were crucial from providing clips to jock son and nixon years but kennedy as well. marc is foreign policy focusing on the cold war and especially one element of the hot war, vietnam in that era, and particularly the kennedy and johns johnson policy towards it. my favorite of many plib cages is his book a companion to john f. kennedy, which sounds like a girlfriend but some of that is covered in that volume. but seriously it is a major work that he's edited, every topic

related to jfk life and career and particularly his presidency and i rely on it almost exclusively as i'm preparing to speak about president kennedy. and i think think of tim naftali as my colleague even though he preceded me at the miller center for several years where he served as director of the kremlin decision making progress. then tim at the nixon library has become a clinical professor of history and public service nyu. he's co-author many books ks but one for today called crushness cold war with alexander for san co. and if like me you are a fan of cnn documentaries, you will readily recognize tim as the starve many of them. i highly recommend to all of you here today if you haven't read them already, the four "e" saes

for this panel are compelling. and i want to begin with mark, and actually begin with the end of his essay, which is a set of conclusions that he draws on jfk's role and behavior in the cuban missile crisis, and most importantly for our conference here over the several days, to draw out the lessons of jfk's role and behavior in the cuban missile crisis for current issues. and then after mark does that, then we'll turn to tim and he'll over some lessons as well from the khrushchev side, from the russian side. with that, let me turn to mark. >> sure. good morning, good late morning to everybody. and thanks again to mel and to will for the opportunity to participate in this looking out at the audience, any number of people who have written copious

amounts on the cuban missile crisis and i have not. so i have learned from all you. but i appreciate the opportunity to try to distill a little bit of what i have learned and to offer again some lessons on how that may bear on counntemporary matters. john f. kennedy had already learned important lessons by the time he had to confront moist comissiles to cuba. several of these lessons matters were process, and they would be ee membersly in cuban crisis in 1962. many over cuba, failed operation at the bay of pigs which meant these lessons were especially hard earned. they were not without qualification but by and large th they ended up serving the country and him well.

but i want to tausche ouch on e presidency which the president did not translate into useful in sight and which contributed to onset of the missile crisis itself. the first of these lessons involved not the more constructive ones related to personnel and process, but to the negative ones related to policy and actually policy pronouncement to be excessively ill lit tive, i suppose. while planning for the over throw of fidel castro had gaertded a pretty full head of steam during the last year of the eisenhower administration, kennedy rhetoric at the tail end of the 1960 election campaign came pretty close to operationalizing it. his provocative language in october of 1960 which called for more aggressive action to undermine the cuban regime might have helped him win votes less than three weeks later. he certainly needed it. but it raised the political cost of canceling what would become the bay of pigs operation were he to have done so had he become

whether he became president. so here's the first case in the trajectory toward october of 1962 where i think words really mattered. while this public pronouncement narrowed kennedy room foreman you've tear on cuba once he became president, the failure of his administration to consider more recreate tive policy measures stem from the absence of a searching conversation about the relative dangers that cuba posed. was castro really a dagger to the heart? or was he more a thorn in the flesh as senate foreign relations chair bill full bright had suggested? that conversation never really took place. while kennedy did all the series of meetings large and small with those planning the bay of pigs and military officials they resolved largely around matters of tactics and operational dpee tails as opposed to the broader strategic implications of the operation or even the underlying assumptions that full bright had

alluded to. so both pronouncement and policy, statements about the necessity of moving against castro as well as policy that was in trained to effect it made it more likely that kennedy would mount some aggressive operation to undermine the castro regime once he became president. the persistence of that policy and even the intensification of it after the bay of pigs would later contribute to the onset of the missile crisis itself. as i mentioned in the paper and as tim and others here at the conference have docked so well, it was hardly the only reason for the missile deployment and the crisis that it sparked. but by the fall of 1961, castro commandsing more and more attention from the kennedy administration which was devoting increasingly greater resources to under mining the cuban regime. and as those efforts of subversion and saba talking came to look both menacing to havana and most could i they helped

push khrushchev to action which helped them deployment of nuclear missiles to the island. in the course of that deployment kennedy's overt rhetoric as well as covert action would again complicate his presidency and again raise the stakes of not following through on his stated intentions. in effort to once more derive political benefit from a policy statement on cuba, kennedy declared in september 1962 two months before the midterm elections that the introduction of offensive weapon systems to the island would result in the gravest of circumstances. fef effectively establishing a public red line for all to see. so both administration policy and pronouncements about it continued to heighten the drama surrounding cuba, which helped to shape khrushchev and then kennedy responses to vems on the island. but if kennedy failed to recognize or consider how these

statements and activities might box himself into situations that created real risks for his presidency, as well as for the nation and the word, he nonetheless took positive steps to ensure that the way he managed national security policy gave him at least a better shot at getting good advice and making wiser judgments. those measures involved changes in personnel and process and both proved helpful. for one, the aides he trusted most, particularly his brother robert attorney general, would play lagger roles and bobby would serve as chief conduit for the president's private conversations with moscow. they were not all to the good but certainly helped to convey key bits of information at key moments of the crisis. kennedy would also systemize policy making more effectively helping to improve the flow of information into the white

house. and in effort to really scrub the options for addressing the soviet missile deployment, kennedy encouraged extended kfshss between military aides shielded from public view before settling on an approach that gave himself and his adversary time to reflect on the magnitude of what lay before them and to figure out how they might unity the knot of war. but perhaps paramount importance was the sheer judgment of the president himself. who after initially lurching toward a military response, considered less than ideal chances for success, it's potential impact on allies and add ver sarryes and zealotry of those around him particularly in the military who accepted it as only option. so if there is to be a heroic narrative within the cold war about leaders that took chances who face down the hawks calling for war, and who ultimately

preferred that his kids be read rather than dead, kennedy should take at least one turn in that starring role which i would say he continued to eastern through subsequent efforts at arms control, and through his attempts to modulate the cold war, at least rhetorically through his american university address. so can elements of this heroic narrative spawn another one? how can this useful lessons for u.s. russian relations? here are a few thoughts. on the matter of rhetoric, as i mentioned in my written piece and this morning, red lines can be trouble. they were for kennedy who felt constrained by the politics associated with them. perhaps president trump's holy different posture towards russia means he's less likely to make them with regard to developments in hue crane or in the ball particulars. he certainly hasn't thrown down any such marker with regard to interference in domestic politics. it's ease year to see him doing so with regard to north korea or

iran. and with syria he essentially acknowledged obama red line and acted upon it. but given his lack of rhetorical discipline, his disdain for convention and free willing use of new media, it's probably more likely than that he'll give ultimately, very differently than kennedy did. playing for time and keeping the conversation going. these lessons from the missile crisis are particularly relevant for crisis situations. though they are suggestive of the value of maintaining contact and cultivating contact more broadly. jaw jaw is better than raw raw as church hill is alleged to have said. natural condition of conflict, which preand postdates the cold war, i would hope that the virtues of democracy of enhancing ones capacity for

empathy another quality that we stoesh yat with kennedy would commend themselves to leaders on both sides. finally on the matter of combine the democracy with force. it certainly complicates the narrative. the heroic narrative, if you will, that we have heard for a while. to acknowledge that khrushchev had agreed to pack up the missiles before hearing that jfk was willing to make the missile trade tra khrushchev called for on the 12th day of the missile crisis. that shouldn't negate the value for khrushchev own purposes for allowing him to paper over having to reverse course. but it does suggest the prospect both prompted his initial offer to remove the missiles in return for a pledge, then forego public call for missile swap when it seemed that war really was

eminent. this said, this kind of thing could easily resulted in armed conflict and nuclear armed conflict as well as mike dobbs has written. so while kennedy mobilization of force really does seem to have made his democracy more effective, we'll need to be more gran you'lly in what form, and what context and what implications it should be similarly mobilized if it's to play a role in a more come temporary scenario in which americans and russians finds themselves eye ball to eye ball. thanks. [ applause ]ball to eye ball. thanks. [ applause ]ball. thanks. [ applause ]>> well, tim's essay has a ee vn evocative title it' called grab god by the beard. >> thanks barbara and thanks mel

for inviting me back. it's nice to be home. we heard a lot about the long did your ray. i'm a short did your ray historian. in part because i drink a lot of expresso. [ laughter ] but in part i'm going to play on a word that my former colleague and friend, present colleague, which mark mentioned which was granular. what we have for the 60s is a granular understanding of this period, both because of the american side, the tapes, which i spent some time with here, and on the soviet side. so we have the capacity of understanding the international politics and domestic politics of that period in a way that is not true of every period in international politics. so we'll, as you've just benefited from that in listening to marc, i'm going to try to do the same on the soviet side.

now to lay the basis for this period, i want to mention or remind you have a few things. because of the structure of this conference, we sort of jumped over korea. i believe that korean war is fundamental to understanding the militarization of the cold war. you want to talk about possibilities, you don't have the korean war and i think there's a change in the nature of the competition between the soviets and the united states. so perhaps in the q & a we can talk about korea. korea is extremely important. but there are two other things that are extraordinarily important that are happening in the world that are going to shape the environment that kennedy and khrushchev are seeking to manage. one is the decolonization of what i guess mou first called

third world, the developing world. that's a very important event and that is an independent variable from the u.s./soviet relationship but it opens up the possibility for the soviets and khrushchev to -- khrushchev sees it as a source of opportunity. the other is a soviet achievement and that's sputnik. that changes the nature of the strategic relationship between the united states and soviet union. as frank mentioned, once the american homeland gets threatened, that raises questions about the extent to which extended deterrence is real. real americans, as frank said, real americans actually put new york at risk for the sake of paris and that happens because of sputnik. so you have these two

destabilizing events that happen, that are happening in the '50s and it's that world that khrushchev and kennedy are seeking to manage. now, khrushchev's approach to that world is not what americans anticipated. the sense that kennedy has coming into office is that there is so much nuclear danger about that wise statesmanship involves reducing the threat of nuclear war, but as we will -- as we see with khrushchev, khrushchev is all about disruption. he's a disruptor. he is interested in crisis. and it's why he's interested in crisis that i think is the essence of understanding his behavior not simply in 1961, but in 1962.

so let me talk to you about a summit conference in 1961 that people don't talk about. the one that everybody talks about is vienna. i'm working on a book about kennedy. i want to add the 5,300th book on kennedy, why not. and for me, the more interesting summit conference is the degaul kennedy conference because degaul and kennedy are very explicit about their understanding of the world. and they share a lot. degaulle's argument is, and it's an argument that has a relevance today. his argument is when you deal with a disruptor, you should ignore them. he says let khrushchev hyper

ventilate about berlin. he's going to do nothing. he doesn't have the power to do anything and the only thing you can do is actually increase his desire to disrupt by engaging him. engagement is a mistake with a disruptor. and kennedy's argument is well, i can't take that chance. he's already threatened us in '58 and if he does it again, it means he's seeking something or it means that there is something internal in the soviet system that is forcing him or the soviet empire, that is forcing him to do that and i have to take that seriously because he could risk nuclear war out of his, out of the urgency to change the status quo in central europe. and degaulle said no, i disagree with you completely. he said you know what, let the soviets sign a peace treaty with east germany. doesn't matter. it's just a peace of paper between two communists.

kennedy says i don't agree with that at all. because that would shift a sense of opportunity, burden and power to east berlin which might lead to even more risk taking in europe. it's that basic debate which you will see over and over again about different countries and different leaders. do you leave them alone or do you engage. is the engagement, the decision to engage, somehow threatening to your own standing, whether at home or abroad. now, it turns out that degaulle was wrong and we really only knew how wrong degaulle was when we saw the soviet materials about 15 years ago. when oddly enough, a putin government declassified the

resolutions and transcripts of the politboro meetings in the 1950s through 1964. it turns out that khrushchev was committed to revising the cold war -- the world war ii settlement in europe. he was a revisionist. he was not seeking more security through reducing nuclear danger. he was prepared to take advantage of the existence of nuclear danger to achieve a revision of the world war ii settlement, particularly in berlin. and as we learned from presidential records, khrushchev told his colleagues that he was even willing to use force to achieve what was required in berlin. now, degaulle had not assumed that. degaulle was convinced that when push came to shove, khrushchev would not use force, but

khrushchev before vienna tells his colleagues once we sign a peace treaty with east germany, we are not going to make the mistake that stalin made in 1948 and '49. we are not going to allow the west to use the air corridors to continue to supply west berlin. we are going to shoot down a british or american plane to send a signal that the air corridors are closed. now, degaulle did not predict that. kennedy did. and kennedy's thinking was we must engage to give the russians a sense that if they choose diplomacy over militarized conflict, that something good will come out of it. so in 1961, without having access to the internal discussions of the politboro because the cia never penetrated the presidium, kennedy's deep

sense of politicians led him to make a different call from degaulle. i will give you sort of an aside on kennedy, then we will move to khrushchev. if you want to understand the way in which kennedy thought about foreign leaders or domestic leaders, you should read "profiles in courage" even though kennedy didn't write the final draft, i don't believe. it represents kennedy-esque thinking about power and kennedy was all about understanding the interests and incentives that shaped politicians' decision making, and what he did was he projected that on the soviet leadership and projected it on france and on every single leader he ever dealt with. he assumed they had interests and if you could change the incentive structure, you might

alter the way in which they acted on their interests. now, when he tries this initially on khrushchev in 1961, it doesn't work. it doesn't work because khrushchev is not interested in engaging the united states. what he wants is the revised settlement in berlin. and he's willing to take risks to achieve it. he's willing to have a bad summit conference in vienna. one of the old arguments about vienna, the conference between kennedy and khrushchev in june of 1961, was that kennedy screwed up. it was a mistake. kennedy was immature, he was callow, he didn't understand what he was doing. soviet records later rest that argument. khrushchev went to vienna, spoiling for a fight. there was nothing john f. kennedy could have done save concede nato presence, a nato presence in west berlin, save conceding that, there was

nothing kennedy could have done to have had a good conference at vienna. it was a setup, an ambush. khrushchev set it up. so khrushchev wanted to put pressure on kennedy in the hope that kennedy would give him something that eisenhower had not been willing to give him, which was the removal of the nato presence in west berlin. kennedy stood up to him, didn't give in, went home, rattled some sabers, called up some reserves and khrushchev backs down. the essential thing to understand about khrushchev, i believe, in foreign policy at the time, is that he believed that the soviet union was strategically inferior. american viewers, american observers assumed that countries that believe themselves to be strategically inferior are not risk takers.

it's a basic misunderstanding that you can see throughout the u.s. foreign policy elite. goes back to japan, before world war ii. american observers of the international system because they project the united states on the world, tend to think that foreign leaders who know that they are strategically inferior will not take risks. but in fact, many of america's adversaries do the opposite. they are strategically inferior and that makes them decide to take a risk. that's why the imperial japanese attacked pearl harbor and that's why the soviets in 1961 and '62, khrushchev will undertake a series of crises that were not predictable if you knew that they knew they were behind. so why did khrushchev do this? and the materials that we have, i think, argue or make a very

strong argument for the way in which he thought about the world. i use the metaphor of a puffer fish. khrushchev was a puffer fish. a puffer fish does not want to be eaten by a bigger fish so they puff themselves up. khrushchev understood fundamentally that the soviet union was strategically inferior. he saw the united states as an existential threat to the world system that he hoped for, and as vlad and bill taubman so brilliantly argued, khrushchev was a romantic. he believed, he was idealogical and he felt over time history would serve the soviet experiment very well. but in the short term, the soviets were vulnerable. so you puff up the fish to avoid a war that you know you are going to lose. it's the puffing up of the fish which had an unintended

consequence in the united states, because american public opinion doesn't handle puffer fishes very well. americans get scared. and that's exactly what the soviets hoped for except that americans then spend money on nuclear weapons when they get scared and the soviets couldn't compete. so in 1961, khrushchev believes that since -- because he's very well aware of the missile gap, crisis, he believes that this will have a restraining effect on the use of american power. and perhaps will lead to an agreement in central europe. kennedy, because he believes that he's always dealing with a rational actor, wants to change the incentive structure for khrushchev and what he does is he says once the satellites provide american -- the u.s. government with absolute certainty that the soviets are

way behind in the missile competition, he decides to share that with the soviets. not directly by giving him a corona document but by having a public statement, by kilpatrick, the undersecretary of defense. the u.s. government does that thinking that if the soviets know they are behind, they will stop this risk taking. they will just realize they shouldn't be doing this. it has the opposite effect. because this takes from khrushchev his basic strategic approach to the international system. he can't be a puffer fish anymore. everybody knows he's small. and that leads, i believe, to the cuban missile crisis. the more research i do on the cuban missile crisis, the less important i think cuba is. that's just the way -- and in 1962, khrushchev attempts two different strategies for dealing with american power. the first is the meniscus

strategy where he decides to increase the amount -- he says the international system is a goblet and what you do is fill water right to the brim. and you bring it to the point where you have a meniscus. the next drop of water will spill. the only way to restrain american power is to create crises along the periphery of the american empire. no american adviser and no criminologist at the time would have ever assumed that that was the soviet approach. khrushchev made that the soviet approach and it lasted four months, until he saw the americans were so powerful that they could deal with these crises along their border, crisis in southeast asia, and so khrushchev needed another approach. and that's when he puts missiles in cuba. he puts missiles in cuba in order to scare the americans so that he can contain american power. one of the lessons of studying

khrushchev that is relevant to today, a couple of them, i will finish with that, is that americans tend not to understand that their country is an existential threat to other people. americans believe, i hate to -- what am i doing, generalizing. let me put it this way. more often than not, american policy makers will believe that specific american actions will define how other countries view this country, when it's the very fact of american power, the hugeness of the economy, the size of the american military which is a daily threat to many countries, which either will band wagon with you or are going to try to oppose you. it's our very existence that poses a threat. khrushchev never lost track of the fact that the united states was more powerful, was richer.

he believed in the future if the competition were kept to ideology and economic interaction, that the soviets would ultimately bury us. by the way, he didn't mean because they killed us, but because we die and they continue to live. they will be at our funeral. that's really what that means. if you understand, however, this, that we are an existential threat, that first of all makes you understand why people would act against you. the second is if you accept the proposition that strategic cals inferior countries will try to deter us by scaring us, then that would also, i think, allow you to understand certain foreign countries. i think this is much less useful in understanding putin than it is in understanding north korea. or if we could go back in time, understanding saddam hussein in 2001 and 2002. we have a hard time in this country understanding dictators,

because we assume that they play the game the way we do, and one of the i think outcomes of studying the khrushchev/kennedy relationship is that you see that khrushchev was rational. it's just his inputs and incentives were different. the united states didn't understand them but what kennedy understood was that when push came to shove, khrushchev was not suicidal. he was reckless but he wasn't a madman. it's that basic understanding that you have to constantly engage and be empathetic, that laid the basis for i think kennedy's masterful handling of the second week of the cuban missile crisis. i would argue the first week of the cuban missile crisis is much messier than people think. but it's this understanding of khrushchev as basically being someone who was not a madman, that made possible the peaceful resolution. so the lessons i believe, to sum

up, are that your adversary can be irrational in your eyes and actually be rational, and the irrationality that you have, in your assessment, is a function of your assumptions. if you assume them to do one thing and they do something else, that makes them irrational to you but in fact, their thinking is perfectly logical. the other thing to keep in mind is that other countries are afraid of us, and that that fear can lead them to take risks. and that we should be more introspective about the nature of their fear. this is not a judgment about moral, you know, this is not moral equivalency. i'm just simply arguing that the very nature of the american success of the united states in developing its power also leads to challenges and the early '60s i think is a time where the

united states tried to engage the soviets and they were dealing with a leader who didn't want engagement. he wanted revision. it's when he changes his mind that the system becomes much more stable. so this is an argument for the importance of individuals. there are some structural issues involved but in the end, it's khrushchev who decides in 1963 enough with this approach, i'm going to let kennedy have his test ban. thank you. >> i will just throw out one question that relates to both of your essays and comments, then we will open up the floor momentarily. that is, could you delve a little more into the back channeling from, mark, what you know about the kennedy side, particularly the robert kennedy back channeling, and tim, from

what you know having delved into all of the archives on the other side of the ocean. >> well -- >> and lessons for today, particularly, in light of issues related to back channeling with the russians. >> right. right. tim has particularly done great work on the back channel and its lack of use, in fact, at several key moments and in fact, its misuse or the misinterpretation of its value when kennedy came to use it to try to figure out what was going on in the caribbean in the summer of 1962, as it became clear that there were more and more soviet shipments being sent to the island, it appeared as though there were weapons systems being delivered to the island, what's going on. it was used by khrushchev

essentially to provide disinformation. so while it had been helpful at various places, particularly let's say with the resolution of the october tank crisis in 1961, to have a chance to talk out of the public eye and such, i do think that at key points, it helped to keep the conversation going and with regard to its use during the missile crisis, some of that conversation from bobby kennedy to -- with dubrynyn was actually a front channel. that's a case where kennedy was actually delivering a specific message to bobby to speak to the persons you want to convey a message to, the ambassador to the soviet union. but i think it's a creative use. it's a recognition that the standard channels that you might use through the state department are not always going to be

effective. kennedy wasn't particularly thrilled with the performance of his state department with dean rusk or with the nature of the system itself. so i think it provided him some other options to try to hear from people whose voices aren't heard as frequently, and as we have heard in bits and pieces, it seems as though those channels are being used today with regard to north korea, which sounds like it's an encouraging sign, but it's another way to keep the conversation going privately when publicly doing so would create some real political risks. >> i think the robert kennedy back channel is more interesting as a reflection of john f. kennedy's understanding of domestic politics than as a reflection on how the soviets were thinking. khrushchev was baffled by this back channel. if you look at the way in which

they managed it, the soviets really didn't want this back channel. they thought that they could, you know, the front door was good enough. kennedy felt he had to use this back channel because he wanted to offer things to the soviets that he couldn't talk about publicly. he wanted it to be deniabldenia. he didn't trust the state department. so he uses his brother. so i see the back channel as what john kennedy actually thought about the cold war and so the american university speech of 1963 reflected ideas that kennedy had in '61. there's a basic narrative for the kennedy administration and arthur schlesinger was a great man and spoke beautifully, which i don't share it, which is that kennedy is learning. kennedy thought the way about the cold war ifn '61 that he sad

publicly in '63 but he couldn't say it publicly. he didn't have the chops. the cuban missile crisis frees him to say these sorts of things. so he's actually sharing this with the soviets in '61 and they're not listening. they're not listening because khrushchev wants to revise the world war ii settlement in the heart of europe. he keeps saying berlin, berlin, berlin. when kennedy is not saying berlin via bobby, he goes to thompson and talks to him directly at a nice skating rink and says berlin. he basically is getting all his back channel stuff. he doesn't want to hear about the test ban, about a joint project to the moon. that's something that's often lost. john kennedy proposed a joint project to the moon first, before he told the world we will go to the moon before the end of the decade. he said to the soviets let's do this together. soviets weren't interested. then he goes publicly and tells it to the world. before he's actually offering it to the soviets first. so the back channel to me is

more reflection of what kennedy is thinking than it says anything about the soviets. khrushchev, yes, does use it to pollute the relationship in the summer of 1962. one of the -- one of kennedy's mistakes was that this back channel was very dangerous in this regard. he didn't share, bobby kennedy rarely wrote up notes about the meetings. there are a few, but mostly he didn't. he just told his brother orally. and his brother didn't share this, not only with dean rusk, that's less important, but with john mccohn, head of the cia. so the cia analysts didn't know anything about what the soviets were saying to the kennedys in the back channel. i assure you, because i have looked at this, which is that if the soviet analysts had heard in august of 1962 that the soviets

were asking -- khrushchev was asking the president not to undertake surveillance of their shipping, some pieces that hadn't been coming together would have come together. i will be very precise about this. there was a debate between the pentagon and the cia over the importance of these shipments. max taylor, maxwell taylor and the pentagon said doesn't matter. even though the shipments were accelerating in the summer, the u.s. military wasn't worried about them. the cia said there's something weird here, they're breaking precedent. if maxwell taylor and the pentagon had heard that khrushchev in one of the few things, khrushchev rarely asked for anything through the back channel, had actually asked for the united states to stop surveillance, i think that would have solved this debate in favor of saying oh, this is a big deal. but kennedy didn't share that with anybody. just he and his brother.

so there are real dangers with back channels if you actually don't share the material with your foreign policy team. that's my -- it's, as i said, fascinating about kennedy and i think it changes one's view of kennedy but it also shows the dangers of those kinds of operations. in the end, i think it inured khrushchev to believing what bobby kennedy said so it had a good outcome. i think it made the end of the cuban missile crisis in many ways possible, because when bobby went to speak to dubrynyn and offers to remove the missiles from turkey, the soviets are accustomed to the brother of the president saying things that they are not hearing anywhere else and believing them. >> intriguing in light of certain presidential sons-in-law. thank you. >> an observation and two questions. the observation is the more i

listen to the excellent presentations, the more i find my mind relating the experience not to relations with russia today, but to other challenges including north korea. so for the conference organizers or those wrapping up, i urge you to expand the universe in which we apply this. the two questions. first, an old historical one. i have always been curious why the soviets didn't make more of the fact of the removal of the jupiter missiles from turkey after they were removed. it would strike me in a public diplomacy or even a khrushchev sense of self and ego, this would have given him an opportunity to say look, i got a better deal than everybody expected and the united states capitulated. the more current question goes to tim's point about disruptors. how would you apply your insights to a situation with korea today where we have two

disruptors. we have kim jong-un, we have got president trump, and president trump is not only disrupting on the korean peninsula but i would argue he's disrupting the traditional american security economic order, and so you have a third player which is the revisors in china. they might like revisionist of the order with two disruptors. tell me what insights you have from that. >> that's a great -- i'm going to share an argument, i had good fortune to give a lecture about the cuban missile crisis at the air war university. i got a chance to try out my little approach to north korea there. they don't want to hear about the cuban missile crisis. they want to hear about north korea for obvious reasons. yeah, for my sins, and i'm a student of ernest mays, i know to be very careful of analogies because most of them are fraudulent and incomplete. but for my sins, i see the north

koreans as puffer fish. now, of course, if i had clearances and maybe we know they are suicidal but if you accept the proposition that they are not suicidal, you have to accept that proposition, khrushchev was not suicidal. if you accept that proposition, and if you accept the proposition that they no longer believe it possible to invade south korea, okay, i'm positing those two things. i don't know them for sure. if you accept those propositions, then what we have here is the north koreans reacting to the existential threat of the united states and the very fact, again, i'm not engaging in moral equivalence here, that the united states has viewed them publicly and said publicly that they are a threat to the international system. they are also an unstable dictatorship and it is useful for them to have an enemy. if you accept that, then you

manage them differently, you see they are not really a military threat to us. in fact, i think it's unlikely that they would ever attack guam. i don't think they can actually target -- i don't think they know for sure that if they launched a missile it wouldn't hit japan and they don't want to hit japan. so if you accept, now, you have to accept these propositions, then this is an issue of deterrence. and you accept the fact that they have nuclear weapons because they do. and you also, we all know this, historically nonproliferation hasn't worked with regard to countries that want nuclear weapons. the united states didn't want israel to have nuclear weapons. there's a fantastic story and it failed. israelis did what they felt they needed to and used denial and deception and achieved what they wanted. the united states didn't want india to have nuclear weapons. the indians used denial and deception and got what they wanted. we didn't want pakistan to have weapons. it goes on and on and on.

the real achievement in international politics is when you can delay their acquisition of nuclear weapons. you delay it long enough until the world sort of is ready to deal. our delaying iran is a great achievement. so if you accept the proposition that north korea has nuclear weapons and just treat them like a nuclear state, you deter them and then the issue is how you deter them. i would like to -- i would like south korea to deter them. i think extended deterrence is a mistake there. because it pulls us into a fight that's not our fight. really, north korea doesn't matter to us. so let's let the south koreans deter them. then it's over. let them deter each other. you have nuclear weapons on both sides and it's done. we can pull away and deal with the south china sea which is our problem. so that's how, that's my lesson from -- [ inaudible question ]

>> you have two disruptors. >> well, the american disruptor, this is a different kind of containment. in the cold war we dealt with containing another power. here, we are talking about containing the president. one hopes that mattis and others will -- but yes, his rhetoric is only inflaming, if you accept my view of why the north koreans act the way they do, there couldn't be anything worse than the approach our current president is taking with pyongyang. >> so tim, i always like to say that i love when sessions are provocative and i will say that you provoked me. so i agree with what i think was your basic conclusion that adversaries are more rational than we think and other nations are afraid of us. but i don't think that you frame

this entire issue appropriately. i really don't. i think it is illuminated by the fact that you keep saying khrushchev said berlin, berlin, berlin. actually, when khrushchev wrote to kennedy and talked to kennedy at vienna, he did not say berlin, berlin, berlin. he said germany, germany, germany, germany. let me talk to you about germany. let me tell you why we believe germany is such a threat. let me explain to you what it was like during world war ii. let me tell you what it was like to be in ukraine and to experience german occupation. let me tell you about the way we perceive the evolution of west german power.

i won't tell you, but i'm really afraid of the fact that west germany is a magnet to east germany. i'm really afraid of the prospect that west germany may acquire nuclear weapons. these were all fundamental issues that undergirded so -- that undergirded khrushchev's motives, so when you say khrushchev is a disruptor, and you just use that as the sort of way to characterize him, you simplify and you trivialize and what's even more important, is that it raises the whole question about did kennedy really understand adversaries' interests. maybe he did. maybe he did. but he wasn't willing to accommodate them. i'm not saying that he should have. but there is a real

confrontation here of vital interests, and the notion moreover that you say americans did not think adversaries, weaker adversaries would be risk takers, i think belies the major issue you said at the beginning. oh, we really need to talk about korea. so the overriding lesson of korea was that we americans must build up military capabilities so that no competitor in the world in the future will take risks. we will have a preponderance of power, to use a famous phrase, we will have a preponderance of power to deter future risk taking. and so much of american policy

all through the 1950s was about how much power do we really need to have to deter risk taking and if risk taking should take place, how much power do we need to have and what sorts of military capabilities do we need to have to dominate an escalatory crisis. i would like you to respond to those issues and to reflect on whether that should help us re-understand this context and its implications. >> well, it's fun to provoke. i think i see that we have a fundamentally different approach to this, because i give khrushchev more agency in this story. maybe because of my generation

or the fact that all this detail came out and i got lost in it and enjoyed it, but i see the soviets as making choices and crews ch khrushchev making choices and i found that the analyses that made the united states more significant in these outcomes were skewed by the fact that u.s. documents had existed when people were writing these books. that may be unfair, but i don't see this as this russians dealing with an american world. i see the russians making their own choices. and to go to the details, to answer you with detail, the pen pal letters, these were these letters that were sent between the soviets and the americans, between khrushchev and kennedy

starting in september 1961, they are really boring. but they are interesting for us because it's all about trying to seek on the american side some kind of agreement that would make the soviets feel secure. and it's all about berlin. it's the details of what it is the soviets are ultimately seeking in berlin. and the americans draw a line. one thing that kennedy cannot agree with is the removal of nato. and for khrushchev, that is a requirement for an agreement. so yes about the feeling about world war ii, although kennedy didn't need to be lectured about world war ii. kennedy is all about trying to seek an understanding with the soviets. and they go into great detail. this drives the french mad, by the way. the french do not even want to

participate in these discussions. there's all this back and forth between paris and washington over whether to get into detail about berlin. so if the united states was blind to khrushchev's needs and interests, i don't think you would see these detailed negotiations. now, they failed in the end because the americans couldn't go to where the soviets wanted to go. now, i respect you enormously and there's an element you raised one other point that is nothing to do with berlin that is also important with the soviets and that's west german acquisition of nuclear weapons. there, i believe the americans did screw up. because the americans came up with the multinational force in an effort to try to calm -- actually, to find a way to make

the french happy because the french wanted nuclear weapons, the united states didn't want to have nuclear weapons and to somehow tamp down it's more bavarian really than german desire, strauss' desire for nuclear weapons. this was a european centered approach which had unintended consequences with moscow because moscow saw a proliferation of nuclear weapons within nato. there, i agree, it's an unintended consequence. but in the pen pal letters which i think set the stage for khrushchev's decision making and risk taking in '62, they are talking about the details of berlin and so i think berlin is really important. but you know what? historians disagree. it's part of the fun of our business. >> somewhat more narrower point, it sounds as if you are saying degaulle's advice would apply to north korea.

and sort of connected to that, i'm wondering if retrospect to what extent eisenhower came close in his dealings with khrushchev to taking degaulle's advice compared to kennedy. to be sure, eisenhower did let himself be pressured into having the visit to the united states by khrushchev and the summit in paris in april 1960, because he was worried, but i don't think eisenhower produced the same impression on khrushchev as the bay of pigs and kennedy's behavior at the summit in vienna which you didn't take all that seriously. that is, i think kennedy did strike khrushchev as a kind of immature young man who might be pushed around in ways that eisenhower, with all of his seniority, maturity and military background, might not.

>> i don't think you should ever debate with a pulitzer prize winning biographer. bill, all i'll say is that in the transcripts of the politboro sessions, khrushchev describes kennedy as being the same as eisenhower. so we can have this discussion offline about why people are convinced that khrushchev had this view, but in the materials that were released in 2002 and 2003, i didn't see evidence of him saying that kennedy is this immature guy we can't take seriously. khrushchev had this bizarre view of the american system where he saw structures as more important than individuals so he was interested in wall street and the pentagon and the issue for him was who was strong enough to deal with wall street and the pentagon. but again, it's a fool's game to

debate with such a brilliant biographer. i saw data that led me in a different direction. with regard to north korea, yeah, i think given that north korea is not the soviet union and the soviet union was a threat to us militarily and therefore, i think that behooved engagement, that was the argument for engagement. north korea is not that important. i think letting the south koreans engage and finding a way to make south korea the source of deterrence is a better idea. but as pointed out, we have two disruptors simultaneously and our first objective should be to somehow contain or persuade the american disruptor so that he doesn't keep racheting up the volume. >> this will be i think, if you could come forward for frank, this will be our last question because we want to leave equal time for the second half of our

panel. while we are getting ready for that question, on the eisenhower point, i did make eye contact with my colleague will hitchcock, who waved me off, but i'm recommending his forthcoming book this march on eisenhower which will be the definitive work, i believe, on the 34th president. everyone prepare for that. microphone is right here for you. >> i want to very briefly follow up mel's question to you, tim, about khrushchev being a disruptor with regard to berlin. as we all know, east germany was the crown jewel of the soviet empire and they were losing that crown jewel as emigration of the most talented people leaving east germany through berlin to the west. we know that. the berlin wall saw inelegantly, brutally solved that problem and the berlin crisis dissipated shortly after that. in terms of being a disruptor,

it seems to me khrushchev was trying to defend his position rather than disrupting it. >> well, i'm sorry, i didn't mention will's book. will is the one who will tell us what eisenhower was really thinking and whether he actually liked degaulle enough to take his advice. i don't agree with you about berlin. the berlin crisis did not end in 1961. i know that's the standard view but the soviet materials make clear that for khrushchev, it didn't end and you have to just keep in mind that he wants a change in the nature of the settlement in central europe and he wants it in '62, and he makes it clear that he wants it in '62. the question is the tactics. in the beginning of '62 he says we have time, we can leave this aside but in the meantime we have to deter american power. then in the summer of 1962, after the cubans accept the

missiles, the soviet decision making system was first among equals. khrushchev was clearly more powerful than anybody else. but the others were not all ciphers. one man calmed khrushchev down. the soviet leadership was surprised by khrushchev's suggestion of putting missiles in cuba which he came up with himself when he was in bulgaria. they wanted to slow him down. so the presidium which normally didn't take two days to make a decision, took two days to make this decision and said we will do this if the cubans want it. well, the cubans were surprised. the cubans were surprised. when the cubans say yes, khrushchev gets very excited because he sees the opportunity to actually put pressure on the united states and maybe achieve

those changes in central europe that he was seeking. you see in the materials of the soviet foreign ministry in the summer of 1962 the preparation for what i feel is sort of the, if you remember the old mousetrap game, this leads to that, this to that, the soviets were setting up for a phenomenal moment at the united nations where khrushchev would make a speech and where he would threaten war with the united states if there wasn't a new settlement in berlin. he was doing that on the basis of his knowledge that he would have nuclear weapons in cuba at that time to pose a real threat to the american homeland. so if berlin had been solved in his mind in '61, i don't see how these events would have occurred as they did in '62. this is not to say the united states wasn't involved in provoking the soviets but i think we don't give enough agency to khrushchev. he is making decisions not always in response to an

american action. i think he often makes decisions in response to the existence of the united states. >> i would just add to follow up, one of my big take-aways from your work on khrushchev is that regarding berlin versus cuba and the rationale for the deployment of the missiles, khrushchev is saying different things to those different levels within the hierarchy, to the first tier officials he is talking about berlin. this is part of the gearing up. to the second tier officials, doesn't necessarily mean it's the secondary reason, but it's probably gravitating in that direction. that's -- those are the people who are hearing more about the cuba rationale. >> i think cuba rational is spin that comes out later because he's trying to explain why he did this. the other thing, the question about why he doesn't take credit, that's a great question. i know why he doesn't take credit initially, because the americans say to him if you say anything about the turkish deal, it won't happen.

then in '64 he's out. why he doesn't take credit in his memoirs, i don't understand. those memoirs -- >> [ inaudible ]. >> at length? at length? because the chinese and cubans were vicious in attacking him for the outcome of the cuban missile crisis. you would think because he's quite repetitive in his memois s he would have really gone to town against them, saying i just couldn't tell them what i achieved. he doesn't do that and i can't explain why. maybe strobe has an explanation. >> we could spend the next half going back over this material but please join me in thanking tim and mark and we will move on to our second. >> join us tonight for american history tv in prime time, where

we will continue our look at the relationship between u.s. and soviet union leaders at the height of the cold war. from the university of virginia's miller center, you can see american history tv prime time beginning at 8:00 eastern on c-span 3. >> today on c-span, the white house correspondents association hosted a discussion with white house press secretary sarah sanders and former white house press secretary mike mccurry. that will be followed by a panel discussion with white house correspondents. live coverage starts at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your

cable or satellite provider. >> join us tonight on c-span for portions of the first unrig the system summit from new orleans, focusing on issues such as campaign finance, the electoral college and redistricting. speakers include actress jennifer lawrence interviewing trevor potter regarding the relationship between super pacs and political candidates. here's a preview. >> okay. so if there's a wall between candidates and super pacs, then if i as the political donor throw big money at a super pac, my personal politician does not get to decide how it's spent, right? >> well, that is technically correct except that the people who do decide how to spend it are usually in this scenario the former campaign manager of the candidate or close friends of

the candidate and one of my favorite examples, it was actually the parents of the candidate who are running the super pac. so they also can share what are called common vendors so they can use the same consultants. so basically, i think it's useful to see it as the other pocket on the candidate's coat. >> okay. but if the candidate tells a super pac exactly what to do with the money, that's legal? >> that would be illegal. >> okay. >> however, first they have to get caught and then they have to have a majority vote on whether to investigate it. as you may have heard, the fec has basically deadlocked on all of this in the last couple years. >> just a short portion from the first unrig the system summit from new orleans. watch it in its entirety tonight starting at 8:30 eastern on c-span.

>> next on the presidency, a look at what motivated president richard nixon and soviet premier brezhnev. the university of virginia's miller center held a conference looking at the complicated history between the u.s. and russian leaders over the last century. the discussions included assessments of franklin d. roosevelt, jfk, george h.w. bush and bill clinton as well as their russian counterparts. this is about an hour. >> this is our second half of this panel. we'll go to a little bit past 1:00. i have just met vlad zubok last evening over dinner and after dinner and which we had a fascinating conversation about khrushchev and kennedy but two slightly different khrushchevs and kennedys about whom we've been speaking and it was mrs. jacqueline