Biographies & Memoirs

East vs West

So far, Kennedy’s inaugural year had been disastrous. It is hardly surprising then, that when he decamped to Vienna on 3 June for a two-day summit meeting with the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, to discuss Cold War concerns, the American president was on the defensive.

One of the topics up for discussion was the contentious issue of Berlin. After World War Two, Germany had been split into two blocs – West Germany, which was further divided into three zones, occupied by France, Britain, and the United States; and East Germany, which was occupied by the USSR. In addition, Berlin, despite being situated within the Soviet zone, was similarly divided up between the four nations. And now, as Cold War hostilities intensified, the triumvirate of Western nations were growing increasingly worried that Khrushchev would deny them access to their respective enclaves in West Berlin. It was Kennedy’s job to see that this didn’t happen.

Kennedy meets Nikita Khrushchev, Vienna, June 1961

True to form, Khrushchev became antagonistic almost immediately, determined to take advantage of his opponent’s perceived weakness. Kennedy put in a disappointing performance. His attempts to stand up to Khrushchev on disarmament, the situation in Laos, ideological differences, and other subjects were not successful. Worse, he failed to gain assurances that the Soviet Premier would not impinge on the West’s interests in Berlin. Afterwards, Kennedy confessed to being out of his depth: ‘He beat the hell out of me’, he told a New York Times correspondent, ‘worst thing in my life. He savaged me.’

Much speculation has followed regarding Kennedy’s poor showing in Vienna. His incessant back pain, and the increasingly dangerous concoction of drugs he ingested to combat it, probably had a direct bearing on his performance. In fact, by this stage, his Addison’s Disease had progressed to the point that Kennedy had become reliant on a daily shot of amphetamines, prescribed by Dr Max Jacobson (nicknamed ‘Dr Feelgood’ by his patients) just to get through the working day. Indeed, it is highly likely this dependence had become an addiction. Over a decade later, in 1975, Jacobson, who was by then an amphetamine addict himself, had his medical licence revoked for negligently administering these drugs.

Kennedy’s failure in Vienna had almost immediate repercussions. Just two months later, Khrushchev, confident that his actions would go unpunished by the ‘weak’ US president, persuaded East German officials to begin construction of an edifice which would become the defining image of the division between East and West – the Berlin Wall.

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