Ep 90: Soviet Union (Part 1)

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Emerging in the aftermath of World War II, the Cold War was a decades-long geopolitical rivalry

between the United States and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies.

The Cold War pitted the capitalist nations of the Western world against the communist states

aligned with Moscow and shaped global politics until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Despite the intensity of the conflict, and as you will see,

partially thanks to the cool-headed performance of President John F. Kennedy,

the two superpowers never fought each other directly, although there were many close calls.

Instead, the struggle played out through proxy wars, intelligence operations,

political influence campaigns, and a relentless competition for military,

technological, and ideological supremacy. Then, at the height of the Cold War, only about a year

after the Americans and Soviets were teetering on the brink of nuclear annihilation,

President Kennedy was assassinated. Given that the USSR was the chief geopolitical rival of the

United States, it follows that in order to have a comprehensive review of the JFK assassination,

we need to put the Russians under the microscope. When we look at Lee Harvey Oswald's time in

the Soviet Union, his correspondence with the Soviet embassy once he was back in the states,

and most importantly, his alleged trip to Mexico City, Oswald can be seen as either a potential

Soviet actor or someone who was made to look that way. The plot thickens even further when we

consider President Johnson's documented statements to several Warren commissioners about, quote,

a little incident in Mexico City, which referenced Oswald's alleged meeting with KGB

Assassinations agent Valerie Kostakov. We'll get to all of that in this series, but first we have

to lay the groundwork by looking at the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union,

and more specifically between President Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.

In this episode, we review Kennedy's relationship with Khrushchev up to the Cuban

Missile Crisis with a focus on Vienna, Berlin, and Kennedy's off-the-books

back channel of communication to Khrushchev, Georgi Bolshekov, coming up next on Solving JFK.

In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.

The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.

The flash apparently official President Kennedy died at 1 p.m.

This is Solving JFK. I'm your host, Matt Krumpton.

The question of whether President Kennedy was a Cold War hawk is still debated today.

Those who argue that elements of the military industrial complex, or the CIA,

killed Kennedy, also tend to assert that the reason why was because he was a Cold War dove

who was working against the interests of the establishment.

Official story defenders, or people who think some other non-military industrial complex reason

is why Kennedy died, often rebut this argument about how much Kennedy loved peace

by siding to Kennedy's run of the mill, Cold War hawk positions.

It turns out that there's some truth to be found on both sides of that debate.

In August of 1958, Senator John Kennedy gave a speech from the Senate floor,

emphasizing his concerns about the so-called missile gap between the United States and the

Soviet Union. Kennedy said that ever since the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan during World

War II, American nuclear power had been the foundation of American defense and was the ultimate

deterrent to Soviet attack. Since then, the Soviets had built up a similar nuclear striking power.

In his Senate speech, Kennedy said, quote,

we are rapidly approaching that dangerous period, which General Gavin and others have called the

gap, or the missile lag period. A period in which our own offensive and defensive missile

capabilities will lag so far behind those of the Soviets as to place us in a position

of great peril. Kennedy then highlighted that the Soviets could take out 85 percent of American

industry and 43 of the 50 largest cities. In retrospect, we now know that there was no missile gap.

America was winning and it wasn't close. However, the Gator Committee of President Eisenhower's

National Security Council determined in 1957 that the US was behind the Soviets in ballistic

missiles. Senator Kennedy, who was preparing to make a run for President in 1960, saw the missile

gap as a winning issue. He based his position on the Gator Committee report and also the refusal

of President Eisenhower to provide any evidence from you two spy planes that would confirm that there

was no missile gap. According to historian Robert Dalek, the reason Eisenhower didn't share

any evidence with Kennedy is that Eisenhower thought Kennedy was going to lose the presidential

election anyway. At the end of the day, Eisenhower was wrong about JFK. He was elected president.

And on January 25, 1961, during President Kennedy's first ever press conference, he announced the

release of two American pilots who had been in Soviet custody since 1960. The apparent Soviet good will

continued with Premier Khrushchev's announcement that, quote, step by step, it will be possible to

remove existing suspicion and distrust and cultivate seeds of friendship and practical cooperation.

Kennedy responded that he was ready, quote, to cooperate with all who are prepared to join

in genuine dedication to the assurance of a peaceful and more fruitful life for all mankind.

While the two leaders got off to a good start, the honeymoon would be short-lived. In mid-April of

1961, the Kennedy administration authorized the CIA's plan to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs,

a failed operation that significantly heightened tensions between the United States and Soviet Union

and shaped Premier Khrushchev's early perception of President Kennedy. We'll cover the Bay of Pigs

invasion in depth when we get to Cuba. After the Bay of Pigs, Khrushchev noted in a letter to Kennedy

quote, it is a secret to no one that the armed bans invading Cuba were trained,

equipped, and armed in the United States of America. He then promised to give Cuba, quote,

all necessary help to repel armed attack. He also warned that, quote,

conflagration in one region could endanger settlements elsewhere, which was a veiled reference

to the predicament in Berlin. This back-and-forth led to an exchange of letters between the two leaders

with Kennedy defending the Bay of Pigs invasion and telling Khrushchev that the worldwide communist

revolution was not inevitable, and Khrushchev, responding with a 15-page letter,

restating everything he already said. Kennedy didn't respond to that letter,

but he did take Khrushchev up on his offer to meet in person in Vienna in June.

With the escalating possibility of nuclear war in mind, President Kennedy was looking

for a way to have informal back-channel communications with Premier Khrushchev.

The man who would serve that role was Khrushchev's secret GRU military intelligence agent in Washington,

who worked undercover as a journalist at the Soviet embassy, Georgi Bolshekov.

On May 9, 1961, Attorney General Robert Kennedy met with Bolshekov on a park bench in the national

mall. During this meeting, according to Bolshekov, Bobby Kennedy told him, quote,

the president believes that strained relations between our two countries come chiefly from

misunderstandings and misinterpretations of one another's intentions and actions.

My brother's mistake is he hasn't removed dullest,

lemnitzer, and others right away. These men make outdated recommendations and

suggestions which are out of keeping with the president's new course. My brother has been

compelled to go by their mistake and judgments in decision-making. Cuba has changed all our foreign

policy concepts. For us, the events in the Bay of Pigs are not a flop, but the best lesson we have

ever learned, so we are no longer going to repeat our past mistakes. The Attorney General then told

Bolshekov that he feared for his brother's life because he was surrounded by people in the American

government who insisted upon a militant stand against the Soviets. RFK told Bolshekov, quote,

they can put him away any moment. Therefore, he must tread carefully in certain matters and never

push his way through. In other words, the American Attorney General and the president's brother

was telling a Russian GRU agent that the president could not trust his own military or CIA.

After their meeting, Bobby Kennedy told Bolshekov that he would meet with him every couple of weeks.

This commitment from the Attorney General was especially risky given that various government agents

trailed Bolshekov everywhere he went. Starting in September of 1961, Bolshekov would personally

deliver messages directly from Khrushchev to President Kennedy through either Bobby Kennedy or

press secretary Pierre Salinger. As author James Douglas noted, the agency's monitoring Bolshekov's

exchanges were alarmed that the new president was cutting them out of the loop and resolving issues

without their permission. RFK and Bolshekov would become close with Bolshekov regularly visiting

RFK's home Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia. The Attorney General even tried to invite Bolshekov to

a party of government officials on board the presidential yacht, the Sequoia, but CIA director John

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at checkout to save 20% off your first order. As President Kennedy prepared for his face-to-face

meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna, he knew there were several geopolitical hot spots. First,

of course, there was Cuba, which would be a clear topic of discussion due to the recent

disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. There were also the issues of Laos and Thailand where the Americans

and Soviets had troops. Then there was the Soviet assistance of Patrice Lamumba's followers in

the Congo after Lamumba was assassinated. President Kennedy sent Vice President Johnson to Senegal

to combat the Soviet presence in Africa. The Senegalese must have been very impressed with the

lighters they received from Johnson on behalf of the United States that were engraved simply with

the letters LBJ. Aside from Cuba, the biggest hot spot was Berlin. After World War II, Germany was

divided into French, British, and American zones which made up West Germany and a Soviet occupied

area that was East Germany. Berlin was 110 miles into Soviet East Germany making West Berlin a

capitalist island in the communist East German nation. Berlin itself was also divided into four

corresponding parts, the West for the British, French, and Americans, and the East for the USSR.

By 1961, an increasing amount of East Germans were fleeing to the West through Berlin,

which was an embarrassment to the Soviets. Khrushchev's problem wasn't just the exodus of skilled

professionals seeking a better life in the West. He also faced the issue of West Berliners

crossing over to the East to take advantage of the communal and cheap services offered there

because there was no barrier between East and West Berlin. Professor John Newman frames the

strategies of the Cold War combatants this way. The Soviet plan was to draw the Americans into

conflicts in Laos, Cuba, the Congo, and elsewhere so that the Soviets could have a better chance of

taking Berlin. Also, Germany was the birthplace of Karl Marx, so it was a matter of personal pride

for Khrushchev to make all of Germany communist, not just East Germany. Kennedy, for his part,

understood that the price of invading Cuba was potentially losing West Berlin.

As the June 3rd meeting between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev and Vienna approached,

Soviet officials asked Khrushchev to confirm that the customary exchanging of gifts was approved.

In this case, 12 cans of black caviar and Russian vinyl records. Khrushchev gave his approval

foreshadowing the tone of the coming meeting, saying, quote,

one can exchange presents even before a war. At the US Embassy in Vienna, during his first

in-person meeting with President Kennedy, the Soviet Premier came in looking for a fight.

He began by extoling the virtues of communism and talking about how the American Empire exploits

people. Even when Kennedy tried to compliment the growth of the Soviet economy, Khrushchev ignored

his attempt to find common ground. At lunch, Kennedy saw two medals on Khrushchev's jacket and

asked what they were. When Khrushchev responded that they were peace prizes, JFK said, quote,

I hope you get to keep them. The first sign of Khrushchev opening up was when he was talking to

first lady Jackie Kennedy at dinner that night. In response to Khrushchev telling her about the

number of teachers per capita in Ukraine, Jackie said, quote, oh Mr. Chairman, don't bore me with

statistics. Khrushchev thought this was hilarious and for a moment seemed to let down his guard.

The next day, the men got down to the business they traveled to Austria to discuss. Kennedy

acknowledged making a quote misjudgment with the Bay of Pigs. Khrushchev admonished Kennedy that

all people's revolutions were not communist plots. Then he threatened that if the United States

refused to sign a peace treaty on terms agreeable to the Soviets, he would unilaterally

sign a treaty with East Germany, which would have the practical effect of closing off western

access to Berlin. Kennedy responded, quote, we are in Berlin, not because of someone's

sufferance, we fought our way there. If we accepted the loss of our rights, no one would have any

confidence in US commitments and pledges. Khrushchev responded, quote, no force in the world would

prevent the Soviet Union from signing a peace treaty with East Germany. He added that only a

quote, madman who should be put in a straight jacket would want such a conflict. And that quote,

it is up to the US to decide whether there will be war or peace, to which Kennedy responded,

quote, then Mr. Chairman, there will be war. It will be a cold winter.

One bright spot from the President's trip to Austria was Khrushchev's agreement to begin using

unofficial communication channels to bypass formalities going forward. The relationship between

Bobby Kennedy and Georgi Bolshekov was already there. President Kennedy and Khrushchev just needed to

use it. Immediately after Vienna, the hostilities between the Americans and Soviets ticked up to a

new level. In July of 1961, Newsweek reported that plans were being made to remove American civilians

from West Germany and France and to bring in American nuclear weapons. In response,

Khrushchev canceled his plans to reduce Soviet forces by more than a million men,

and instead increased the Soviet defense budget by a third. President Kennedy then called for more

military funding and increased the size of the army by 125,000 soldiers. On July 25, 1961,

not long after he sat face-to-face with Khrushchev, President Kennedy gave a speech to Americans on

radio and television about the crisis in Berlin. We cannot and will not permit the communists to drive

us out of Berlin, either gradually or by force. For if the fulfillment of our pledge to that city,

the fulfillment of our pledge to that city is essential. Through the morale and security of West

Germany, through the unity of West the entire free world, Soviet strategy has long been aimed,

not merely at Berlin, but at dividing and neutralizing all of Europe, forcing us back on our own

shores. We must meet our often stated pledge to the free peoples of West Berlin and maintain our

rights and their safety, even in the face of force, in order to maintain the confidence of other

free peoples in our word and our resolve, the strength of the alliance on which our security

depends is dependent in turn on our willingness to meet our commitments to them.

On August 13, about two weeks after Kennedy gave that speech laying out the American policy towards

Berlin, the East Germans put up security barriers to block access from East to West Berlin.

Under the cover of darkness, police and army units began laying concertina wire and putting up

barricades. 32,000 combat and engineer troops were brought in to begin building the Berlin wall

while the Soviet army stood watch. On August 19, Kennedy sent Vice President Johnson to Berlin

where he rode in a motorcade with hundreds of thousands of spectators lining the roads and gave a

speech to a massive crowd in an effort to let West Berliners know that the United States had their

backs. I have come across the ocean to Berlin by direction of the president of the United States

John F Kennedy. He wants you to know and I want you to know and the United States wants you to know

that the pledge he has given to the freedom of West Berlin and to the rights of Western access

to Berlin is firm. In September, President Kennedy's personal representative in West Berlin

retired General Lucius Clay began secret preparations to tear down the new Berlin wall.

Unbeknownst to President Kennedy, General Clay ordered that a duplicate of the wall be built in

a forest so that American tanks with bulldozer attachments could practice knocking the wall down.

Another general Bruce Clark found out about Clay's plan to knock down the Berlin wall and told him

it was against President Kennedy's policy which held General Clay at bay for a while.

As General Clay was preparing to escalate Cold War tensions behind Kennedy's back,

the president was trying to calm things down. On September 25, JFK gave his famous

sword of democlease speech to the United Nations. While he blamed Moscow for causing the Berlin

crisis, he also said that he challenged the Soviets to a peace race and not an arms race.

This struck a much more friendly cord in Moscow than his July speech about Berlin.

A few days after Kennedy's UN speech, Khrushchev sent a 26-page letter to the president via

Soviet press spokesman Mikhail Karmelov to press secretary Pierre Salinger. The Soviet premier

praised Kennedy and said that he, quote, pre-possessed people with his informality,

modesty, and frankness, which are not to be found very often in men who occupy such a high

position. Khrushchev highlighted the importance of back-channel communications, saying, quote,

only in confidential correspondence can you say what you think without a backwards glance at the

press. This was the first time since Vienna that Khrushchev had said anything nice to Kennedy,

which he was able to do because of the private nature of the communications. But many Americans

were not impressed by Kennedy's deliberative approach to the Soviets. After his UN speech,

Kennedy was accused by a Texas journalist of heading an administration of, quote,

weak sisters at a White House luncheon. The journalist Ted Deely, the publisher of the Dallas

Morning News, said that America needed a, quote, man on horseback, and that many people in Texas and

the Southwest think you are riding Caroline's tricycle. The president responded, quote,

wars are easier to talk about than they are to fight. I'm just as tough as you are and I didn't

get elected president by arriving at soft judgments. Ted Deely, the man who was being so rude to Kennedy

at the White House, was the son of George Deely, for whom Dallas's Deely Plaza was named in 1934.

In October of 1961, amid concerns that General Clay was preparing to bulldoze the Berlin Wall,

the Soviets sent troops and 33 tanks into the city limits of East Berlin. On October 27,

the Americans responded by moving 10 tanks all the way to the center of the Berlin Wall,

known as checkpoint Charlie. The American tanks, led by General Clay, came in ready to knock the

wall down with bulldozer attachments engaged. This escalation led to the armies of the United States

and the Soviet Union being faced to face at point blank range, less than 100 yards away,

and ready to fire for the first time ever during the Cold War. The 10th standoff lasted for 16

hours. During that time, four American nuclear submarines were on standby in the North Sea,

each with 16 warheads ready to be deployed. The potentially apocalyptic showdown at checkpoint

Charlie was brought to an end by using the communication back channel that Bobby Kennedy had been

working to develop. Georgie Bolshekov, RFK later said, quote,

I got in touch with Bolshekov and said the president would like them to take their tanks out of

there in 24 hours. He said he'd speak to Khrushchev and they took their tanks out in 24 hours.

Sure enough, within 20 minutes of the Soviets removing their tanks, the American tanks

responded in kind and also retreated from the Berlin Wall. On November 9, Khrushchev sent Kennedy

another long letter about Soviet American differences over Germany. Days earlier,

Khrushchev told reporters, quote, for the time being, it was not good for Russia and the United

States to push each other. After getting through Vienna and checkpoint Charlie,

the two leaders began to build a rapport, but the easing of tensions wouldn't last long,

and the resolve and judgment of President Kennedy would once again be tested to the extreme

about a year later during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Next time on Solving JFK,

we continue to explore the relationship between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev

and the shared steps that both leaders took towards slowing down global nuclear proliferation.

If you heard anything that you believe is out of context or if you have additional

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provide citations to the record for any fact that you're relying on. For transcripts, sources,

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