There was a collective sigh of relief in the United States with the successful ending of the Cuban Missile crisis. And as we were about to learn as 1962 neared its end, it also had an impact on Premier Khrushchev’s thinking. As 1963 began, there was a clear sense of confidence in Washington that there was an upswing in world developments. In his State of the Union address, Kennedy, a lifelong sailor, drew upon seafaring language to suggest what might lie ahead: “My friends, I close on a note of hope. We are not lulled by the momentary calm of the sea, or the somewhat clearer skies above. We know the turbulence that lies below, and the storms beyond the horizon this year. Now the winds of change appear to be blowing more strongly than ever, in the world of communism as well as our own. For 175 years, we have sailed with these winds at our back and with the tides of human freedom in our favor. We steer our ship with hope as Thomas Jefferson said, “Leaving Fear astern.” Kennedy sensed that change was afoot in Khrushchev’s thinking. “A moment of pause is not a promise of peace,” he said. “Dangerous problems remain from Cuba to the South China Sea. The world’s prognosis prescribes not a year’s vacation, but a year of obligation and opportunity.”
About the same time that Kennedy was addressing Congress, Khrushchev was in East Berlin for the East German Party Congress. By this time, rhetoric was rising between the Soviet Communists and their followers in Europe and the Chinese Communists and their followers. At that Congress, Khrushchev’s speech his most moderate yet. I wrote that he noted the vast number of American nuclear warheads—he guessed about 40,000–and said that a nuclear war would destroy almost all the civilized world, including China and Russia. He repeated his ideas on the futility of a policy based on nuclear war. I wrote that “as usual, Mr. Khrushchev implied that the Chinese want a nuclear war and he doesn’t. ”
About this time in early 1963, The Star’s editors took me off the Week in Review assignment and made me a full-time foreign affairs writer. Immediately, The Star wanted me to travel to Russia and East Europe for a couple of months at a time and do features and analyses from there. They in fact later gave me great publicity, with full page ads with my picture in Red Square with the kicker: “He’s now in hte Soviet Orbit.”
In the spring of 1963, Khrushchev brought back with him from his vacation retreat in Pitsunda on the Black Sea, two new convictions: first that the Berlin issue should no longer be a roadblock to serious U.S.-Soviet agreements and second, that if a comprehensive nuclear test ban would be impossible to achieve with the West, Moscow would accept a partial test ban that outlawed tests in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. Only underground testing would continue. At that very time, Kennedy and his advisers wee doing the same thinking.
Theodore Sorenson, who was Kennedy’s speech writer and a confidante, spoke to Norman Cousins, the editor of Saturday Review, and a leading arms control advocate at the time. Cousins who had recently met with Khrushchev in Pitsunda, told Sorenson of the Soviet Leader’s interest in a partial test ban. That led to one of Kennedy’s most eloquent speeches that I wrote about for The Star. It was a commencement speech at American University, in Washington, on June 10, 1963.
“Some say it is useless to speak of world peace, or world law, or world disarmament—and that it will be useless unless the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude—as individuals and as a nation—for our attitude is as essential as theirs.”
In the midst of the speech, Kennedy announced: “I am taking this opportunity therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard. First, Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking forward toward early agreement on a comprehensive test-ban treaty. Our hopes must be tempered. Second: To make clear our good faith and solemn conviction on that matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so.” This of course was a very big story. Its importance was heightened by the fact that the Russians allowed the Voice of America to broadcast a translation of the speech without jamming it.
Then, Kennedy added that the United States would unilaterally suspend atmospheric testing so long as others did.
Two weeks later Kennedy went on a 10 day trip to Europe that included his famous speech in Berlin, where he spoke to about a million people crowded near the city hall in West Berlin. He had just visited the Wall. He told the huge throng: “Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was ‘civis Romanus sum.’Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ;Ich bin ein Berliner.’ There are many people in the world who really don’t understand or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who way that it is true that Communism is an evil system but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.”
About a month later the chief negotiators for the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union met in in Moscow to negotiate a partial test ban treaty. W. Averell Harriman, who had been Roosevelt’s wartime ambassador to Moscow, represented the U.S. It was formally signed in Moscow on August 5 by Secretary of State Dean Rusk for the United States. In his memoir, Rusk recalled that “Khrushchev was immensely pleased with the treaty. He threw a huge reception in the Kremlin where we met among other Russians all the members of the Politburo and high officials of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
I covered the hearings on the treaty held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It was approved, 16-1, and ratified by the Senate in September.
