Word: khrushchevism
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...meetings began and ended with surface expressions of friendliness. When Khrushchev arrived at the U.S. embassy residence in Vienna for the first talk, Kennedy mentioned that he was happy to see the Premier, recalled a session that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (of which Massachusetts' John Kennedy was then a member) had held with Khrushchev during his 1959 U.S. visit. Khrushchev replied that he had long ago sized up Kennedy as an up-and-coming public figure, mixed irony with flattery by noting that the President was such an awfully young man to carry so heavy a burden...
Cigars & Dwarf Corn. The talk soon turned tough, but there were still some moments of pleasantry. Once Kennedy lit up a cigar and dropped the match behind Khrushchev's chair. "Are you trying to set me on fire?" the Premier joked. When Kennedy assured him that he had no such idea in mind, Khrushchev answered with a smile: "Ah-a capitalist, not an incendiary." Another time, Khrushchev and Secretary of State Dean Rusk got into a debate on dwarf corn. Khrushchev declared that it could not be grown in quantity. Rusk, who was born on a Georgia cotton farm...
Kennedy and Khrushchev kept their verbal guard high. Twice during the conversations, Kennedy tossed Chinese maxims at his antagonist. He quoted Mao Tse-tung as saying that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"; Khrushchev, straight-faced, denied that the peace-loving Chinese leader could ever have said such a thing. Kennedy also used the old proverb, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step," to make his point that a first step in progress on the road to peace should be made at the nuclear test talks. Struck by Kennedy's Oriental references...
Bone in the Throat. To the nation, Kennedy reported that there had been "no loss of tempers" during the talks. But in the stalemated discussions over Berlin, Khrushchev came perilously close to anger. The Soviet Premier explained that he intended to sign a peace treaty (perhaps by year's end) with East Germany; after that, the West would be forced to deal with the East Germans for access to Berlin and the right to station troops there. Kennedy coolly answered that the West was in Berlin legally and would use force to maintain its rights there "at any risk...
Throughout the conversations, Kennedy kept to specifics, hoping to steer Khrushchev away from opportunities to make speeches. For his part, Khrushchev seemed surprisingly indifferent to the ultimate fate of at least two world trouble spots. The Soviet leader expressed his interest in seeing a truly neutral Laos-and left Kennedy with the impression that he might possibly help get the stalled Geneva talks off the ground-but added that Laos was of no great interest to the Soviet Union. Neither was Cuba, although Khrushchev added that U.S. policies were fast turning Castro into a good Communist. Kennedy bluntly denied...