Over 2 months ago, in the comments to this article there was a discussion concerning diplomacy and idiocy. During that discussion, one of our frequent commenters took the position that “Trump supports Erdogan” because the POTUS recently sent Ergodan a congratulatory telegram. He also stated this opinion about the current President’s actions: “At best it was idiotic. At best. But I find it far more troubling than that.”
After reading that, I posed some follow-up questions to the individual:
So, do you consider JFK “choosing” to meet with an avowed enemy of the West and dictator (Khrushchev) in 1961 “diplomatic support” for the dictator and enemy? Does that make JFK an enemy of the US?
Or was JFK merely doing what US Presidents do – meet with foreign leaders, even those who are hostile, if the circumstances require?
Later during the same discussion, I rephrased the questions more simply:
Do you consider JFK an “idiot” for meeting with an avowed enemy of the West and dictator (Khrushchev) in Vienna in 1961? Was that “diplomatic support”? If the answer in either case is, “No” – why?
For some reason, I’ve never gotten an answer to those questions – even though I’ve reminded the individual concerned of them, repeatedly, over the past 2 months. Possible reasons why I’m not getting an answer are obvious enough to suggest themselves. But that’s not the point of my article here, so I’m not going to dwell on those possible reasons for sidestepping the questions.
Back on point: the fact that I’ve gotten no answer in 2+ months leads me to believe I never will get an answer from the individual. So I’m going to answer those questions myself.
. . .
BLUF: No, JFK was obviously not an “enemy of the US”. And no – in general, JFK was not an “idiot”. But IMO JFK was a fool to meet with Khrushchev at Vienna in June 1961. However, he was not a fool to send Khrushchev a congratulatory telegram in April 1961 following Yuri Gagarin’s manned spaceflight. And no, I’m not contradicting myself here; explanation follows.
Neither of those actions by JFK “showed support” for Khrushchev and his policies. They were both simply examples of Presidential diplomacy – just like Trump’s congratulatory telegram to Ergodan. They were simply diplomatic “business as usual”.
The claim that a POTUS sending a congratulatory telegram or meeting with an adversarial foreign leader “shows support” for that foreign leader and their actions is very obviously unadulterated male bovine organic fertilizer, AKA pure bullsh!t. Past US Presidents have routinely sent congratulatory telegrams to – and met with – leaders of adversary nations during the past 70+ years when circumstances warranted.
Want some examples? OK. In addition to Kennedy’s April 1961 congratulatory telegram to Khrushchev, we also have Eisenhower’s meeting with Khrushchev at Camp David in 1959; Nixon’s visit to China in 1972; FDRs meetings with Stalin at Tehran and Yalta during World War II; Truman’s meeting with Stalin at Potsdam; and any number of other meetings and telegrams attended or sent by various US Presidents over the years with/to foreign political leaders who happened to be US adversaries and/or rivals. All of those are merely examples of the POTUS doing what the POTUS is Constitutionally empowered to do: diplomatically engage foreign heads of state as a part of setting and directing US foreign policy. It’s an essential part of his job.
Very obviously, those other Presidential telegrams and meetings were not designed to be “expressions of support” for US adversaries or rivals either, or for their policies. They were merely routine Presidential diplomacy – in other words, the POTUS acting like the POTUS.
So, if sending Khrushchev a congratulatory telegram after Gagarin’s flight was merely diplomacy in action, why then was JFK a fool to meet with Khrushchev in Vienna in June, 1961? Wasn’t that simply Presidential diplomacy as well?
Yes it was. And JFK certainly was not “showing support” for Khrushchev or his policies by doing either. But he was nonetheless a fool to go to Vienna in June 1961 – for very different reasons.
In meeting with Khrushchev at Vienna in June, 1961, JFK was a fool because he was explicitly warned by leading US Soviet experts that meeting with Khrushchev at that point was a bad idea. Yet he went ahead and did so anyway.
When he was elected President, JFK was a young and still-somewhat-inexperienced politician with little experience in foreign relations or high-level diplomacy. As a legislator he’d become quite proficient at the US “wheel and deal” political process; he was charming, photogenic, a terrific public speaker, and charismatic. But he didn’t really know much about foreign policy, or how to deal with foreign leaders who were motivated very differently from US politicians – like Khrushchev.
He assumed he could “wheel and deal” (and charm) foreign leaders like he could US politicians. At Vienna, he found out the hard way he could not.
In meeting Khrushchev in Vienna in June, 1961, JFK went against the opinions of two different senior officials at the Department of State. Noted Soviet expert and US diplomat Charles Bohlen warned JFK that meeting with Khrushchev early in his first term was premature. Then-US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewellen Thompson concurred, believing that JFK had “underrated Khrushchev’s determination to expand world communism.” Yet JFK felt he was smarter than his Soviet experts – and disregarded their advice.
The result was predictable. In one-on-one meetings at the Vienna Summit, Khrushchev diplomatically manhandled JFK. JFK was completely out of his depth, and was unable to hold his own. JFK himself later referred to the experience by saying, “He (Khrushchev) beat the hell out of me” – and further described meeting with Khrushchev at Vienna as “. . . the worst thing in my life. He (Khrushchev) savaged me.”
Moreover, that meeting in Vienna also damn near had disastrous consequences. It’s widely believed that Khrushchev came to the conclusion after Vienna that JFK was shallow, weak, and irresolute – and that this perception emboldened Khrushchev to place nuclear missiles in Cuba the following year. That in turn led to the Cuban Missile Crisis – the closest the world has ever come to global thermonuclear war.
That is why JFK was a damn fool to meet with Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961. The reason isn’t because doing so “showed support” for Khrushchev and his policies; it did no such thing. That meeting was merely an example of routine Presidential diplomacy – just like the current POTUS sending Ergodan a congratulatory telegram was merely another example of routine Presidential diplomacy.
Rather, JFK was a fool to meet with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961 because he intentionally disregarded warnings from his experts not to go – and in ignoring those warnings, walked directly into an ambush. The fallout from his choosing to ignore expert advice could easily have led to World War III. In fact, history shows that it damn near did.
