FOR EISENHOWER, 1960 turned out to be a bad year, almost the worst of his Presidency. He made a series of mistakes, particularly in his dealings with Khrushchev and Castro, mistakes brought on by his own fetish for secrecy and his misplaced trust in the CIA. He had hoped to leave office in an atmosphere of budding trust between the superpowers, with the Communist threat turned back in Latin America, Berlin secure, and disarmament under way. These were, however, inherently contradictory aims, which was one overriding reason for the lack of success. On the one hand, Eisenhower was trying to inspire Khrushchev, and the American people, with his vision of peaceful coexistence; on the other hand, he was willing to do almost anything to get rid of Castro. His readiness to take major risks in pursuit of disarmament were counterbalanced by his unwillingness to risk working toward a new relationship with Castro and Cuba specifically or Latin-American radicalism generally.
Forces beyond Eisenhower’s control were a factor in the failures of 1960. While he tried to concentrate on peace, his fellow politicians concentrated on the presidential election. It was characteristic of such elections, in the era of the Cold War, for each side to try to outdo the other in promising to get tough with the Communists (Eisenhower himself had used that theme against the Democrats in 1952). Getting tough meant, primarily, spending more money on arms; to Eisenhower’s disgust, both candidates promised to do just that. The press was far more ready to see dangers in peaceful coexistence than it was to envision hope. Powerful men, in such bureaucracies as the CIA, the AEC, the JCS, and the DOD, and their suppliers in the defense industry, were firmly opposed to any outbreak of peace, and together they helped to sabotage Eisenhower’s vision. Despite Eisenhower’s efforts, the Cold War by the end of 1960 was more dangerous, more tension-packed, than it had been at the beginning of the year.
• •
By January of 1960, Eisenhower and his advisers were determined to do something about Cuba. Castro’s verbal abuse against the United States was reaching new levels, as was his confiscation of American-owned property. There were, however, many problems in dealing with Castro. He was far more politically astute and adroit than Arbenz in Guatemala had been. His anti-American diatribes were based on a Latin, not a Communist, critique of Uncle Sam, and he had managed to convince millions of Latins that any attempt by Washington to link him with the Communists was simply the old Yankee trick of accusing all Latin-American reformers of being Communists. He was widely popular among the Latin masses, and retained a certain popularity even among liberals in the United States, who were arguing that the United States ought to try cooperation instead of confrontation with the new Cuban government. Privately, the rulers of Latin America were telling Eisenhower that they hoped the United States could get rid of Castro, one way or another, but neither individually nor collectively, through the OAS, would they speak out against Castro.
The OAS had long since committed itself (in the Caracas Declaration of 1954) to opposition to Communist intrusion in the New World. The problem was proving that Castro was a Communist. As Secretary of State Herter put it in one of his numerous memoranda to Eisenhower outlining his attempts to get an OAS condemnation of Castro, “Successful presentation of the problem of Cuba to the OAS calls for the careful documentation of a ‘case’ on the Communist issue.” The disgusted President wrote by hand in the margin, “This has been almost a zero!”1
The reason the Administration could not prove to the OAS that Castro was a Communist was that it could not prove it to itself. The ambassador to Cuba told Eisenhower that he personally did not think Cuba was a Communist dictatorship, and he expected that Castro’s foreign policy would be to seek neutrality in the Cold War.2 Herter reported in March 1960 that “our own latest National Intelligence Estimate [prepared by the CIA] does not find Cuba to be under Communist control or domination . . .” Herter added that because of uncertainty about the direction in which Castro was moving, the anti-Castro refugees in Florida were unable to unite in their opposition. Some wanted to bring back Batista, others only wanted to be rid of Fidel, none were willing to cooperate to create a government-in-exile. Herter warned against any action to drive Castro from Cuba until a responsible Cuban opposition leadership was ready to take over, because otherwise Cuba might end up with someone worse than Castro.
A further problem was that although Cuba and Latin America were important to American foreign policy, they were not that important. Thus Herter told Eisenhower that in attempting to enlist the OAS in an anti-Castro move, he should first of all make certain that “our efforts to enlist Latin-American support will not generate excessive pressures on us to undertake a significantly expanded and more dramatic economic assistance program for Latin America . . .” In short, while the Eisenhower Administration wanted to drive Castro from office, it was not ready to spend money to do it.3
In addition to all those difficulties, Herter continually warned Eisenhower that the OAS would support no move against Castro until and unless the United States also moved against Rafael Trujillo, the right-wing dictator of the Dominican Republic. Eisenhower held a number of conferences with Herter to discuss ways of persuading Trujillo to resign, suggesting at one point setting up a trust fund for Trujillo (although Eisenhower refused to offer Trujillo asylum in the United States). But Trujillo refused to step down voluntarily. Herter said that it would not do to push him out, because in that event the Communists might take over the Dominican Republic in the ensuing chaos. He promised to keep working on the diplomatic front against Trujillo.4
At a January 25 meeting, a frustrated and angry President said that “Castro begins to look like a madman.” He indicated that if the OAS would not help remove him, then the United States should go it alone, for example, by imposing a blockade on Cuba. “If the Cuban people are hungry,” Eisenhower declared, “they will throw Castro out.” Calmer heads prevailed, pointing out that the United States should not punish the whole Cuban people for the acts of one madman. Eisenhower admitted that that was true.”5
Eisenhower turned to the CIA for help in solving the Castro problem. The Agency had managed to drive Arbenz from office in Guatemala in 1954; perhaps it could accomplish the same thing in Cuba. In February, Eisenhower called Allen Dulles to the Oval Office to discuss Castro. Dulles brought along some U-2 photographs of a Cuban sugar refinery, along with CIA plans to put it out of action by sabotage. Eisenhower scoffed at this puny effort, noting that such damage could be easily repaired and telling Dulles that the CIA had to come up with something better. He told Dulles to go back to his people and return when they had a “program” worked out.
The CIA then began a series of assassination attempts against Castro. There were some harebrained schemes, including using the Mafia to gun Castro down, poisoning Castro’s cigars or his coffee, and rigging an exotic seashell with an explosive device to be placed in Castro’s favorite skin-diving area. None worked. Whether Eisenhower knew about these attempted assassinations or not, or whether he ordered them or not, cannot be said. There is no documentary evidence that this author has seen that would directly link Eisenhower with the attempts. He could have given such orders verbally and privately to Dulles, but if he did he acted out of character. Further, Eisenhower himself indicated to the CIA that he did not want Castro removed until a government-in-exile had been formed, because he feared that the probable successor to Castro in the event of a premature assassination would be Raúl Castro or Che Guevara, either of whom would be worse than Fidel.6
The record is clear on what Eisenhower did approve. On March 17, he met with Dulles and Richard Bissell, the CIA agent Dulles had put in charge of preparing a “program” for Cuba. Eisenhower gave the go-ahead to the program Bissell presented to him. It had four parts: (1) creation of a “responsible and unified” Cuban government-in-exile; (2) “a powerful propaganda offensive”; (3) “a covert intelligence and action organization in Cuba” that would be “responsive” to the government-in-exile; and (4) “a paramilitary force outside of Cuba for future guerrilla action.” Eisenhower indicated that he liked all four parts, but put his emphasis on Bissell’s first step, finding a Cuban leader living in exile who would form a government that the United States could recognize and that could direct the activities of the covert and paramilitary forces.7
Exactly as Herter had warned, meanwhile, the Latin-American governments were using the American obsession with Castro as arguments for increasing the flow of money and military aid to them. They argued that Castroism was spreading to their countries, and that they could stop it only with American help, which they said had to come in much larger quantities than in the past. Eisenhower decided to make a personal good-will trip to the South American continent, with three mutually contradictory aims. First, he wanted to counter Castro’s appeal to the masses of Latins. Second, he wanted to convince their governments that they did not need more planes and tanks, although they did need to undertake social and economic reforms. Third, he wanted the Latins to stay firm in their anti-Communism.
The trip, which took place in February, included stops in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Huge crowds greeted him, and they were friendly enough, but their mood was best summed up by a sign in Rio de Janeiro proclaiming, “We like Ike; We like Fidel too.” In thirty-seven speeches and talks, Eisenhower’s theme was that the United States did not support right-wing dictators and was not opposed to needed reforms in Latin America. Again and again, he cited the goodness of American intentions, without much effect. Nor could the President convince the Latin leaders to get tough with Castro or to lower their demands for arms. And his attempts to persuade them to institute social reforms themselves were also ignored. About the best that could be said for the journey as a whole was that it got him out of Washington at a miserable time of the year and allowed him to enjoy the South American summer while seeing places he had always wanted to see.8
• •
On January 20, 1960, Eisenhower had one year to go in office. That morning, he talked to Ann Whitman about the future. He planned to do some writing, he said, and he wondered if Whitman would come to Gettysburg to set up an office there for him. Whitman recorded in her diary, “I said I would do anything he wanted me to do. He said that he had thought that while I was willing to sacrifice my life for the country for eight years, he didn’t think I would want to when he was a private citizen. I said that was the silliest thing he had ever said, that my dedication to him was ten times my dedication to my country. He admitted that might be so.”9
Eisenhower had already given his papers to the government, eventually to be processed, housed, and made available to scholars at the Eisenhower Library, built with private funds by the Eisenhower Foundation in Abilene, Kansas. First, however, Whitman’s extensive file, containing most of the private correspondence, summaries of telephone calls, minutes of Cabinet meetings, and so forth, would go to Gettysburg, where Eisenhower would use the documents in writing his memoirs. An old friend, General Willard S. Paul, currently the president of Gettysburg College, offered Eisenhower the use of the president’s house on the campus as an office (Paul said he preferred to live elsewhere). The highly classified material, primarily Goodpaster’s files, would be stored in safes at Fort Ritchie, an Army base one-half hour’s drive from Gettysburg, so that the files would be available to Eisenhower for the writing of his memoirs. John Eisenhower, who planned to resign his commission effective January 20, 1961, agreed to be the custodian of the papers, and to assist his father in the writing of the memoirs.10
In early 1960, Eisenhower’s thoughts were primarily on his retirement, and on the upcoming summit conference, where he had high hopes on getting started on some genuine disarmament. Nearly every other politician in America, however, had his thoughts on the upcoming presidential election. Eisenhower stayed aloof from the Democratic struggle for the nomination, although in private he expressed his anger and disgust at Kennedy’s constant harping on a “missile gap” and other exaggerated remarks. At a Republican meeting on April 26, for example, Styles Bridges informed the President that Kennedy had said the day before that seventeen million Americans went to bed hungry every night. Eisenhower snorted, then commented, “They must all be dieting!!!”11
Similarly, Eisenhower remained aloof from the Republican’s pre-convention activities. Early in 1960, Rockefeller was still a candidate, which gave a bit of drama to the Republicans but no satisfaction to Eisenhower, who had long ago decided that Rockefeller did not have either the brains or the character to be President. He did write Rockefeller a long letter of advice, of which the principal point was to stick to the middle of the road, but he so deplored Rockefeller’s deficit financing in New York State, and Rockefeller’s calls for more defense spending, that he could never support the man for the Presidency.12 That left him with Nixon, the only viable Republican candidate, but he was not happy with Nixon either. Still, he had no one else to support, and as between Nixon and any of the Democratic candidates, he much preferred Nixon.
He would not, however, give Nixon his support until the Republicans, meeting in convention, actually nominated him. After Rockefeller withdrew from the race, Marvin Arrowsmith asked Eisenhower at a press conference if he would not now endorse Nixon. Eisenhower refused to do so, maintaining “that there are a number of Republicans, eminent men, big men, that could fulfill the requirements of the position . . .” Then he added lamely that Nixon “is not unaware of my sentiments” toward him. Later in the same conference, William Knighton asked if the President did not think that the country ought to have the benefit of his advice as to which Republicans he regarded as qualified. Well, Eisenhower replied, “There’s a number of them.” Then, from Nixon’s point of view, he made things worse by saying, “I am not dissatisfied with the individual that looks like he will get it,” but still he would not endorse Nixon by name.13
Nevertheless, he was not completely resigned to Nixon’s nomination. He tried to persuade Robert Anderson to become a candidate; when that failed, he asked Oveta Culp Hobby to get the Texas Republicans to organize behind Anderson as a “favorite son.” If that was not possible, he suggested that she might become a candidate herself. He also tried to get Al Gruenther to run. Nothing worked, as no one was ready to take on Nixon, because his strength with the party organization was too great.14
• •
One of Eisenhower’s major objections to Rockefeller was that the New York governor was sounding like an echo of Kennedy in his positions on defense spending. That Rockefeller would adopt the Democratic position on defense (spend more, now, on every conceivable weapon) irritated Eisenhower no end. So did the partisan use of the issue by the Democrats. “I don’t take it very kindly,” Eisenhower told a January 13 press conference, “the implied accusation that I am dealing with the whole matter of defense on a partisan basis.” Hauling out his heaviest artillery, he pointed out that with regard to national defense, “I’ve spent my life in this, and I know more about it than almost anybody.” In short, he wanted the people to “trust Ike” and turn away from the Democratic critics.15
At his private meetings with Republican leaders, Eisenhower was blunt and direct in castigating the Democratic candidates. “By getting into this numbers racket,” he said of Kennedy, Symington, and the others, “and by scaring people, they are getting away with murder.” The President wondered “how much deterrent could possibly be wanted by the critics. Did they just want to build more and more Atlases for storage in warehouses? It was unconscionable.”16
The Air Force was the darling of congressional Democrats, and the Air Force’s pet project was the B-70 bomber. Eisenhower did not like the project at all. In February, he received a long memorandum on the B-70 from Kistiakowsky that concluded, “Putting it crudely, it is not clear what the B-70 can do that ballistic missiles can’t—and cheaper and sooner at that.” The President decided to cancel the B-70.17 General White, Air Force Chief of Staff, testified before Congress that the B-70 was “vital” to the nation’s defense. A furious Eisenhower called Secretary Gates on the telephone. According to Whitman’s notes, “The President said that ever since the days of the Fair Deal and the New Deal, discipline had been lost in the high-ranking officers of the services. Nothing does he deplore more. Everyone seems to think he has a compulsion to tell in public his personal views.” Once a decision was made by the Commander in Chief, he insisted, every officer in the armed services was duty-bound to support it.18 To the Republican leaders, Eisenhower complained that “all these fellows in the Pentagon think they have some responsibility I can’t see.” He continued, “I hate to use the word, but this business is damn near treason.”19
Eisenhower was fighting virtually a one-man battle on holding down the costs of defense. The JCS would not support him; neither would his new Secretary of Defense, Tom Gates; nor would McCone, the head of the AEC; nor would the Republican leaders, who tried to convince him that the JCS were not out of line in expressing their own views. Further, not a single member of the White House press corps was on his side; the questions he received at his press conferences were uniformly hostile. Why wasn’t the United States doing more? When would we catch up with the Russians? Did not the President fear a Soviet first strike? Was not the President’s insistence on fiscal soundness imperiling the nation’s security?
With a great effort of will, Eisenhower calmly and patiently answered all the questions. He insisted that there was no missile gap, that American prestige was not at stake in the space race, that there was no need to be afraid. He cited history to prove his point: “Only three or four years ago,” he said, “there was a great outcry about the alleged bomber gap.” Congress appropriated nearly a billion dollars more than Eisenhower had asked for to build new American bombers. “Subsequent intelligence investigation,” however, “showed that that estimate was wrong and that, far from stepping up their production of bombers, the Soviets were diminishing it or even eliminating that production.”20 Eisenhower also tried logic. On February 3, Merriman Smith wanted to know, “Do you feel any sense of urgency in catching up with the Russians?” Eisenhower replied, “I am always a little bit amazed about this business of catching up. What you want is enough, a thing that is adequate. A deterrent has no added power, once it has become completely adequate, for compelling the respect for your deterrent.” But, Rowland Evans protested, the Air Force was insisting that unless the B-52s were put on a full air alert, “our deterrent of heavy bombers cannot be properly safeguarded.” Eisenhower’s reply was short and scathing: “Too many of these generals have all sorts of ideas.”21
But neither historical truth nor logic was Eisenhower’s best weapon. It was his personal prestige that counted most. When Charles Shutt asked him to comment on Democratic charges that he was “complacent in advising the people of the danger we face in world affairs,” and that Eisenhower was allowing his commitment to fiscal soundness to “stand in the way of developing some weapons we may need,” Eisenhower stiffened, reddened, glared at Shutt, then replied: “If anybody—anybody—believes that I have deliberately misled the American people, I’d like to tell him to his face what I think about him. This is a charge that I think is despicable; I have never made it against anyone in the world.” Then he insisted, “I don’t believe we should pay one cent for defense more than we have to,” and concluded with a personal assurance: “Our defense is not only strong, it is awesome, and it is respected elsewhere.”22
But wherever he turned, Eisenhower was confronted with the charge that he, the man most responsible for it, had neglected the nation’s security. In March 1960, he attended the annual Gridiron dinner in Washington. Senator Symington was the principal speaker, and his theme was the need for more and better weapons. When he finished, Eisenhower took the mike. The President described the day he moved into the Oval Office, and how the JCS started coming in even before he had hung his pictures on the wall or had the carpet put down. The Chiefs insisted that they had to have more of this and more of that. After he had gotten rid of them, Eisenhower related, he paced the bare floor, looked out the window and said to himself, “My God, how did I get into this?” Then he went into what one observer called a “magnificent explanation of the responsibilities of the Presidency and how they far exceed the importance of weapons . . . He went into the responsibilities to the whole nation and to the family and the whole man. He talked about the spiritual things as well as material things. He built an awesome and inspiring and yet heartwarming image of the broad scope and high responsibilities that are a President’s. And then he said goodnight.”23
But no matter how effective the President was in making his case before small groups, or at his press conferences, the critics kept pounding at him. At a February 4 NSC meeting, Kistiakowsky noted in his diary, “McCone gave a rather emotional speech, saying he received many telephone calls from all over the country, complaining about the inadequacy of our deterrent forces.” The chairman of the AEC demanded a much larger missile program, and a full B-52 air alert. “He also wanted vigorous work to increase the explosive yield in Minuteman warheads,” which would have required new tests. “The President spoke firmly,” Kistiakowsky recorded, “that he would not accept McCone’s point of view because: firstly, he was deeply convinced that we have adequate deterrents, and secondly, an increase in military effort would so disrupt the national economy that only a highly regimented society of an armed camp could result, and he was not willing to work for that.”24
Eisenhower’s basic position was that there was no missile gap. The proposition could not be proved, however, without revealing the U-2 flights and showing the photographic evidence demonstrating that the Russians were not building ICBMs on a crash basis. But Eisenhower was extremely sensitive about the flights, and about the resulting Russian protests, and he insisted that the U-2 be kept top secret (within the White House, only he, Gordon Gray, Goodpaster, and John Eisenhower knew about the project). He “exploded,” therefore, when The New York Times ran a story, based on a leak from unnamed sources, hinting at American knowledge of Russian missile developments at Tura Tam in Central Asia. Kistiakowsky noted that “the President is exceedingly angry and has talked at length about lack of loyalty to the U.S. of these people. In his estimation Joseph Alsop is about the lowest form of animal life on earth . . .”25
• •
Eisenhower wanted to not only hold down the costs of defense, but to actually reduce them through a general disarmament program. He recognized that “an effective ban on nuclear testing had become an essential preliminary to . . . attaining any worthwhile disarmament agreement.”26 As with levels of defense spending, however, he found that he stood virtually alone within his Administration. Gates, McCone, the JCS, Teller, and many others insisted on the need to resume testing. So did Nelson Rockefeller, who publicly advocated resumption of testing, because the United States “cannot afford to fall behind in the advanced techniques of the use of nuclear materials.” But on the specific issue of testing, Eisenhower had strong support from outside the Administration. Fear of fallout was so great that both Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, the leading Democratic contenders, said that they wanted to continue the testing moratorium “indefinitely,” provided that the Russians did not resume their tests. Nixon also spoke out, saying that men like Rockefeller who called for test resumption were “ignorant of the facts.”27 Eisenhower also had strong support from his science adviser, George Kistiakowsky.
By early 1960, Eisenhower had made a test-ban treaty, to be followed by some actual disarmament, the major goal of his Presidency, indeed of his entire career. It would be the capstone to his half century of public service, his greatest memorial, his final and most lasting gift to his country. To that end, he wanted to make an offer to the Russians that he felt had a good chance of being accepted by Khrushchev at the summit. On February 11, he announced at his press conference that he was willing to accept a test-ban treaty that would end all tests in the atmosphere, in the oceans, and in outer space, as well as underground tests “which can be monitored.”28
While Eisenhower waited for a Russian response, he had to fend off the Pentagon and its supporters, who were terribly unhappy with the whole prospect of a test ban. The day after he made his announcement, the JCS presented to him a plan for strategic war that indicated the United States could “prevail” in a nuclear exchange, and stating that the radiation problem would not be unmanageable. Kistiakowsky noted that “the President spoke with some feeling about the proposed overkill” (the JCS plan would leave 200 million Chinese and Russians dead), and “cited his disbelief . . . that a complete destruction of the U.S.S.R. would not contaminate the air over America.”29
A week later, Eisenhower met with Herter, Gates, McCone, and Kistiakowsky to discuss a State Department proposal to call a ten-nation conference to cut off fissionable materials’ production for weapons’ purposes. Gates protested: the Secretary of Defense said that the armed services needed more, not less weapons, and added that further tests were necessary to improve the bombs. McCone protested: the chairman of the AEC warned Eisenhower that whatever the Russians agreed to in public, they would cheat. According to Kistiakowsky (who favored the proposal, as well as a test-ban treaty), “The President then delivered a strong statement, virtually condemning Gates and the Chiefs . . . for their utter inability to see the positive side. He suggested that the Soviets would also stop production and that he saw no alternative but somehow to stop this mad race . . .”30
On March 19, the Russians did indeed respond positively to Eisenhower’s proposal of February 11. The Soviets would agree to all of it, provided that the United States agreed to a moratorium on low-kiloton tests underground. By so doing, the Russians were making considerable concessions—accepting a supervised test ban for all atmospheric, underwater, and large underground tests, which meant opening their borders to American inspection teams. All they asked in return was a voluntary cessation of small underground tests based solely on good faith.31
Good faith the Americans could not muster. Eisenhower was bombarded with advice to reject any unsupervised ban out of hand—he got it from the Defense Department, the JCS, the AEC, newspaper editorials, and politicians. It was taken for granted that the Russians would cheat; as The New York Times put it, an unsupervised ban, even if only for small bombs, “would leave the Soviets free to continue experiments behind the Iron Curtain to develop Premier Khrushchev’s fantastic weapons.”32 Macmillan was disturbed by the American hostility—he wanted to accept the offer—and eagerly accepted Eisenhower’s invitation to fly to Washington for consultation. But he was not optimistic. “The Americans are divided, and with an Administration on the way out,” he commented, “the Pentagon and the Atomic groups are gaining strength.”33
Macmillan need not have worried. Eisenhower had already decided to make some concessions of his own in an attempt to meet the Russians halfway. He accepted Herter’s recommendation that he agree to a two- or three-year unsupervised moratorium on underground tests, which went against his previous policy of never signing a treaty that did not contain proper inspection systems, but which could not fail to impress the Russians. In any case, he had already won the main points—no more tests in the atmosphere, space, or the oceans, and the right, in principle, to send American inspection teams inside the Soviet Union. He announced his decision at a March 24 NSC meeting; after it ended, he called seven men into his office for discussion. McCone spoke first. He stated his objections to any such agreement. Kistiakowsky noted, “The President in a sharp voice rejected McCone’s point of view and got obviously angry when McCone suggested that [the agreement] was a surrender of our basic policy. The President said . . . [he] felt that this was in the interests of the country, as otherwise all hope of relaxing the cold war would be gone.”34
After McCone, the Deputy Secretaries of Defense spoke. They insisted that the Soviets would cheat. Eisenhower calmly reminded them that the United States was preparing a program, code named Plowshare, for exploding nuclear weapons for peaceful purposes, such as building tunnels. He did not need to remind every man in the room that the United States expected to get new military information from the blasts, although publicly insisting that they were for peaceful uses only. In short, the United States was already cheating. Goodpaster noted that “the President commented that the only real hazard is that the Soviets test and we do not. But the fact is that we have been doing some experimenting . . .”35
This meeting was, potentially, one of the most important Eisenhower ever presided over. What was at stake was the nuclear-arms race. Never before had the Russians and the Americans been so close to agreement. The details could be finished in time for the summit in Paris in mid-May. It was a dizzying prospect. James Reston wrote in The New York Times that the President was “confronted with the most serious decision he has had to make since he ordered the Allied troops to cross the English Channel for the invasion of Europe . . .” Appropriately enough, three of the eight men in the room kept notes—of them, Gordon Gray caught best the President’s sentiments. Eisenhower, Gray wrote, made the following points: (1) There must be an agreement. (2) We cannot continue to refuse to go a part of the way. (3) It is in our vital interest to get an agreement. (4) He would prefer a one-year moratorium (the Soviets were asking for an unlimited one) but would accept two years. (5) “If we do not make some progress in one line such as this then there is no hope whatsoever for disarmament.” (6) “The President wants to give Khrushchev every chance to prove that he will do what he says . . .”36
On March 28, Eisenhower and Macmillan went to Camp David, along with Herter and Kistiakowsky. The Prime Minister was delighted by Eisenhower’s decision. When Eisenhower said he would offer a one-year moratorium, while he would be prepared to accept a two-year ban, Macmillan suggested that three years might be a reasonable time. When Kistiakowsky mentioned that the number of on-site inspections would surely be a negotiable point, Macmillan said, “You know, it might happen that you would suggest a hundred, and we ten, and the Soviets might suggest five.” Herter said it would probably be necessary to leave the number of on-site inspections blank in the treaty, to be filled in at the summit. Eisenhower agreed that such was the case. Then, as Kistiakowsky noted, “In a simple quick way, [the President] conceded to the Soviets one of their main contentions, namely, that the number of on-site inspections is a political rather than a technical issue.”37
On March 29, Eisenhower issued a statement outlining his decision. At a press conference the following day, he reassured doubtful reporters at some length. Nothing was being risked or sacrificed, he said. What was really behind it, he added, was his personal belief “that we should try to stop the spreading of this, what you might say, the size of the [nuclear] club. There are already four nations into it [France in February had exploded its first bomb], and it’s an expensive business. And it could be finally more dangerous than ever . . .” Eisenhower also insisted that “all the signs are that the Soviets do want a degree of disarmament, and they want to stop testing. That looks to me to be more or less proved.”38
At another press conference, a month later, after Eisenhower had announced that he, de Gaulle, and Macmillan agreed that disarmament, not Berlin or Germany, should be the number-one topic at the Paris summit, Laurence Burd wanted to know if disarmament would not mean economic depression for the United States. Eisenhower explained why it would not: “We are now scratching around to get money for such things as school construction . . . , road building. There are all sorts of things to be done in this country . . . I see no reason why the sums which now are going into these sterile, negative mechanisms that we call war munitions shouldn’t go into something positive.”39
• •
Eisenhower was prepared to go to Paris to seek a genuine accord. Never in the Cold War did one seem closer. A President of the United States was on the verge of trusting the Russians in the most critical and dangerous field, nuclear testing. He had de Gaulle and Macmillan with him, and Khrushchev seemed by every indication to be sincere in his own desire for disarmament. There were, however, powerful men determined to stop the progress.
First, the politicians. The Democrats, controlling the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, held hearings on the proposal. Dr. Teller, and many others, testified that the Russians would cheat, that the proposed inspection systems were woefully inadequate, that the whole thing was a disaster for American security interests. McCone, purportedly the prime mover behind the hearings, told Kistiakowsky that the proposed ban was “a national peril” that might force him “to resign his job.” Arthur Krock believed that the Democrats were holding the much-publicized hearings in order to cast doubts in advance on any treaty Eisenhower managed to obtain, so as to deprive the Republicans of the peace issue in the November election. Eisenhower himself thought “that goddamned joint committee will certainly do anything in its power to embarrass me.”40
Second, the military. The Pentagon wanted no part of a ban, wanted to resume testing, and wanted a major buildup in ICBMs. At an April 1 NSC meeting, Eisenhower “sharply questioned” the Defense people about the rate of proposed buildup. The reply was that they were seeking a production capacity of four hundred missiles per year. Eisenhower, according to Kistiakowsky, “remarked in obvious disgust, ‘Why don’t we go completely crazy and plan on a force of 10,000?’ ”41
Third, the scientists. Teller and the AEC scientists, and their friends, were determined to continue testing. Their device was through “peaceful” explosions. They appealed to Eisenhower’s great desire to use nuclear energy for the good of mankind to make all sorts of proposals for Operation Plowshare. Teller told an April 26 Cabinet meeting that he wanted to dig a tunnel through Mexico and another parallel to the Panama Canal; he wanted to blast a harbor in northern Alaska, with a short channel and a turnaround basin; he wanted to deposit heat in underground caverns by setting off a bomb, then draw on the energy later; he saw splendid opportunities for strip mining through atomic blasts. Given the opportunity, he said, he could squeeze oil out of the sands. All these glittering prospects could become reality only if he were allowed to test. When Defense Secretary Gates asked him how much these experiments would add to weapons’ developments, Teller assured him a great deal would be learned. He also added that the proposed moratorium “can be evaded with complete safety by us . . . it can easily be evaded.” Eisenhower gave permission to go ahead with preparations for Plowshare, but insisted that the record show that “final authorization for the actual detonation would be reserved for action by the President.” He was not going to have the AEC setting off any bombs, no matter how peaceful the purpose, before the summit meeting.42
Fourth, the intelligence community. The CIA and other intelligence gatherers were strongly opposed to any unsupervised ban, and were especially insistent that U-2 flights over the Soviet Union be continued and even expanded. They were concerned about “gaps” in the coverage. In a meeting with the Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, on February 2, General Doolittle urged Eisenhower to use the overflights to the maximum degree possible. Eisenhower, according to Goodpaster’s notes, “pointed out that such a decision is one of the most soul-searching questions to come before a President.” He added that at Camp David Khrushchev had outlined for him Soviet missile capability, and “every bit of information I have seen [from the overflights] corroborates what Khrushchev told me.”
Goodpaster’s notes continue: “The President said that he has one tremendous asset in a summit meeting, as regards effect in the free world. That is his reputation for honesty. If one of these aircraft were lost when we are engaged in apparently sincere deliberations, it could be put on display in Moscow and ruin the President’s effectiveness.”43
Despite this basic recognition, Eisenhower approved additional flights, but only at the rate of one per month. One reason was the standard assumption by the intelligence community that even if the Soviets ever shot down a U-2, they never would admit it, because they would then also have to admit that the flights had been going on for years and they had been unable to do anything about them. The logic was questionable, but the eagerness to get more photographs was real enough. In late March, Richard Bissell explained to Eisenhower why the CIA thought the Russians might be building new missile sites, while John Eisenhower and Goodpaster traced out for him on a huge map of Russia the proposed flight route. Eisenhower set aside his personal objections and authorized one flight. It went on April 9. The Russians tracked the U-2 with their radar and made a number of attempts to knock it down with their surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), but the flight was a success.44 The photographs revealed no new missile construction. In early April, Bissell asked for another flight. Eisenhower authorized him to fly any day in the next two weeks. Every day for the next fourteen days, however, Russia was covered by clouds. The U-2 needed near-perfect weather to get its photographs. When the weather did not improve, Bissell applied for an extension. Eisenhower told Goodpaster to call Bissell and tell him the flight was authorized for one more week. Goodpaster made it formal with a memorandum for the record: “After checking with the President, I informed Mr. Bissell that one additional operation may be undertaken, provided it is carried out prior to May 1. No operation is to be carried out after May 1.” Eisenhower had insisted on that date because he did not want to be provocative on the eve of the summit meeting.45
On May 1, the weather cleared. That morning, in Adana, Turkey, Francis Gary Powers, a young pilot employed by the CIA, took off for Bodo, Norway, his flight route taking him directly over the Soviet Union.
• •
Meanwhile, Eisenhower prepared for the summit. In March and April, he met with de Gaulle and Adenauer in the White House, getting their agreement to make disarmament the main topic in Paris. He indicated that he intended to follow the test-ban treaty with a new variation on Open Skies, an offer for continuous aerial inspection, divorced from any disarmament aspects, and operating in selected regions, for example Siberia and Alaska. He wrote Macmillan, saying, “I would derive tremendous satisfaction out of seeing some specific practical step agreed upon at the summit, and initiated as soon as possible . . . It would be a ray of light in a world that is bound to be weary of the tensions brought about by mutual suspicion, distrust, and arms races.”46
With Soviet Ambassador Menshikov, Eisenhower made up an itinerary for his trip to Russia following the summit. He told Menshikov that he hated to say it, but he would not be able to bring the grandchildren along. He truthfully admitted that the reason was that their father and mother, John and Barbara, wished to give them as normal an upbringing as possible, and had therefore insisted they refuse the invitation.47 (Later, when Khrushchev withdrew the invitation, Mamie blamed it on John; Khrushchev had reneged, Mamie said, because of his hurt feelings about John’s unreasonable attitude.)
By late April, Eisenhower was ready for the summit. He expected tough bargaining and intended to do more than a bit of it himself. As he told de Gaulle and Macmillan, just before the end of April, the Soviets wanted to reduce their military burdens, and were particularly anxious to ban nuclear tests because of their fear that the Chinese would get their own bomb. Eisenhower said he planned to “capitalize on these apparent Soviet desires,” first of all by making Berlin a quid pro quo. He wanted de Gaulle and Macmillan to join him in emphasizing to Khrushchev, privately, “that Communist action against our rights in Berlin would bring a rapid end to the détente, in general, and to any prospect for early disarmament, in particular.” Eisenhower also indicated that although he was in favor of a “thaw,” he did not want it misunderstood; “we do not want to gloss over the difference between freedom and totalitarianism with vague references to ‘peaceful coexistence’ and ‘improved atmosphere.’ ”48
Despite that final statement, Eisenhower’s hopes were far higher than his fears. His own desire to make a breakthrough in the arms race, as his final act as a world leader, was greater than ever. His Secretary of State, Herter, was distinctly milder toward the Soviets than Foster Dulles had ever been. Eisenhower had a science adviser who assured him that a test ban would strengthen not only America’s moral position but her strategic situation as well. The JCS were no longer his contemporaries, as Bradley and Radford had been in the early years, but relatively junior officers from World War II, men who could not impress him. Macmillan wanted a test ban, de Gaulle wanted peace, Khrushchev wanted an agreement, Eisenhower was ready to take some risks and make some concessions. The atmosphere, on the eve of the summit, could not have been better.
• •
On the afternoon of May 1, two weeks before Eisenhower was scheduled to fly to Paris, Goodpaster called him on the telephone: “One of our reconnaissance planes,” he said, “on a scheduled flight from its base in Adana, Turkey, is overdue and possibly lost.” The information was disturbing but not alarming. If the plane had crashed, or been shot down, there was no possibility of the pilot, Francis Powers, escaping alive. Further, the CIA had assured the President “that if a plane were to go down it would be destroyed either in the air or on impact, so that proof of espionage would be lacking. Self-destroying mechanisms were built in.” The CIA had not told Eisenhower that the “self-destruct mechanism” had to be activated by the pilot, or that it was only a two-and-one-half-pound charge, hardly sufficient to “destroy” a craft as big as the U-2, or that the hundreds of feet of tightly rolled film would survive a crash and/or fire, thus by itself providing the Soviets with all the evidence they would need. Eisenhower assumed that Powers was dead, his U-2 burned to cinders. He thanked Goodpaster for the information and went on to other business.49
The next morning, May 2, Goodpaster came into the Oval Office. “Mr. President,” he said, “I have received word from the CIA that the U-2 reconnaissance plane I mentioned yesterday is still missing. The pilot reported an engine flameout at a position about thirteen hundred miles inside Russia and has not been heard from since. With the amount of fuel he had on board, there is not a chance of his still being aloft.”50 If Powers was not aloft, he was dead, and his craft destroyed. Eisenhower therefore decided to do nothing, leaving the next move to Khrushchev, who it was assumed (or hoped) would also do nothing. Having shot down a U-2, the Russians had made their point. If Khrushchev was sincere about the summit, he would either downplay the event or ignore it altogether, contenting himself with a private remark or two to Eisenhower in Paris.
Over the next few days, Eisenhower continued his preparations for the summit. On May 5, he awoke to discover that at 7:15 A.M. he had to fly to High Point, North Carolina, for an emergency meeting of the NSC in the Relocation Center there (code named Crystal), a mammoth underground structure containing all the latest electronic and communication equipment. The meeting was part of a continuing civil-defense exercise, designed to test the ability of the members of the NSC to get to High Point, with no previous knowledge of the date or time, as soon as possible. The exercise did not go well—Allen Dulles’ Cadillac broke down and he almost did not make it; General Twining, chairman of the JCS, did not make it at all; Secretary Gates had to be driven to the airport by his wife in her nightgown, had no pass when he arrived at the entrance, and almost did not persuade the guards to let him through. The meeting itself was routine—the major item was a history of U.S. and U.S.S.R. long-range missile development. Kistiakowsky found it boring.51
While the meeting was going on, Jim Hagerty learned from the wire services that Khrushchev had that morning made a speech to the Supreme Soviet in which he claimed that the Soviet Union had shot down an American spy plane that had intruded Soviet airspace. Khrushchev angrily denounced the United States for its “aggressive provocation” in sending a “bandit flight” over his country. In the course of a long harangue, Khrushchev said the Americans had picked May Day, “the most festive day for our people and the workers of the world,” hoping to catch the Soviets with their guard down, but to no avail. Khrushchev provided his own interpretation of the provocative flight: “Aggressive imperialist forces in the United States in recent times have been taking the most active measures to undermine the summit or at least to hinder any agreement that might be reached.” He did not blame Eisenhower, however; instead, he suggested that the militarists were acting without the President’s knowledge. “Was this aggressive act carried out by Pentagon militarists?” he asked. “If such actions are taken by American military men on their own account, it must be of special concern to world opinion.”52
Khrushchev’s charge that Eisenhower did not know what was going on in his own Administration, which dovetailed so nicely with the ongoing Democratic campaign, angered the President. Still, he decided to make no rejoinder, nor any explanation. He could have refuted the charges immediately. He might have issued a statement taking full responsibility, pointing out that no U-2 flight ever left the ground without his personal approval, insisting that because of the closed nature of the Soviet Union and because of fears of a nuclear Pearl Harbor, the overflights were necessary to the security of his country. In the process, he could have reminded the world that, as everyone knew, the KGB was far more active in spying on the West than the CIA was in spying on Russia. He might have given a brief outline of the history of the U-2, then made the most fundamental point of all—that the evidence gathered by the overflights provided convincing proof that there was no missile gap, despite Khrushchev’s boasting about Soviet rockets, and that as a result of the photographs, the United States had been able to keep some kind of control on its own defense spending.
But he did none of these things, because he had a fetish about keeping the U-2 a secret. The odd thing about this fetish was that the U-2 was no secret to the Soviets, and had not been since the very first flight, back in 1956. Indeed, all the governments involved—British, French, Turkish, Norwegian, Formosan, and others—knew about the U-2. The people who did not know were the Americans and their elected representatives.53
Another option available to Eisenhower would have been to state that since the Soviets had turned down Open Skies, he had decided to unilaterally put it into effect anyway, and then invite Khrushchev to fly all he wanted to across the United States. To do that, however, Eisenhower would have had to make public the U-2 flights. Although it is difficult to see, a quarter of a century later, when Russian and American spy satellites are constantly in orbit around the world, what damage could have resulted, Eisenhower decided to make a desperate effort to keep the overflights a secret, or at least to deny their existence. Instead of confessing, he launched a cover-up.
He did so because he thought a cover-up would work. Acting on the assumption that Powers was dead and his plane in ruins, Eisenhower believed that Khrushchev could prove nothing. The irony—or perhaps the tragedy, considering what was at stake at the summit—was that Eisenhower himself had pointed out that his greatest single asset was his “reputation for honesty,” and that if a U-2 were lost “when we are engaged in apparently sincere deliberations, it could be put on display in Moscow and ruin the President’s effectiveness.” But he clung to the hope that Khrushchev, without any physical evidence, would be unconvincing.
On the afternoon of May 5, after returning to Washington, Eisenhower approved a statement that was then issued by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It began, “One of N.A.S.A.’s U-2 research airplanes, in use since 1956 in a continuing program to study meteorological conditions found at high altitude, has been missing since May 1, when its pilot reported he was having oxygen difficulties over the Lake Van, Turkey, area.” Presumably, the U-2 had strayed off course, perhaps crossing the border into Russia. The unstated assumption was that Powers’ weather plane was the one the Russians had shot down.54
The following day, Khrushchev released a photograph of a wrecked airplane, describing it as the U-2 Powers had flown. It was not, however, a U-2, but another airplane. The Premier was setting a trap. He wanted Eisenhower to continue to believe that Powers was dead, the U-2 destroyed, so that the United States would stick to its “weather research” story, as it did. Then, on May 7, Khrushchev sprang his great surprise. He jubilantly reported to a “wildly cheering” Supreme Soviet that “we have parts of the plane and we also have the pilot, who is quite alive and kicking. The pilot is in Moscow and so are the parts of the plane.” Khrushchev made his account a story of high drama and low skulduggery interspersed with bitingly sarcastic remarks about Eisenhower’s cover story. Cries of “Shame, Shame!” rose from the deputies as Khrushchev heaped scorn on the CIA, mixed with cries of “Bandits, Bandits!”55
Upon receiving the news of Powers’ capture by the Russians alive, news that he found “unbelievable,” Eisenhower knew that since Khrushchev had both the plane and the pilot (and the film), there was little point in denying any further the real purpose of the overflights. He was not ready, however, to tell the American people, and the world, that he personally was involved in the distasteful business of spying. Dulles, Herter, and other top officials were frantically trying to find ways to protect the President. (During a 4:30 P.M. phone call, Dulles referred to a statement Herter wanted to release, saying, “There is an inconsistency.” Herter replied that “this was to get the President off the hook. Mr. Dulles said he would do anything he could.”56) On Herter’s recommendation, Eisenhower then authorized the State Department to issue a statement denying that Powers had any authorization to fly over the Soviet Union.
That statement was so ill conceived and so poorly timed that it made a bad situation much worse. As James Reston reported in The New York Times, “The United States admitted tonight that one of this country’s planes equipped for intelligence purposes had ‘probably’ flown over Soviet territory.
“An official statement stressed, however, that ‘there was no authorization for any such flight’ from authorities in Washington.
“As to who might have authorized the flight, officials refused to comment. If this particular flight of the U-2 was not authorized here, it could only be assumed that someone in the chain of command in the Middle East or Europe had given the order.”57
The following morning, May 9, an agitated Secretary of Defense called a disturbed Secretary of State on the telephone. Gates did not like at all the implication that his officers in the field were authorizing unapproved flights over Soviet territory. According to the summary of the conversation, “Gates said we should say that it is a matter of national policy and we have been doing it because everything else has failed. Gates said somebody has to take responsibility for the policy and while the President can say he didn’t know about this one flight, he did approve the policy.” Herter replied that “the President didn’t argue with this but for the moment doesn’t want to say anything and we have been trying to keep the President clear on this.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Eisenhower himself called Herter. The President wanted Herter to issue a statement admitting that the overflights had been going on for years, under orders from the President, to “get adequate knowledge of the composition of the Russian military and industrial complex.” Eisenhower said the statement should also point out that while he, the President, “realizes at times that unusual and unorthodox things are needed to do this,” he did not get the details of spying or reconnaissance trips.58
The attempt to cover up continued that afternoon, when Goodpaster called Herter to say that Eisenhower wanted a statement from State that would indicate that the U-2 flights were carried out under “a very broad directive from the President given at the earliest point of his Administration to protect us from surprise attack.” But, Goodpaster added, “The President wants no specific tie to him of this particular event.”59
The resulting statements added to a national sense of humiliation, shame, and confusion. Reston reported, “This was a sad and perplexed capital tonight, caught in a swirl of charges of clumsy administration, bad judgment and bad faith.
“It was depressed and humiliated by the United States having been caught spying over the Soviet Union and trying to cover up its activities in a series of misleading official announcements.”60
Eisenhower personally remained calm. He told Whitman, “I would like to resign,” and he seemed to her to be depressed in the morning, “but by afternoon had bounced back with his characteristic ability to accept the bad news, not dwell on it, and so go ahead.”61 That afternoon, Eisenhower gave a briefing to the congressional leaders. He explained the U-2, gave a bit of its history, praised the overflights for the information they had gathered, admitted that he had fallen into Khrushchev’s trap, and concluded, “We will now just have to endure the storm.”62
Over the next two days, humiliation gave way to fright as the headlines became increasingly alarmist. “Khrushchev Warns of Rocket Attack on Bases Used by U.S. Spying Planes,” the Times announced on May 10. The following morning, the headline read, “U.S. Vows to Defend Allies if Russians Attack Bases.” Khrushchev, at an impromptu news conference in Moscow, announced that he was putting Powers on trial and added, “You understand that if such aggressive actions continue this might lead to war.”63 Eisenhower held his own news conference, where he read a prepared statement. In firm, measured tones, without a hint of regret or apology, Eisenhower said Khrushchev’s antics over the “flight of an unarmed nonmilitary plane can only reflect a fetish of secrecy.” Because of the nature of the Soviet system, spying “is a distasteful but vital necessity.” When asked whether his trip to Russia had been canceled, he replied, “I expect to go.” When asked if the outlook for the summit had changed, he replied, “Not decisively at all, no.”64
But of course it had. No one in Washington could have supposed for a minute that Khrushchev would not exploit the fact that he had caught the Americans red-handed, and that they had lied about it. Some of Eisenhower’s advisers urged him to take the way out Khrushchev had offered—deny that he knew anything about the flights and punish someone, presumably Allen Dulles, for them. Such action, the advisers argued, might still save the summit. Eisenhower rejected the advice, first of all because it was not true, secondly because it would be manifestly unfair to Dulles, thirdly because if he did such a thing, Khrushchev could refuse to deal with him at the summit on the grounds that Eisenhower obviously could not control his own Administration.65
With only a few days to go before the summit, Khrushchev continued to make belligerent statements, but also continued to express his doubts that Eisenhower personally knew about the flights; at one point, he even said that the KGB often carried on activities that he did not know about. Sorting out Khrushchev’s motives is a hopeless task. He seemed determined to destroy the summit before it got started—but he was the one who had been most insistent about a summit meeting. He must have known he could never get Eisenhower to say that such a major operation as a U-2 flight could take place without his knowledge, just as he must have realized that Eisenhower would not make a personal apology—yet he insisted on both.66 His histrionics, wild charges, and pretended outrage sat ill with a man who had satellites flying over the United States daily—indeed Russian newspapers had even published photographs of the United States taken by cameras aboard such satellites. Reston guessed in the Times that Khrushchev was pretending shock and outrage because he realized that Eisenhower was not going to pull out of Berlin, so he was using the U-2 “to blame the United States for the breakdown of the Paris meeting.”67
De Gaulle thought that Khrushchev had had second thoughts about allowing Eisenhower to make a trip through the Soviet Union, because he feared the results if Eisenhower spoke directly to the Soviet people over television. He therefore used the U-2 to cancel the visit. Another possibility is that Khrushchev’s scientists had told him what Kistiakowsky had told Eisenhower—namely, that a test ban would favor the Americans. Breaking up the summit over the U-2 would effectively put an end to test-ban talks. Some thought Khrushchev needed to impress the Chinese with his toughness. Eisenhower’s own interpretation was that Khrushchev was hoping to break up NATO by using the U-2 incident to split France and Britain away from the United States.
If Eisenhower was correct, Khrushchev was in for a major disappointment, because in fact the crisis brought the Western allies closer. Eisenhower, Macmillan, and de Gaulle had first come together in Algeria in 1943, seventeen years earlier. Their common foe then had been the Nazi dictatorship. Now their common foe was a Communist dictatorship. Their determination to oppose totalitarianism and their resolution to maintain democracy and the Western alliance were as great as ever. They knew each other intimately, these three who had been through so much together. “I don’t know about anybody else,” Eisenhower said at their first meeting in Paris, “but I myself am getting older.” De Gaulle smiled. “You don’t look it,” he replied. “I hope,” said Eisenhower, “that no one is under the illusion that I’m going to crawl on my knees to Khrushchev.” De Gaulle smiled again. “No one is under that illusion,” he said. De Gaulle mentioned Khrushchev’s threat to attack U-2 bases in Turkey, Japan, and elsewhere. “Rockets,” Eisenhower replied without smiling, “can travel in two directions.” Macmillan nodded his agreement and pledged his full support. “With us it is easy,” de Gaulle said to Eisenhower, because “you and I are tied together by history.”68 In the crisis, NATO had held firm, which for Eisenhower was a heartwarming experience that justified all the effort and hope he had put into the Western alliance since December 1950. It was unfortunate that strengthening NATO required deepening the split between East and West, but then it was Khrushchev, not Eisenhower or Macmillan or de Gaulle, who made the decision to ruin the summit conference.
• •
On May 14, Eisenhower and his party flew to Paris. The next afternoon, he met with Herter, ambassador to the Soviet Union Chip Bohlen, and Goodpaster. They informed him that Khrushchev, already in Paris, had told de Gaulle that he was prepared to go ahead with the summit, but that the Russian leader had given de Gaulle a six-page statement asserting that if Eisenhower did not condemn such actions as the U-2 flight, renounce such acts in the future, and punish those responsible, the Soviets would not take part in the summit. Eisenhower wanted to know why Khrushchev had not made such specific demands five days earlier—it would have saved him a trip to Paris. Bohlen remarked that the content of the statement, coupled with the fact that it was in written form, indicated that Khrushchev had already decided to break up the conference.69
Eisenhower called on de Gaulle. The French leader reported that along with the written statement, Khrushchev had told him verbally that he could not understand why Eisenhower had admitted publicly that he knew about the overflights. By Khrushchev’s standards this indicated not American truthfulness, but rather contempt for the Soviets. De Gaulle said he had told Khrushchev that the Russians could not seriously expect Eisenhower to apologize. Indeed, de Gaulle discussed these matters, according to Eisenhower’s interpreter, General Vernon Walters, “with a sort of Olympian detachment. . . . he did not think that the peccadilloes of intelligence services were appropriate matters to be discussed at meetings of chiefs of government.”70
The following morning, May 16, Eisenhower had breakfast with Macmillan. Eisenhower said that “one thing was very clear in his mind and that is until we get to satellites, we will not do this kind of overflying anymore.” Macmillan, who had talked privately with Khrushchev the previous day, was much encouraged by this. Khrushchev, he said, was agitated by American statements that indicated the U-2 flights would continue. “He thought clarification of this point might be of great value in the discussion with Mr. K.”71
But at the initial meeting, Eisenhower never got a chance to make the point. He had intended to speak first, in answer to Khrushchev’s written statement, but de Gaulle, the host, had hardly finished calling the meeting to order when Khrushchev was on his feet, red-faced, demanding the right to speak. De Gaulle looked quizzically at Eisenhower, who nodded his agreement, then indicated that Khrushchev had the floor. Khrushchev launched into a tirade against Eisenhower and the United States. Soon he was shouting. De Gaulle interrupted, turned to the Soviet interpreter, and said, “The acoustics in this room are excellent. We can all hear the chairman. There is no need for him to raise his voice.” The interpreter blanched, turned to Khrushchev, and began to translate. De Gaulle cut him off and motioned to his own interpreter, who unfalteringly translated into Russian. Khrushchev cast a furious glance at de Gaulle, then continued to read in a lower voice.
He soon lashed himself into an even greater frenzy. He pointed overhead and shouted, “I have been overflown!” De Gaulle interrupted again. He said that he too had been overflown. “By your American allies?” asked Khrushchev, incredulous. “No,” de Gaulle replied, “by you. Yesterday that satellite you launched just before you left Moscow to impress us overflew the sky of France eighteen times without my permission. How do I know you do not have cameras aboard which are taking pictures of my country?” Eisenhower caught de Gaulle’s eye and gave him a big grin. Khrushchev raised both hands above his head and said, “As God is my witness, my hands are clean. You don’t think I would do a thing like that?”
After Khrushchev finished his diatribe, which concluded with a statement that Eisenhower would no longer be welcome in the Soviet Union, Eisenhower spoke. He said that Khrushchev hardly needed to go to such lengths to withdraw his invitation, that he had come to Paris hoping to engage in serious discussion, and that it was his wish that the conference could now proceed to matters of substance. Khrushchev and the Russian delegation stalked out of the room. As Eisenhower rose to follow them, de Gaulle caught him by the elbow and drew him aside, with Walters to interpret. De Gaulle said to the President, “I do not know what Khrushchev is going to do nor what is going to happen, but whatever he does, or whatever happens, I want you to know that I am with you to the end.”72
• •
The summit was over before it started, all the hopes for détente and disarmament gone with it. Eisenhower, with only eight months to serve, would not have another chance to force progress toward genuine peace. He returned home, where he had to endure making a series of reports to various groups, including the public. He issued a formal statement, made a radio and television report, met with the congressional leaders and his Cabinet, and with the NSC. At the latter meeting, Herter said something about the need to “regain our leadership.” Kistiakowsky recorded, “This made the President angry. He lost his temper and said we did not lose the leadership and therefore we didn’t have to regain it, and he would appreciate it if that expression were never used again, especially before congressional committees.”73
On May 23, Herter reported to him that the CIA and the Defense Department wanted to continue the U-2 flights. Eisenhower replied that “he had no thought whatsoever of permitting more of these . . . that they may as well realize that these flights cannot be resumed in the next eight months.”74 By August 1960, the United States had reconnaissance satellites in operation, although the U-2 continues to this day to provide photographic reconnaissance of outstanding quality. Powers was eventually exchanged for a Soviet spy, Colonel Rudolf Abel (what happened to Powers’ U-2 remains a mystery).
In late May, Eisenhower had a private talk with Kistiakowsky. The President said that the scientists had failed him. Kistiakowsky protested that the scientists had consistently warned that eventually a U-2 was going to get shot down. “It was the management of the project that failed. The President flared up, evidently thinking I accused him, and used some strong uncomplimentary language.” After Kistiakowsky explained that he meant the bureaucrats, not the President, were responsible, Eisenhower cooled off. He “began to talk with much feeling about how he had concentrated his efforts the last few years on ending the cold war, how he felt that he was making big progress, and how the stupid U-2 mess had ruined all his efforts. He ended very sadly that he saw nothing worthwhile left for him to do now until the end of his presidency.”75
Eisenhower’s depression was deep, genuine, and appropriate. Of all the events in Eisenhower’s long lifetime, this one stands out. If only Eisenhower had not given permission for that last flight. If only Khrushchev had not made such a big deal out of such a small thing. If only the two leaders could have trusted their own instincts just once, rather than their technicians and generals. Eisenhower was on the verge of agreeing to an unsupervised test ban; Khrushchev was on the verge of agreeing to inspection teams within the Soviet Union. No one knows where the momentum thus generated might have taken the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. But both the old men allowed their fears to override their hopes, and the summit was gone, and with it the best chance to slow the arms race of the sixties and seventies and eighties.