state. be sure to watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. the university of virginia's miller center convened scholars for a two-day conference looking at the complicated history between u.s. and russian leaders over the last century. the focus of this next session is the relationship between john f. kennedy and soviet premier nikita khrushchev in the early 1960s. this is about an hour and ten minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to our second panel assessing u.s.-soviet relations in the 1960s and '70s. i'm not going to chair the panel, but i will turn the duties over to my colleague here

at the miller center, professor barbara perry, who is going to anchor the panel. barbara is herself a noted scholar of the '60s and of the kennedy era and the kennedy clan. she is also the director of presidential studies here at the miller center. she is a very seasoned expert oral historian as well as a 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 four years on up until the present. or at least i should say the recent past. we have completed oral histories under her leadership and russel riley's leadership of every administration through the george w. bush administration and we are planning to lay siege

to the obama administration and we'll find out what the trump administration -- what their attitude is towards being interviewed about oral history when we get to that place. in any case, barbara's going to take us forward in this panel and i'll turn things over to her. barbara? >> thanks so much, will. and of course to mel and stephanie for conceptual easing 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 in two halves. the first half of our discussion will feature my miller center colleague mark selverstone, an associate professor of presidential studies here at the center and he chairs the presidential recordings program, which analyzes, transcribes,

edits and annotates the secret white house tapes. if you watch the ken burns vietnam series, you will have seen mark's name and our colleague ken hughes' name prominently displayed in the credits of each episode because they were crucial to providing the clips from particularly the nixon and the johnson years, but some of the kennedy tapes as well. mark is a foreign policy historian of the first order, focussing on the cold war, and especially one element of the hot war, vietnam, in that era. and particularly the kennedy and johnson policies towards it. my favorite of his many publications is his book "a companion to john f. kennedy," which sounds like it might be about some of the girlfriends of the president, but it is meant itself to be a companion, and some of that story is covered in that volume. >> yes. >> but very seriously, this is a

major work that mark edited. it is -- has seminal historical essays on virtually every topic related to jfk's life, his career and particularly his presidency and i rely on it almost exclusively as i'm preparing to speak about president kennedy. and i think of tim naftali as my colleague, even though he proceeded me at the miller center by several years, where he served here as the director of the miller center's kremlin decision-making project, and then tim after serving as director of the nixon library has become a clinical associate professor of history and also of public service at nyu. he's the co-author among many books, but one particularly pertinent for today's topic called "khrushchev's cold war." if like me you are a fan of cnn documentaries, you will rhode island recognize tim as the star of many of them.

i highly recommend to all of you here today if you haven't read them already the four essays for this panel. they are all informative, they are very accessible and 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 these several days. to draw out the lessons of jfk's role and behavior in the cuban missile crisis for current issues. then after mark does that, we'll turn to tim and he'll offer some lessons as well from the khrushchev side, from the russian side. so with that, let me turn to mark. >> sure. thanks. good morning. good late morning to everybody and thanks again to mel and to

will for the opportunity to participate in this. look thing out at the audience, there are any number of people who have written copious amounts on the cuban missile crisis and i have not so i've learned from all of you, but i appreciate the opportunity to try to disuntiti what i have learned and offer some lessons on how that may bear on contemporary matters. john f. kennedy had already learned some important lessons by the time he had to confront moscow's deployment of nuclear missiles to cuba. several of these lessons involved matters related to personnel and process, and they would be immensely useful during the missile crisis in october of is the 62. many of them grew out of kennedy's earlier crisis over cuba, the failed operation at the bay of pigs, which meant that these lessons were especially hard-earned. they were not without qualification, but by and large, they ended up serving him, the

country and the world pretty well. before highlighting these lessons, which may or not be applicable to contemporary u.s.-russia relations, i wanted to touch on the earlier history of the kennedy presidency which the president did not translate into useful insight and which contributed to the 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 excessive eliterative, i suppose. planning for the overthrow of fidel castro gained a full head of steam, kennedy's rhetoric at the tail end of the 1960 presidential campaign came pretty close to -- his language in 1960 which called for 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 cancelling what would welcome the bay of pigs operation where he had to have done so had he become -- when he became president. so here's the first case in the trajectory towards october 1962, where i think words really mattered. while this public pronouncement narrowed kennedy's room for maneuver on cuba, once he became president, the failure of his administration to consider more creative policy measures stemmed from the absence of a searching conversation about the relative dangers that cuba posed. was castro really a dag toger t the heart or more a thorn in the flesh as senate foreign relations chair had suggested? that conversation never really took place. while kennedy did whole a series of meetings large and small with those planning the bay of pigs operation and senior administration and military officials, they revolved largely

around matters of tactics as opposed to the strategic implications of the operation or the assumptions alluded to. both pronouncement and policy, statements about the necessity of moving against castro as well as the policy that was to affect 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 documented so well, it was hardly the only reason for the missile deployment and the crisis that it sparked. but by the fall of 1961, fidel castro's commanding more and more attention from the kennedy administration, which was devoting increasing resources to undermine the cuban regime. as those methods at subversion

and sabotage came to look more menacing to both havana and to moscow, they helped push khrushchev towards action that might protect the cuban revolution with one of those actions being the deployment of nuclear missiles to the island. in the course of that deployment, kennedy's overt rhetoric as well as the continuation of covert action would again complicate his presidency and again raise the stakes of not following through on his stated intentions. in an 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. 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's responses to developments on the island. but if kennedy failed to recognize or to 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 world, 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 judgements. those measures included changes in personnel and process and both proved helpful in resolving the october missile crisis. for one, the aides he trusted most, particularly his brother robert, the attorney general, would come to play larger roles in national security policy making and bobby would serve as chief conduit for the president's private conversations with moscow. as tim highlighted, those back channel conversations were not all to the good but they certainly helped to convey key bits of information at key moments of the crisis. kennedy would also system ties

national security policy making more effectively, helping to improve the flow of information into the white house. and in an effort to really scrub the options for addressing the soviet missile deployment, kennedy encouraged extended conversations among his senior civilian and military aides shielded from public view before settling on an approach that gave himself and his adversary to time to reflect on the magnitude of what laid before them and to figure out how they might untie the knot of war. but perhaps of paramount importance was the judgement of the president himself, who are lurching towards a military response considered its less than ideal chances for success, its potential impact on allies and adversaries and the zealotry of those around him, particularly in the military, who supported it as virtually the only acceptable option. so if there is to be a heroic narrative to harken back to

yesterday within the cold war about leader who's took chances, faced down the hawks calling for war and ultimately preferred that his kids be red rather than dead, kennedy should take at least one turn in that starring role, which i'd say he continued to earn through his subsequent efforts at arms control and his attempts to modulate the cold war, at least rhetorically through this american university address. so can elements of this heroic narrative spawn another one? how can this history provide useful lessons for contemporary u.s.-russian relations? here are a few thoughts. on the matter of rhetoric, as i mentioned in my written piece and briefly this morning, red lines can be trouble. they were for kennedy, who felt constrained by the politics associated with them. perhaps president trump's wholly different posture towards russia means he's less likely to make them with regard to developments in ukraine or the ball --

baltics. it's easier to see him doing so with regard to north korea or iran, with syria he essentially acknowledged obama's red line and acted upon it. given his lack of rhetorical discipline, his disdain for convention and his freewheeling use of new media, it's probably more likely than not he'll deliver this kind of an ultimatum before long, arguably he may calculate the political costs of doing so very differently than kennedy did. on playing for time and keeping the conversation going, these lessons from the missile crisis are particularly relevant for crisis situations. though they're suggestive of the value of maintaining contact and of cultivating relationships more broadly. jaw-jaw is better than wawa as churchill is ladies and gentlemen of the juried -- alleged to have said.

which pre-and post dates the cold war, i would hope the virtues of diplomacy, enhancing one's capacity for empathy, another quality that we associate with kennedy and the missile crisis, would commend themselves to leaders on both sides. finally on the matter of combining that diplomacy with force, it certainly complicates the narrative, the heroic narrative, if you will, that we've heard for awhile. to acknowledge that khrushchev had agreed to pack up the missiles and ship them home before hearing that jfk was willing to make the missile trade that khrushchev called for on the 12th day of the missile crisis. that shouldn't negate the value of the cuba for turkey missile swap, for khrushchev's own purposes, for allowing him to paper over his having to reverse course on his exceedingly risky maneuver, but it does suggest that the prospect of a military engagement prompted khrushchev's initial offer to remove the missiles in turn no a

noninvasion pledge and to forego his public call for a missile swap when it seemed that war really was imminent. that said, this kind of brinksmanship could easily have resulted in armed conflict and potentially nuclear-armed conflict, as many here as well as mike dobbs have written. so while kennedy's mobilization of force really does seem to have made his diplomacy more effective, we'll need to be much more granular in outlining in what form, in what strategic context and with what implications it should be similarly mobilized if it's to play a role in a more contemporary scenario in which americans and russians find themselves eyeball-to-eyeball. thanks. [ applause ] >> well, tim's essay is -- has an especially evocative title.

it is called "grab god by the beard: khrushchev and the kennedys." >> thanks, barbara and thanks, mel, for inviting me back. it's nice to be home. in part because i drink a lot of espresso. but in part because i'm going to play on a word that my former colleague and friend, present friend mark mentioned which is 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're going to -- as you've

just benefitted from that and listening to mark, i'm going to try to do the same on the soviet side. now, to lay -- to lay the basis for this period, i want to mention or remind you of a few things. because of the structure of this conference, we sort of jumped over korea. i believe that the korean war is fundamental to understanding the militarization of the cold war and that absent korea, you want to talk as jeremi mentioned, you want to talk about possibilities, you don't have the korean war and i think there is 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

the -- what i guess mao first called third world and 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. and that changes the nature of the strategic relationship between the united states and the 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,

will 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 why statesmanship involves reducing the threat of nuclear war, but as we will -- as we see with khrushchev, khrushchev is all about disruption. he is a disrupter. 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 -- let me talk to you about a summit conference in 1961 that people don't talk abou about. the one that everybody talks about is vienna. i'm working on a book about kennedy. i want to apd tdd the 5,300th b on kennedy. why not? for me, the more interesting conference is the gull kennedy conference because de gaulle and kennedy are very explicit about their understanding of the world and they share a lot. and de gaulle's argument is -- and it's an argument that has a relevance today. his argument is when you deal with a disrupter, you should ignore them.

he says let khrushchev hyperventilate 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 disrupter. 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. de gaulle said, nope, i disagree with you completely. he says, you know what, let the soviets sign a peace treaty with

eastern germany. it doesn't matter. it's just a piece of paper between two communists. and 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 the base -- 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? and is the engagement, the decision to engage somehow threatening to your own standing, whether at home or abroad? now, it turns out that de gaulle was wrong. and we really only knew how wrong de gaulle was when the -- when we saw the soviet materials

about 15 years ago when oddly enough a putin government declassified the resolutions and transcripts of things in the 1950s through 1964. it turns out khrushchev was committed to revising the cold war, the world war ii settlement in europe. he was a revisionist, all right? he was not seeking more security through ruing nuclear danger, he was prepared to take advantage of the existence of nuclear danger to achieve a revision of the cold -- 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, de gaulle had not assumed

that. de gaulle 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're 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 coordinatco 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, de gaulle 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 bureau, because the cia never penetrated it, kennedy's deep sense of politicians led him to make a different call from de gaulle. now, i'm going to give you sort of an aside on kennedy and we'll 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,

he projected it on france and every single leader he 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. and 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. and he's willing to have a bad summit conference in vienna. one of the -- to 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 -- he was immature, 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, saved, conceived a nato presence in west berlin, there was nothing kennedy could have done to have had a good conference in vienna. vienna was a setup, it was an ambush and khrushchev set it up. khrushchev wanted to put pressure on kennedy in the hope that kennedy would give him something that eisenhower had not been willing to gives 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, it 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 -- 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 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 have so brilliantly argued, crews chekh was a romantic, he was ideological and he believed 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're 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 fish very well. americans get scared. and that's exactly what the soviets hoped for, except 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 killpatrick, the under-secretary of defense. the u.s. government does that thinking that if the soviets know that they're 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 at mount of -- he says the international system is a -- it's a -- it's a goblet, and what you do is you fill water right to the brim. you don't -- and you bring it to the point where you have a meniscus where the next drop of water will spill. the only way to restrain american power is to -- is to create crises along the periphery of the american empire. now no american adviser and no kremlinologist would have assumed that would be the soviet approach, and it lasted four months until he saw that the americans were so powerful that they could deal with these crises along the border so khrushchev needed another approach. 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, and i'll 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 general easing? let me put it this way. more often than not, american policymakers 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 countries, many countries, which either will bandwagon with you or are going to try to oppose you. it's the -- 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 we die and they continue to live. they'll 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 strategically inferior countries will try to deter us by scaring us, then that -- what 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 mad man. 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 mad man,

that made possible the peaceful resolution. so the lessons, i believe, to sum up, is that your adversary can be irrational in your eyes and actually be rational, and the irrationality that you have in this -- your assessment of their rationality is part of your -- 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 to 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 judgement about moral, you know -- this is not moral equivalency, i'm just simply arguing that the very nature of the american -- the success of the united states in developing its power also leads

to challenges. in 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, and 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 pan. thank you. [ applause ] >> i'll just throw out one question that relates to both of your essays and comments and then we'll open up the floor momentarily. and that is, could you delve a little bit more into the back

channelling from -- mark, what you know from the kennedy side and particularly the robert kennedy back channelling, 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 channelling with the russians. >> right. right. i -- tim has particularly done great work on the -- on the back channel and it's lack of use, in fact, at several key moments. and, in fact, its misuse, or at least 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, and so while it had been helpful in 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 anatoly dobrynin has indicated 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, which is 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 the high-bound 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've 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 kennedy -- 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 and he wanted it to be deniable. and he didn't trust the state department. he thought there would be a leak. so he uses his brother. so i -- 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 is a basic narrative for the kennedy administration that -- wrote beautifully i don't know but i don't share it,

which is kennedy is learning. while kennedy thought the way about the cold war in '61 he said it publicly in '63, but he couldn't say it publicly. he didn't have the chops. it's the cuban missile crisis that 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 resettle the world war ii settlement. he keeps saying berlin, berlin, berlin. he goes to thompson and talks to him at a skating rink and says berlin. he's getting all this back channel stuff. he doesn't want to hear about a test ban, a joint project to the moon. that's something that is often lost. john kennedy proposed a joint project to the moon first. before he told the world we'll go to the moon before the end of the decade, he said to the soviets, let's do this together. the 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 a 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 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 mccone, the head of the cia. the cia analysts didn't know anything about what the soviets were saying to the kennedys in the back channel. and i assure you, because i've looked at this, which is that if the soviet analysts had heard in

ago of 1962 that the soviets were asking -- that 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'll 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 it doesn't matter. even though the shipments were accelerating in the summer, the u.s. military didn't -- wasn't that worried about them. the cia said there is 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 to 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, it's fascinating about kennedy and i think it changes one's view about kennedy, but it also shows the dangers of those kinds of operations. in the end, i think it enured khrushchev to believing what bobby kennedy said. so i think it had a good outcome. it made the end of the cuban missile crisis in many ways possible, because when bobby went to speak to doeb -- dobrynin, the soviets are accustomed to the brother of the president saying things they're not hearing anywhere else and believing them. >> intriguing in lights of

certain presidential sons-in-law. bol zoellick in the back there. >> two observations. 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. two questions. first, an old historical one. i've 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 a chance 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 disrupters. how would you apply your

insights to a situation with korea today where we have two disrupters. we've got kim jong-un, we've 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 revisers in china. so they might like to revisionist of the order with two disrupters. so tell me what insights you have from that. >> i'm going to -- that's great. i'm going to share an argument. i had a good fortune to give a lecture about the cuban missile crisis at the air war university. so i got a chance to try out my little approach to north korea there. because they didn't want to hear about the cuban missile crisis, they wanted to hear about north korea, for obvious reasons. for my sins, and i'm a student of earnest mays, like phillip v

because most of them are fraudulent and incomplete. but i -- for my sins i see the north koreans as puffer fish. now, of course, if i had clearances, and maybe there's -- maybe we know that they're suicidal. if you accept the proposition that they're not suicidal, you have to accept that proposition, khrushchev is 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, and i'm positing those two things, don't know for them 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 that the united states has viewed them publicly and said publicly that they are a threat to the international system. they're also an unstable

dictatorship. and it is useful for them to have an enemy. and if you accept that, then you manage them differently. then you see that they're 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. 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 we all know this, historically nonproliferation hasn't worked. united states didn't want israel to have nuclear weapons, a fantastic story, and it failed. the israelis did what they felt they needed to, used denial and

deception, and achieved what they wanted to. united states didn't want india, and india used deception and got what they wanted. we didn't want pakistan, on and on. the real achievement in politics is when you can delay their acquisition of nuclear weapons. delay it long enough, delaying iran is a great achievement. if you accept the proposition that north korea has nuclear weapons and treat them like a nuclear state and then you deter them, the issue is how to deter them. i would like south korea to deter them. i think extended deterrence is a mistake there. it pulls us into a fight that's not our fight. north korea doesn't matter to us, really. so let's let the south koreans deter them. and 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 i -- that's my lesson from -- >> you talked about the north

korean -- what's different in this case, your deterrence theory might work if you didn't have a disruption in the u.s. you have two disruptores. >> the american disruptor, a different kind of containment. now we're talking about containing the president. >> alfred, no. >> 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 that our current president is taking with pyongyang. >> so, tim, i always like to say that i love when sessions are provocative. and i'll say that you provoked me. and 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. and 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 pneumonia le acquire nuclear weapons. these were all fundamental issues 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 raise it is 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, more over, that you say americans did not think adversaries, weaker adversaries would be risk takers, i think 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 to hear you respond to that and help us reunderstand this context and its implications. >> well, it's fun to provoke. i think, mel, i think i see that we have a fundamentally different approach to this. because i -- 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. i see the soviets as making choices and khrushchev making choices. and i've found that the analyses that made the united states more significant in these outcomes were skewed by the fact that u.s. documents that 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 of 1961. they're really boring. but they're 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 an unknown for an agreement. so yes about the feeling of world war ii in the sense that -- 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 there was -- 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 has nothing to do with berlin and that is important to the soviets. that is west german acquisition of nuclear weapons. and there i believe the americans did screw up. because the americans came up

with the multi-national force in an effort to try to calm -- well, actually to find a way to make the french happy because the french wanted nuclear weapons and the united states didn't want them to have nuclear weapons and to somehow tamp down -- it's more bavarian really than german desire -- a european centered approach which had unintended consequences with moscow. moscow saw a proliferation of nuclear weapons within nato. there i agree. in the pen pal letters that set the stage for khrushchev's risk taking in 1962, i think berlin is really important. you know what? historians disagree. that's part of the fun of our business. >> somewhat more narrower point,

it sounds, tim, as if you're saying degall's advice would apply to north korea, and sort of connected to that, i'm wondering in retrospect to what extent eisenhower came close in his dealings with khrushchev to taking degall'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 paula bureau sessions, khrushchev describes kennedy as being the same as eisenhower. so i don't -- i mean, we could 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 -- i didn't see evidence of him saying that kennedy is this immature guy we can't take seriously. khrushchev saw structures more important than individuals, he was interested in wall street and the pentagon.

the issue for him was who was strong enough to deal with wall street and pentagon. it's a fool's game to debate with such a brilliant biographer. but i saw data that led me in a different direction. with regard to north korea, yeah, i think -- i think given that north korea's not the soviet union, and the soviet union was a threat to us militarily, and therefore i think that behooved engagement. i mean, that was the argument for engagement. north korea is not that important. that i think letting the south koreans engage and finding a way to make south korea the deter -- the source of deterrence is a better idea. but as mr. zell ic pointed out we have two disruptors simultaneously, and we should persuade the americans as disruptors so he doesn't ratchet up the volume.

>> alfred, if you could come forward, frank has a question, this will be our last question. we want to leave twael time for the second half of our panel. while we're 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 am recommending his forthcoming book this march on eisenhower which will be the definitive work, i believe, on the 34th president. everyone prepare for that. >> where do i get the microphone. >> right here for you. >> i wanted to very briefly follow up mel's question to you, tim, about kru shhrushchev bein disruptor. they were losing the crown jewel, the talented, educated people leaving east germany through berlin into the west. we know that. and the berlin wall saw inelegantly, brutally solved

that problem and the berlin crisis dispatsipated shortly af that. in terms of being a disruptor, khrushchev was trying to defend rather than disrupt it. >> 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 degall 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 -- in the nature of the settlement in central europe, and he makes it clear that he wants it in '62. the question is tactics. in the beginning of '6 t2, he ss

we have time, but in the meantime we have to deter american power. 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. and mikoyan is really important. he 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. and they wanted to slow him down. and so the presidium normally didn't take two days to make a decision, took two days to make the decision and said we will do this if the cubans want it. 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. and 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 mouse trap 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. and 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 takeaways 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 that to the first tier officials he is talking about berlin and this is part of 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 the -- those are the people who are hearing more about the cuba rationale for the missiles. >> i think it's spin. the cuba rationale is spin that comes out later, 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. in '64 he's out. why he doesn't take credit in his memoirs, i don't understand. those memoirs -- >> he does. >> at length? >> no. but he does recognize it. >> but because the chinese and the cubans were vicious in attacking him for the outcome of the cuban missile crisis. and you'd think -- he's quite repetitive in these -- in his memoirs that he would have gone to town against them, and he couldn't tell them what he achieved. i can't explain that. >> we could spend the next half going back over this material. but please join me in thanking tim and mark, and we'll move on

to our second. >> wednesday night at 8:00 eastern an american history tv, oral history is about the vietnam war from veterans and their spouses, including katherine westmoreland who commanded u.s. forces from 1964 to 1968. part of american history in primetime, each night this week on c-span3. c-span's history series, landmark cases, season 2, starts monday at 9:00 p.m. eastern with a look at the significance of the supreme court decision mccull low -- exploring this is farah peterson, associate law professor at the university of virginia, and mark -- author of mccullochv maryland. c-span.org, or listen with the

free c-span radio app. for background on each case, order a copy of the landmark cases companion book, available for $8.95 plus shipping and handling at c-span according/landmarkcases. for an additional resource, there's a link on our website to the national constitution centers interactive constitution. next on the presidency, a look at what motivated president richard nixon and soviet premier leonid brezhnev during the period known as dtente. 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 will go to a little bit