Thank you very much. One's always very pleased as an author to see one's name in that large of type. Thank you so much for your warm words of welcome Kristie. And most of all thank you for inviting me to Georgia Tech into Atlanta to talk about my book Berlin one nine hundred sixty one. Kennedy Khrushchev and the most dangerous place on earth. I didn't make up those words. Those were the words that Khrushchev said to John F. Kennedy in the Vienna summit in June he said this is the most dangerous place on earth. It's like a cancer we have to get rid of it. Frankly. It's also something of a relief. To spend. Time away from Washington D.C. It's my adopted home as you know it's a bit of a political mess little bit of a political swamp. Washington D.C.. A place where so many people are lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar territory. Washington D.C. where people say. I'll double cross that bridge when I come to it. That's a little bit better. You know the difference between a congressman. Now I'm not going to tell that full disclosure I stole those first jokes from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates when he left the Pentagon a few weeks ago he got out of town faster than anyone I've ever seen in my life and he's very difficult to get back again. But joking aside it's a particular pleasure for me to be here partly because Georgia Tech is one of this country's. Most impression press of educational and research institutions. And it's a particular pleasure to provide the kickoff lecture for the school of history technology and society. I also am delighted that co-sponsoring this is the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. Senator Nunn is one of the people I respect most in this world and the School of Languages it during the Q. and A session if you'd like. I will explain to you and some of the question forever more. John F. Kennedy in one thousand nine hundred sixty three when he said it's been one bed was grammatically correct. He did not say I am a jelly donut. But but i can we can dig deeper on these questions and other questions. As we go along particular thanks to Christy McCracken us who who as she said I met two decades ago in a freshly reunify Germany. I am a little bit daunted talking in front of you. I'm a journalist pretending to be a historian and an academic. And of course your own first rate groundbreaking work on Germany and particularly the state security service we we've all learned from we share. A fascination for the Cold War and how it was fought and won. And that's actually where began my comments. I'm going to try to be sufficiently brief so that we have some time for questions and discussion. I'm going to organize my thoughts. According to my three primary reasons for writing this book I hope they'll be your three primary reasons for reading the book and if you can't read at least buy it. I am going to show a few slides as I go through if you want to see just an extraordinary collection of historical photographs I decided in this process that I. Wanted to own a lot had to do with Berlin one thousand nine hundred eighty one. So I bought rights to many more photographs that are actually in the thirty two pages of photographs in the book and you can see them on Fred camp. Berlin one nine hundred sixty one dot com also directs to the same site. There's also an enhanced e-book version that we did with N.B.C. television. The reason I say that is not particularly to promote it. But really because this was a unique year in history one nine hundred sixty marked the first live televised presidential debates when opinion polls were tell you at that time when opinion polls were taken that time the radio listeners thought the vice president Richard Nixon had won the debates the television viewers were certain that Kennedy had won the debates. It was the beginning of the change of politics sixty one was the first life presidential press conference Eisenhower had edited true tapes of press conferences coming out that changed things. And of course Vienna was the first superpower summit where television coverage played such a large role. So I'll show some images but also in the e-book there are forty four images. Actual film where you see Kennedy and he pops up and you can watch Kennedy which won't be able to do here. So number one. First of all in reasons for me for writing this book is I am a child of the Cold War. I am a student of the Cold War and I became a chronicler of the Cold War. This is me a little bit lighter weight. And a little bit younger and and I was going behind Soviet lines in Afghanistan in one nine hundred eighty five one thousand nine hundred six in many respects I believe that the. World War was World War three and the West victory in that extended struggle ensured the end of the Soviet empire and the end of Soviet Communist ideology that outcome was as far reaching as the outcomes of World War One of World War two And even though there was no armistice. There was no formal surrender. There were no tickertape victory parades. It was World War three And I think of the three World Wars the cold war remains the least well explained by historians and so I wanted to contribute something to this for me also the Cold War was a highly personal matter. Both of my parents were born in what would later become communist East Germany. My father was born in a small town near dressed and. My mother was born in punk district of Berlin my family originally comes mostly from Brett's low which is now in Poland. Most of my read German as I was growing up lived in East Germany the German Democratic rip can tell a collapse so from a very early age this map for me was not as foreign as it was for other Americans. This was an island inside East Germany that's what Berlin was there was already a dividing line between East and West Germany where it was impossible to cross over without crossing guard towers attack dogs fences but when because a foreign power agreements that war. See the end of the wall the wall didn't exist yet it was a dividing line but people could cross over that and two point eight million had crossed from eastern Germany to West Germany since one thousand nine hundred five in a country that at that point was only seventeen million large so it was a hemorrhage of rip if that was accelerating in one nine hundred sixty one and this hemorrhage of refugees threaten to threaten threaten not only the employer. The collapse of East Germany but with it potentially the Soviet bloc. There was a feeling as if you look last year. Westernmost outpost you could lose it's more as well. At Christmas we would send care packages with the silliest little things to my relatives. Matchbox cars for the boys Barbies for the girls shampoos clothing food. So I knew early on in life that there were people somewhere else in the world that didn't have the advantages we had then as a student I spent a semester abroad in Germany for you were a language students take the opportunity go abroad I was a Christian agressor University in Kiel that's where I really learned my German by reading Asterix comics. I crossed through Checkpoint Charlie for the first time that I was serious about Asterix comics by the way for you to speak German. The only daily exchange of language the you lose money colloquialisms you pick you can pick up from that but I cross a checkpoint Charlie for the first time in my life where I was strip searched. Where police took away my address book. They wrote down all my relatives addresses all over East Germany. Even though I already had to register that I was going to visit them and in their apartments. I'm a kid student. I'm in their apartments they're saying the most benign criticisms of the East German regime but they whispered. So they wouldn't be overheard by neighbors who they feared were were East German Spittal informants. My first German journalism prize in college at the University of Utah came during a study abroad program where I reported on a student group that was risking lives to help people escape from East Germany that sort of experience changes the way you look at things and there was no going back for me then as a journalist for Newsweek them. For the Wall Street Journal. I reported on the most dramatic moments in the last decade of the Cold War. I was particularly influenced during my time as a student by my coverage of the rise of solidarity. In Poland in one thousand nine hundred eighty one when I got to know a number of people who risk their well being. Who risk their careers. To achieve national sovereignty and the sort of rights that I until then had taken for granted. That the Street Journal. I then followed closely events that brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall. And then I reported on German unification. Then a few years ago six seven years ago when I began this book project I said to myself I understand how and why the Berlin Wall fell but I really don't know the story of how it rose. What were the dynamics at work. What was the role of the United States. One particular was the role of President John F. Kennedy in the construction of that unique political edifice the fundamental question I was trying to answer as I began this book was The Wall fell in one thousand nine hundred nine but could its construction have been prevented in one thousand nine hundred sixty one. And if so might we have spared tens of millions of people three further decades of authoritarian rule. These aren't small questions as General Scowcroft two time national security advisor said in the introduction to my book. Historians have scrutinized the Cuban Missile Crisis of one thousand nine hundred sixty two far more deeply. Then they have the Berlin crisis that preceded. By Year for all the attention given Cuba. However what happened in Berlin was even more decisive in shaping the era between the end of the World War at the end of World War two in one thousand nine hundred five and German unification and dissolution in one thousand nine hundred ninety one. It was the Berlin wall spall in August one thousand nine hundred eighty one that anchored the Cold War in the mutual hostility. That would last for another three decades locking us into habits procedures and suspicions that would only for with that same wall on the ember eight thousand nine hundred eighty nine and quote General Scowcroft. So that brings me to the second reason for writing this book. Those who know my reporting and writing from my years at The Wall Street Journal know that I love a good story and and this one's a gripping are good stories can only be told through dramatic events and through extraordinary characters and the most inventive Hollywood scriptwriter could not have given me the events and characters of Berlin one nine hundred sixty one. The events of Camelot like inauguration in January of Kennedy. The Bay of Pigs crisis the Vienna summit the building of the Berlin Wall a showdown of tanks a checkpoint Charlie January April June Aug October in the first year of the youngest president the United States had ever elected. This is dramatic stuff. The two primary protagonist. Nikita Krushchev. And John F. Kennedy could not have been more powerful or contradictory foils. Nikita Khrushchev the Soviet leader shown here as a relatively young man with his Everest while mentor. Stalin was one thousand nine hundred sixty one. The sixty seven year old son of coal miners and peasants. John F. Kennedy. Shown here with his brother Joe Jr who died in World War two and his father then ambassador by the way Joe was supposed to be the one to run for president. The one who was the eldest son and was being pushed forward by his father who was a bit disappointed with John F. Kennedy's discipline. His father then Ambassador Great Britain and while Khrushchev was the son of poverty the son of peasants. John F. Kennedy was a son of privilege while Khrushchev was illiterate into his twenty's. John F. Kennedy was educated in America's best schools Choat Harvard College. There's nothing in these two men's histories that will give them the ability to understand each other understand each other's motivations understand each other's insecurities or strategies then miscommunication misunderstandings drove one nine hundred sixty one and but these were in many respects built into their contradictory characters and the opposite systems that they represent it. John F. Kennedy enters office determined to be a great president. Like Lincoln and Roosevelt. The problem as he read the history of Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Is a became great presence through war. And there was nothing he worried about more than a nuclear holocaust on his watch because war in the one nine hundred sixty S. meant nuclear conflict. He knows it probably more than any other factor. What will shape his place in history is how he shapes his relationship with Nikita Khrushchev and the Soviet Union in fact he told his speechwriter Ted Sorensen while writing the a nod year old to leave out the mystic issues all together what he told said Ted Sorenson was who gives a shit about the minimum wage. Anyway. But despite harsh anti Soviet an anti Congress rhetoric during his presidential campaign. He was actually to the right of Richard Nixon when it came to anticommunism an anti Soviet rhetoric in that campaign and perhaps that ice the election for him. He enters office not knowing whether he's going to make history through conflict with the Soviet Union. Khrushchev or through greater accommodation with them for his part. And this is my view. Khrushchev is more concerned with personal survival than world domination. Despite the American propaganda at that time he famously broke with Stalin in his his secret twentieth Party Congress speech in one nine hundred fifty six were aside from denouncing Stalin's crimes. He also announces a new foreign policy. Of peaceful coexistence with the West. Not because he loves the West not because he wants the West to triumph but because he knows he can't afford it because he knows he needs to catch up because he knows all the devastation of World War two has left him a terrible legacy that he has to come back from so he's a reformer. If an erratic reformer whose primary focus and during the one nine hundred sixty one is not just the Berlin Wall. Excuse me not the Berlin Wall the time. The hemorrhage of refugees through the open border in Berlin the potential cap. So he's Germany. He's focused my belief is even more on the twenty second party congress in October one thousand nine hundred sixty one. He has ousted his own rivals a party congress says he needs to fix deal with this refugee Prague problem and East Germany in one way or another to help protect him from the rise of Stalinist remnants against him he has domestic politics. If I were to work as a historian if I were to start my wife over his historian one of the things I would look at right now is the influence of domestic politics on foreign policy particularly for authoritarian regimes whether it's today's Iran or whether it's one nine hundred sixty one. Soviet Union. He wants the Soviet Union to survive. He wants East Germany to survive but he really wants to survive himself. So I think that played a large rule. Is this the look of an authoritarian dictator. Here he is on in a great agricultural true or in one thousand nine hundred eighty one where he's going out he's trying to shore up the support of the party organizations throughout the country in the SO in you. So even dictators have. Domestic politics. Let me briefly read from two sections of the book to illustrate how Khrushchev and Kennedy began one thousand nine hundred sixty one. The setting for Khrushchev is New Year's Eve. The backdrop is dramatically worsened. Relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in one nine hundred sixty after the Soviet shooting down of an American U. two spy plane in May which creates the collapse of a Paris summit with Eisenhower in that same may well. Passes for V.I.P.'s and communist Moscow are all gathered with snow falling outside waiting to see how Khrushchev will address Kennedy in his New Year's toast a year earlier in a drunken state. He took a side and bastardly well in Thomson and he said I've got thirty nuclear weapons aimed at France. You better start dealing seriously with in the with me and on top of that I've got another thirty for Britain I've got another thirty for the U.K.. Thompson Thompson's wife goes up to Kennedy at this party at St George's home in the Kremlin and she says you know my husband couldn't make it this year. Case of oldsters others believe he had a case of not wanting in the beginning of the Kennedy administration to be put in such an awkward situation. Yet again. It was just minutes before midnight and the key to Khrushchev had reason to be relieved one nine hundred sixty one was nearly over. He had even greater concern about the year ahead as he surveyed his two thousand new year's guests. Under the towering ceiling of St George's home of the Kremlin. As the storm outside deposited a thick layer of snow on Red Square and the mausoleum containing his embalmed predecessors Lenin and Stalin. Khrushchev recognized that Soviet standing in the world his place in history and more to the point his political survival. Could depend on how he managed his own blizzard of challenges. At home. Khrushchev was suffering his second straight failed harvest just two years earlier and with considerable flourish. He had launched a crash program to overtake us living standards by nine hundred seventy. But he wasn't even meeting his people's basic needs on an inspection tour of the country. He'd seen shortages almost everywhere housing butter meat milk and eggs his advisors were telling him the. Chances of a workers' revolt were growing not unlike the one in Hungary that he had been forced to crush with Soviet tanks in one nine hundred fifty six a broad Khrushchev foreign policy of peaceful coexistence with the West. A controversial break with Stalin's notion of inevitable confrontation had crash landed. When a Soviet rocket brought down an American lucky you two spy plane the previous May a few days later Khrushchev triggered the collapse of the Paris summit with President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wartime allies. After failing to win a public U.S. apology for the intrusion of Soviet airspace. Pointing to the incident as evidence of Khrushchev's leadership failure Stalinist remnants in the Communist Party and China's mouth's a tone where sharpening their knives against the Soviet leader in preparation for the second Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Having used just such gatherings himself to purge adversaries all Khrushchev plans for nine hundred sixty one were designed to head off a catastrophe at that meeting with all bad as backdrop nothing threatened Khrushchev more than that theory rating situation in divided Berlin his critics complain that he was allowing the communist world's most perilous wound to fester. So we come then to the toast. Everyone's drinking throwing back very sweet Russian vodka eating very very good caviar and very dry bread and and people are just waiting for the moment when Khrushchev will show his hand toward Kennedy following the bells welcoming the arrival of one nine hundred sixty one in the lighting of the forty. New year's tree inside St George's Hall Khrushchev raised his glass and offered the toast. That would be taken as doctrinal direction by party leaders and repeated in diplomatic cables around the world. Happy New Year comrades. No matter how good the old year has been the new year will be better still the room exploded in cheers embraces kisses. Khrushchev ritually toasted the working people. The peasants the intellectuals Marxist Leninist concepts and peaceful coexistence among the world's peoples in a concealed this by the way the research the finding out what his toast was. In a conciliatory tone he said we consider the social of the social system to be superior but we never tried to impose it on other states. The whole grew silent as he turned his words to Kennedy. Dear comrades friends gentleman said Khrushchev the Soviet Union makes every effort to have friendly ties with all peoples but I think no one will Reports me if I say that we attach great importance to improving our relationship with the USA because this relationship greatly molds others. We would like to believe that the USA strives for the same outcome. We hope that the new US president will be like a fresh wind blowing away the stay aware between the USA and the U.S.S.R. Khrushchev raised his refill glass to peaceful coexistence among nations Cheers to peaceful to friendship and peaceful coexistence among all peoples thunderous Cheers more embraces. And people he had outed himself stylus remnants are telling him he's being naive Stalinist remnants are telling him not to trust us because the spy plane that shot down. He's saying I'm going to give this one last try. I'm going to risk Kennedy and he believes in Kennedy partly because he helped get Kennedy elected in his view he. He had captured American airmen and the Republican Party through Henry Cabot Lodge to try to intervene to get him to release them during the election. Release that might have thrown a very close election to Vice President Richard Nixon and Khrushchev intentionally did not release the airman and later would tell a Kennedy at the Vienna summit. I helped get you elected. So this is a man who is obsessed with America obsessed with the United States but Khrushchev is a communist in a hurry. And that's the title of my first chapter. The combination of East Germany's perilous state the Soviet Union's bad harvest and economic difficulties and his own leadership challenges with his proceeding and the world communist moment movement make the Berlin situation something requiring Khrushchev's urgent attention by contrast Kennedy. Although he is he is a person who has campaigned on a message of change. Obama's Change We Can Believe In. Still many of the Kennedy atmospherics right down to the Kennedy family endorsement. He's being told by all of his advisor that Spolin status quo is the best he can achieve and it should be protected and defended so he enters negotiations over Berlin's future his advisors are telling him only at his peril. He wants to push Berlin to the back burner while Khrushchev wants to fast forward Berlin. He wants to negotiate a nuclear test ban with Khrushchev to prepare the ground for a larger Berlin agreement. So and that's where we find that's where we find. That's where we find Kennedy. At the beginning of his year. I won't go much into detail in the interest of time and in reading from the book and about Kennedy's last meeting on inauguration eve with Eisenhower. Except to tell you the following. He's focused on Laos. He wants to push Berlin to the side. He's obsessed with the danger of nuclear war and I somehow or so like two boys talking to each other. One of them is the oldest president ever elected the other one's the youngest president ever elected Eisenhower decides to show off a little bit for him he teaches him coach code books for the nuclear football shows in the nuclear football and then picks up a phone and says I want to show you how quickly you can get out of here in a nuclear crisis. He talks on the phone says hot phone on his desk as ople drill three within minutes Marine helicopter has landed on the White House lawn to whisk Kennedy away and and Eisenhower takes takes great pleasure. In this moment and Kennedy is amazed by the powers of the new office that he will inherit. The two other protagonists are Conrad Adenauer. The. The chancellor of West Germany. And Windsor rubric the leader of East Germany history would record that ad now and over it where the founding fathers of two opposing Germany's man who striking differences. Both personal and political will come to define their era. Yet they had great similarities. Two in particular the first is they deeply distrusted the man on whom their futures revolved. And how our thought Kennedy was. Not up to the brutality of the Soviets that his character wasn't sound and that he was naive. He worried that his construct of West Germany was in danger. They felt the same way about Khrushchev Khrushchev had declared a Berlin ultimatum back in one nine hundred fifty eight had never acted on it. Or the BRICS leverage is perversely growing in direct direct proportion to the weakness of his state and he's maneuvering behind the scenes trying to force Khrushchev hand on closing the Berlin border. The second thing that at an hour and chair is is that they both fundamentally distrusted their fellow Germans. Having seen how they were seduced by Hitler. Thus they wanted to embed them in systems that would constrain their worst instincts in the case of Adenauer he wanted West Germany deeply embedded in Western institutions in the case of world worked he wanted to embed Germans within the strict are guardrails of his style in the form of socialism and the Soviet bloc. Konrad Adenauer turned eighty five years old on January fifth one thousand nine hundred sixty one eccentric shrewd dryly humorous an orderly man who had survived all the chaotic stages of Germany's previous century the Imperial right. Germany's first unification the Berlin Republic's chaos. The Third Reich an outpost Germany's post-war Germany's postwar division. He had built a remarkable state on the ashes of Nazi Germany. The average annual growth in the decade leading up to one thousand nine hundred eighty one was six point five percent. The country and this is a truncated Germany don't forget had had reached full employment during a manufacturing boom and and provide and was providing ample jobs was the magnet for all these Eastern refugees it. Become the world's third leading exporter. He was also a man of some curious contradictions here he is on his eighty fifth birthday posing with Snow White and a dwarf orphans who were visiting him on his birthday. He's saying drinking German songs with relish he was a proper Catholic who napped naked every mid day just like Churchill and he was a fierce anti-communist who ran his democracy with authoritarian zeal. He championed Western integration but feared us abandonment every day of his life he loved Germany but feared German nationalism. He had seen most of his contemporaries die or fade from the scene but it age eighty five he was already planning his election campaign his reelection campaign for September balloting were considered crucial that awful socialist Billy Brandt who was posing as the West German Kennedy would be reelected. KENNEDY On the other hand. Made no secret of the fact that he considered Adenauer a relic the shadow of the past he actually wrote that as a senator in foreign affairs and that peace was being passed around by on and among all of that in ours advisors. He believed both Truman and Eisenhower. Or let their room of maneuver with the Soviets in the Goetia actions be constrained by Adenauer so he didn't want to be. Too influenced by an hour. That's from the rubric he enters one thousand nine hundred sixty one worried about the survival of his state though the conventional wisdom of the time was that orbit was Khrushchev's puppet. It was bricked who began to pull the strings in one thousand nine hundred sixty one as his leverage over the Soviet leader grew as I said in direct proportion to the weakness of his country. East German collapse and danger the cohesion viability of the entire. Soviet block. Don't forget it was an outflow of refugees that ended the Berlin Wall in one thousand nine hundred nine and and at age one thousand nine hundred sixty seven. Obrecht was cold a cold introverted. Maybe the only moment he ever did a half smile. A cold introverted workaholic who avoided friendships distance himself from family members pursued his strict style his version of socialism with a relentless focused on the unwavering distrust of others. Small in stature. Crampton demeanor as a Lenin like a beard goatee. He considered Khrushchev to be illogically distant intellectually inferior. And personally weak though the comparative strength of the West German economy was the magnet for Refugees his most immediate threat. Was Khrushchev's unwillingness to act to close the Berlin wall my chapter on liberty is appropriately titled titled The tail wags the bear. The secondary. Characters sprinkled throughout the book give it its check texture. I really think the secondary characters in history are sometimes underestimated Dean Acheson the dapper brilliant secretary of state for Truman is brought back to protect Kennedy's right flank. And at the same time to write the two review policy on NATO and Berlin General Lucius Clay They own the Berlin Airlift makes a return appearance in prompts a showdown of Soviet and U.S. tanks a checkpoint Charlie knocked over. Then Kennedy and Khrushchev conduct a secret back channel conduit between the Soviet military spy Yorkie basher cough and the attorney general the president's brother bought. I also try to capture the spirit of the times through smaller vignettes ranging from the. Miss Universe of nine hundred sixty one crown of Miami Beach an East German refugee a great pot propaganda propaganda coup for the US. There is no doubt that the judges picked her also for propaganda reasons. And to going to let a tailor to West Berlin theatre personalities who becomes the first individual shot while trying to escape Berlin swimming across a canal on the first day of shoot to kill orders that he didn't know about my third reason for writing this book. Though this really when I was well into my seven years of research were new insights into President Kennedy's leadership. During his inaugural year. These have been the most controversial points in the book and I believe they're the most historically important parts of the book. I call nine hundred sixty one one of the worst. Not girl year foreign policy performances of any modern U.S. president. But you don't actually have to take my word for this on September twenty second. After the construction after the Berlin border closure and then the construction the Berlin Wall. Elie able The Detroit News Washington bureau chief walks up to Kennedy who he knows by that time. Well and says a publisher has approached him to write a book on Kennedy's first year in office and Kennedy says to him who would want to read a book about it in ministration that has nothing to show for itself. But a string of disasters. An early chapter of the book entitled Kennedy's first mistake. Try. It's the first hours of Kennedy's presidency when he ignores a number of conciliatory gestures by Khrushchev possibly the best and last chance he had during his presidency to significantly improve relations with the Soviet Union stead focused on new threats he had read into in a stand simply secret speech by Khrushchev shortly ahead of his inauguration which turned out to be little more than a routine routine rhetoric of an address from a Soviet leader to a collection of party idea just him and us wrapping up the findings of a November one thousand nine hundred sixty Party Congress which was constructed to paper over differences between China and the Soviet Union in preparation for the Kennedy administration but Kennedy read this speech as a declaration of escalation of cold war across the developing world aimed specifically at him. He. He would pass it around to this came by the way at a time when Khrushchev had decided to release them and he had help during the campaign to RB forty seven Ehrman on the day after Kennedy's inauguration and for the first time in the history of the Soviet Union. He cleared the publication of the entire and not speech of Kennedy in the Soviet press. Even as Kennedy trumpeted the release of these Arman at his first at his first press conference first televised press common history. He instead. Instead. And here is he greeting the airmen as they came off. He was already focused on the speech he was so fixated on that they would read loudly and frequently from a translated version he carried around with them at cabinet meetings at dinners and in casual conversation. Requesting comments. Afterwards he instructed he instructed all to quote read Mark and learn and inwardly digest Khrushchev's message. The result was a dramatic shift from the brilliant ambiguity of his inaugural address. Toward the Soviets. To an almost APIC apocalyptic tone in his State of the Union address. Only ten days later. Said Kennedy each days the crises each day the crises multiply. Each day. Their solution grows more difficult. Each day we draw nearer to the moment of maximum danger. I feel I must inform the Congress that our analyses over the last ten days. Make it clear in each of the principal areas of the crisis the tide of events has been running out and time has not been our friend. Amazing how much a young president can learn in ten days without yet a meeting of his top Soviet advisors. In my view there is nothing more dangerous for the United States. Then the A not Euro year of an inexperienced president particularly when it involves the transition from one party to another during a time of international ferment. The presidency of the United States is one of the few jobs of this magnitude that require little previous experience. Kennedy made an amateurish mistake his dramatic change of tone accompanied by other measures such as the first testing of an American minimum missile prompted Khrushchev to back off from his early gestures and his eagerness to meet with Kennedy. By the time Kennedy finally met with the Soviet brain trust trust in mid February. And issued an invitation to Khrushchev for a summit meeting the Soviet leader was no longer interested he wouldn't even receive the ambassador with the letter that can't be written it took the ambassador a couple of weeks to chase him down in Siberia where he reluctantly received them at the letter and would not accept at that point the invitation to make. Kennedy's missteps continued as the narrative one nine hundred sixty one disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion the failed summit talks and ultimately the Berlin border closure of August. All of which are closely tracked in the book. These are and then followed by the October showdown of Soviet US tanks a checkpoint Charlie what's important about these events is not what I think or what you think or even necessarily what historians think but what Khrushchev thought at the time and how this influenced Soviet decision making. Khrushchev had intice a pay to some action in Cuba but he had not anticipated as he said the incompetence and execution. In his first major foreign policy test the US president had lived down to Khrushchev slowest expectations. He had demonstrated weakness under fire and Khrushchev few he had lacked the backbone to cancel the and I seen how our plan to back an invasion of Cuba by exiles. Who were and he had lacked the result to provide the resources that would have brought it to a successful conclusion. Khrushchev said to his son Sergey I don't understand Kennedy ten he really be that indecisive. Best of all for Khrushchev even as Kennedy was failing. Cuba. He was putting the first man in space. Yuri Gagarin think of this in the news first manned space. Cuban crisis suddenly. Khrushchev domestic political situation has dramatically improved and. It is then that he accept the invitation to a Vienna summit which will take six take place six weeks after the Bay of Pigs. By his own account to New York Times columnist James Reston just minutes after the two day summit had ended Kennedy concluded that he had dangerously failed and that might prompt Khrushchev to test him further in Berlin and elsewhere. Kennedy's advisors had warned him not to be drawn into an ideological struggle with with Khrushchev but the first day of the summit was absorbed by almost entirely by that Khrushchev controlled the field as a soccer team would taking up most of the time with his own arguments on day two Kennedy thought he had a pre-summit agreement negotiated through his through the Soviet spy and his brother Bobby the Berlin would not play such a large role instead. Khrushchev delivers him a threatening ultimatum a war threatening ultimatum and an aide memoire he ambushed Kennedy on Berlin. So let me read you just very briefly how how Kennedy describes his experiences to Scotty Reston. Kennedy were a hat pulled low on his forehead as he sank into the sofa. It would be one of the most candid sessions ever between a reporter and a commander in chief. Having an exclusive from Kennedy on the Vienna some one with one thousand five hundred other reporters out jockeying for access was a coup of some significance for Reston in the new T.V. age he so despised it would be made all the more meaningful by what Kennedy would tell him in a darkened room buying clothes blinds. So as to conceal their meeting from other reporters. How was it. Asked Reston. Worst thing in my life said Kennedy he savaged me rest and jotted in his notebook not the usual bullshit. This is a look of a man when he has to tell the truth. Kennedy deep in the sofa next to rest and crew. Said Khrushchev had violently attacked him on American imperialism and that he turned particularly aggressive on Berlin. I've got two problems he told Reston first to figure out why he did it and in such a hostile way. And second to figure out what we can do about it. Rest and rightly concluded his New York Times report which carefully protected the confidentiality of the Kennedy meeting that the president was astonished by the rigidity in the toughness of the Soviet leader. He called the meeting acrimonious and rightly said that Kennedy left Vienna pessimistic on issues across the board in particular the president definitely got the impression that the German question was going to be a very new thing very near thing. Kennedy told Reston that because of the Bay of Pigs. Khrushchev quote thought that anyone who was so young and inexperienced as to get us into that mess could be taken and anyone who got us got into it and didn't see it through had no guts. So he just beat the hell out of me. I've got a terrible problem and then on the flight to London. He pulls aside his closest friend in the administration Kenny O'Donnell and ate of his and then you get a feeling of how he really feels about Berlin and Germany for him. It's just not as important as it was for Truman and Eisenhower he's got he's got other concerns and their war. Kennedy had started as president determined to put Berlin on the back burner. Yet now it threatened to blow up in his face he was overwhelmed by the fear that the matter of preserving certain West German and allied rights and more blood in West Berlin could start a nuclear war. I want to start from stupidity Kennedy said Jordaan. God knows I'm not in isolation is but it seems to seems particularly stupid to risk killing a million Americans over an argument about access rights on an autobahn in the Soviet zone of Germany or because Germans want Germany reunified. If I'm going to treat Russia with a nuclear war it will have to be for much bigger and more him for fourteen reasons and that before I back Khrushchev against a wall and put him to a final test the freedom of all Western Europe will have to be at stake real insight into a President who is now back on his back feet and doesn't like where he's been put through his mistakes weaknesses and misunderstandings during his first months in office and especially in Vienna Kennedy essentially writes the script essentially writes the script for the construction of the Berlin wall during the Vienna meeting Kennedy made clear to Khrushchev that if he didn't touch access to West Berlin. If he didn't touch the West. The freedom of West Berlin he could do whatever he really wanted to do with East Berlin and East Germany. That was a new message other presidents had kept the Soviets guessing about how they might respond to action and the entire wall by the way was built within East German East Berlin territory. I'm convinced that Khrushchev would not have authorized the construction of the Berlin Wall in August of one thousand nine hundred sixty one. Despite urging despite all the problems facing him if Kennedy had left more questions open in his mind he was not that big of a risk taker and Kennedy was removing In many respects the risk for him believing that if Khrushchev could solve his problems in Berlin. If he could stop the refugee outflow he might become a more amiable negotiating partner on nuclear issues. Khrushchev there. For on August thirteenth then or brick to a carried out the building of the Berlin Wall the closure of the border could be relatively certain the Kennedy would not react as long as he limited his actions to East Berlin and East Germany which is precisely what he did Kennedy worst at best. I'm sorry Kennedy at best acquiesced to the Berlin border closure of Aug thirteenth and the beginning it was a border closure was in a wall looked more like this. It was only really forty eight hours afterwards that this became reinforced after Americans were reacting and was really only ten days later the that the actual construction of the first version of the wall started rising. Kennedy was mistakenly believed mistakenly that Khrushchev would become a more willing to go shooting partner. And and in the end. I don't think although this is a historians argument. He made the world less dangerous. I think that this led directly to the to the missile crisis the Cuban missile crisis in October one thousand nine hundred sixty two more than a year later were Khrushchev through his reading of Kennedy through one nine hundred sixty one had become convinced that he could place nuclear weapons for the first time within reach of American shores without Kennedy's Kennedy responding to them. Sifting through the mountain of documents I read through the times. I found. It was also the first evening they actually measured how many soldiers one need per square metre one square meter as they shut down the border area. Sifting through the mounds of documents I read from the times I found one that I thought was particularly revealing about Kennedy's attitude toward Berlin and it was written. Shortly after the construction of the wall in October of one nine hundred sixty one when American Soviet tanks faced off at Checkpoint Charlie the issue was an arcane one whether or not the US would seed for power writes up to the Allied personnel to pass through the border in their license vehicles without showing their identity cards but what stood behind it was whether the three allies the British French and Americans would continue to accept the erosion of their rights and Berlin. One mistake one nervous soldier. One overzealous commander and the trip wire could have been sprung for a war that could have gone nuclear in a heartbeat. General Lucius Clay had returned to Berlin after the border closure as a present special representative. Received. Sorry received a cable from Secretary of State Dean Rusk that explained the administration's thinking and telling him to back off. This cable is one of the new cables I found and I think it was really telling. Even as the Soviets were escalating their tank presence clay received new instructions from Washington retired retreat. Russ was warning clay off the aggressive course Rusk him self that endorser just three days earlier. Faye KOHLER The lead man at the State Department handling the Checkpoint Charlie showdown. Had attached a note to rusks table that was intended to give its clay that any appeal to Kennedy who wants his direct report would be a waste of time. It read approved by Roscoe after consideration by the president. Clay had seen plenty of political mushing us from Washington over the years but nothing topped the message that followed. In the nature of things rest groat we had long since decided that entry into Berlin is not a vital interest which would warrant the term and recourse to force to protect and sustain. Having For this reason acquiesced in the building of the wall. We must recognize frankly among ourselves that we thus went a long way in accepting the fact that the Soviets could the Soviets could in the case of East Berlin as they have done previously. In other areas under their effective physical control isolate their unwilling subjects rusks message was unmistakable. Clay should view Kennedy's lack of resistance to the border closure as a de facto acceptance of the Soviets could do whatever they wished on territory they currently controlled. Rest said US allies would not support stronger measures especially on the issue of showing credentials where the British had already caved. Finally some say the Berlin border closure of August thirteenth. Followed by the construction of the Berlin wall made the world a safer place and averted World War three And for that reason. President Kennedy deserves praise for his vision. But you have to go back to what Kennedy was thinking at the time he couldn't have known the ball was going to fall twenty eight years later. And for his own reasons was was willing to accept the status quo were worried about the expansion of Soviet communism at that time throughout the developing world than he was in any hope that it could be rolled back. That's not bad. It's not good. It's just factual. If Khrushchev had not perceived Kennedy as so weak the Cuban crisis of one thousand nine hundred sixty two more than likely would not have happened. He convince Khrushchev that he would not react to the deployment of weapons. The following year. Khrushchev in the book actually tells his son Sergei Kennedy will huff and puff you'll huff and puff. But once the weapons are in Hill. He'll acquiesce and he'll accept them. We'll never know because of course they caught the weapons before they went down and then we have a different Kennedy. There's an evolution of Kennedy and I think there's Kennedy two point zero starting with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the weeks leading up to it where he sees he's being betrayed by Khrushchev he's getting nowhere in his efforts to get nuclear tests and talks he understands that he's got to take a tougher approach. So we see from sixty two on a stronger new more confident Kennedy in dealing with the Soviet Union. This was the Kennedy who in one thousand nine hundred sixty three spoke to cheering Berlin crowds the words that every German knows to this day. It's been one billion. But he only probably became Berliner that day while writing through the streets surrounded by cheering through wrongs. Now short language lesson he actually talked to convert Adenauer as translator talked his own translator and said look I'm changing my speech I'm writing and all of these lines in the speech. This is what I want to say and they argued should he say it's been bad enough. Which is the grammatically correct way to say I'm a Berliner actually means I've been born in Berlin or it's been I know Leanna which technically does mean I'm a jelly donut there's a jelly donut called Berliner there was a language discussion and they decided not to say it's been Bellina which could lead the crowd to misunderstand him saying that he was born in Berlin and the linguist told him to insert the article so it was it's been I'm Bellinger which would stress that he's one of that. He did that intentionally it's grammatically correct tell all your friends he didn't make a mistake and in any case the crowd had no doubt what. It was a remarkable speech. One of Kennedy's that. Just yet. The best lines were written while he was travelling through town. And here you just get a little bit of the sense of the crowd that gathered. Said Kennedy there are many people in the world who really don't understand or say they don't. What is the real issue between the free world and the communist world. Let them come to Berlin and then there was always a hesitation because this was not simultaneous translation the translator would then say in German. So there were two rounds of applause all the time. 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 that we can work with the communists let them come to Berlin all free men wherever they may may live are citizens of Berlin and therefore as a free man. I take pride in the words. That's the Kennedy Berliners love and remember that's the Kennedy that's recorded in history books in his introduction to my book General Brant Scowcroft rightly says History doesn't reveal its alternatives. We'll never know for sure what might have been if Kennedy had been more resolute in one thousand nine hundred sixty one. If he had been who he was in one thousand nine hundred sixty three on one already in one thousand nine hundred sixty one will never know whether war might have been the result. One earlier and to the cold war. But we do know what did follow the Cuban Missile Crisis of one thousand nine hundred sixty two and twenty eight more years of Berlin Wall. Ultimately the story would end well. But only because in Cuba Kennedy would reverse the Polish course he said the previous year in Berlin what Kennedy could not on do was the wall that had risen as he passively stood by which for three decades and perhaps for all of history. Would remain as the iconic image of what under free systems can impose when freed when free systems failed. To resist. So thanks for your attention and I hope there's still some time for a few questions. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Professor. You said that there were we. That. Khrushchev had said that he did not wish to and through impose a Soviet government. I'm from India and basically viewer I'm a part of the Nonaligned Movement and visit and in that movement we improve ties with the U.S.S.R. as well as the Western countries. Do you believe that the Nonaligned Movement in any We either did or are hampered dies between the Soviet and the US. The Nonaligned Movement was not particularly not aligned as you know. And and most of the members not only one moment had very close ties with the Soviet Union other historians in this room might have a better. And more informed view of of how the Soviet Union man. It's links with the Nonaligned Movement. But the Soviet Union was relatively pragmatic and in my study of that those relationships. There was an effort to encourage. Communism in communist parties where there was the basis for them. The Soviet Union song felt that they could work with. In the beginning. You know even feel Castro was not very convinced. Communists and and in fact Khrushchev during that time. Actually let Kennedy about how he was really responsible for turning Castro into into a communist. So I think I think the During that period of time the Soviet Union would bring a lot of students from the nonaligned to protect Patrice Lumumba University was one of the most popular universities for students from the developing world and it really tried to work through the grassroots with with with countries at a relatively nuanced and and relatively sophisticated approach. I think we were in the sense that the system didn't really work. And so I mean if you see India now and ask about its time in the Nonaligned Movement and its leadership at that time. You really wonder how many years. India held itself back. Seeing how what exciting economic technological global leadership developments are taking place in India so. So I think. I think Khrushchev you know the resources were limited and and and they worked with what resources they had well where and. They focused on what was most most crucial to them and I mean even even if you see one when push came to shove in Cuba. Khrushchev backed off. We'll never know whether the same would have been the case in Berlin and I think probably in one nine hundred sixty sixty one. If things had come to war. I think the Soviets would have would have defended Berlin because it was just too crucial they lost too many people World War two was too crucial to their future but I think is as I've been arguing this around the country. It didn't have to come to war. Some people misinterpret my my arguments that I'm saying that Kennedy should have on August thirteenth declared war to stop the building of the wall. I think the place where the wall really got the green light was in Vienna and that's read these are really diplomatic messages and the To and fro of most of the Cold War was this kind of dance and I think at that point very clear message with Khrushchev responded to that. Yeah I do feel that strongly you know he's afterwards I'd rather have a wall and I was his justification. He had quite a bit of sympathy at Khrushchev because he could see that Chris couldn't accept the implosion East Germany and so what I really what I look for heart long and she look at the period after August. There are no sanctions the rhetoric's relatively mild. CONRAD. Adenauer. After some really harsh initial words kind of backs down Kennedy almost immediately launches into an effort to promote more negotiations and talks with clear weaponry a nuclear test ban reaches out to them even in his next UN speech at an hour enormously that he reached out that quickly though McMillan the prime minister of England was much more at this point on Kennedy's. So I looked for the documents. There's a lot of documents have been released there there's still a lot Bob a Kennedy never wrote up the conclusions of his meetings with the Soviet spy bullshit off even though they met two or three times a month by Bobby Kennedy's own account. So there's a lot still to answer and I couldn't find the smoking document where you actually saw Kennedy say go ahead and build the wall that doesn't seem to be there at least I couldn't find it but if you look at how confidently Khrushchev went ahead over it went ahead and you look at how little response Kennedy has and and his conversations you'll see in the book with Walt Rostow and others ahead of it. He's expecting it. He doesn't want to take action against it. He's very clear that he's have the right to do whatever they want to inside their own territory and that's what I meant by writing the script that was the script they followed. They kept in their own territory. Even on the night that the border was closed. They allowed Western diplomats to go through openings in the border. So they never impeded Western access to East Berlin even on the night that the border was being closed so they were very they were very careful to either intentionally or subconsciously play by all of Kennedy's rules and I think it was more intentional than subconscious.