Kennedy and Khrushchev Meet

Space was one of four areas of scientific cooperation initially identified for possible discussion at the June 3-4 Vienna summit; the others were nuclear science, earth science, and life science. In a May 29 memorandum to the president on summit preparations, national security adviser Bundy attached “a new and much improved memorandum from Wiesner’s office.” This memorandum listed only four potential cooperative projects, two in space and two in nuclear science. The two space projects suggested were “use of ground facilities for cooperative experiments” and “planetary probes.” Cooperation in a lunar landing program was only briefly mentioned as one of the “other possible areas for cooperative projects.”27 In transmitting the memorandum, Bundy cautioned the president that “your own proposals [on scientific cooperation] to Khrushchev should probably go no further than to express your own interest and to suggest that the matter be discussed at experts’ meeting arranged by Ambassador [Llewellyn] Thompson.” This approach was prudent, suggested Bundy, because “the practical process of scientific cooperation can be very difficult even with friends, and you will not want to get your own prestige hooked to specific negotiations that could be made sticky at any time by the Soviets.”28

The Vienna summit was, in President Kennedy’s words, “a very sobering two days.” During their meetings, both alone with just interpreters present and with their staff, “Khrushchev had not given way before Kennedy’s rea­sonableness, nor Kennedy before Khrushchev’s intransigence.”29 The Soviet leader insisted that he would sign a peace treaty with the German Democratic Republic by the end of the year, and that the new East German govern­ment would then have the right to cut off U. S. access to Berlin. Kennedy responded that this was unacceptable, and that if necessary the United States would use force to assure its access. Khrushchev replied “force will be met with force.” The president concluded his conversation with Khrushchev with the observation that “it would be a cold winter.”30

In this grim atmosphere, there was little chance to bring up secondary top­ics such as space cooperation. The only opportunities for more relaxed conver­sation came at two luncheons for the U. S. and Soviet delegations. At the June 3 lunch hosted by President Kennedy, the talk turned to the flight of Yuri Gagarin and then to the possibility of launching a man to the Moon. None of the other proposals for scientific cooperation prepared for Kennedy’s use were discussed. With respect to a lunar mission, Khrushchev said that “he was cautious because of the military aspects of such flights.” Then, “in response to the President’s inquiry whether the US and the USSR should go to the Moon together, Mr. Khrushchev first said no, but then said ‘all right, why not?’ ” Reportedly, the second response was made “half-jokingly.” The next

day it was Khrushchev’s turn to host a lunch, and once again Kennedy turned the conversation to a mission to the Moon. Khrushchev commented that “he was placing certain restraints on projects for a flight to the moon.” The Soviet premier noted that “such an operation” would be “very expensive” and might “weaken Soviet defenses.” He added: “Of course, Soviet scientists want to go to the moon,” but “the U. S. should go first because it is rich and then the Soviet Union would follow.” President Kennedy once again suggested a coop­erative lunar landing effort; Khrushchev retracted his casual agreement of the preceding day, noting that “cooperation in outer space would be impossible as long as there was no disarmament.” This was the case because “rockets are used for both military and scientific purposes.” To Kennedy’s suggestion that perhaps Soviet and U. S. lunar missions could be coordinated in their timing in order to save money, Khrushchev replied “that this might be possible but noted that so far there had been few practical uses of outer space launchings. The race was costly and was primarily for prestige purposes.”31

The reason for this overnight change of mind, even if he had been serious in his response on the preceding day, was apparently Khrushchev’s consul­tations with his advisers. The Soviet chairman’s son, Sergey Khrushchev, has suggested that in May 1961 “my father was faced with the decision of whether to accept the challenge [of a race to the Moon] and be prepared to spend billions for the sake of keeping the palms of victory, or whether he should step aside and allow his undoubtedly richer competitor to get ahead of him. . . My father was not prepared to answer this question.” In addition, “the military men came out against this proposal—they wanted to protect their secrets. Korolev [Sergei Korolev, the “chief designer” of the Soviet space program] was also against it, since he did not like the idea of sharing the palms of leadership with anyone.”32 In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev explains his unwillingness to cooperate in space as being due to the Soviet weakness in intercontinental ballistic missiles. He noted that “we had only one good missile at the time; it was the Semyorka [the R-7 ICBM] . . . Had we decided to cooperate with the Americans in space research, we would have had to reveal to them the design of the booster for the Semyorka.” He added: “We knew if we let them have a look at our rocket, they’d easily be able to copy it.” Thus, “they would have learned its limitations, and from a military standpoint, it did have serious limitations. In short, by showing the Americans our Semyorka, we would have been giving away both our strength and revealing our weakness.”33

There the discussion on space cooperation ended. During the remainder of 1961, Cold War tensions were high and the Berlin Wall was erected; the outlook for any significant space cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union was correspondingly bleak. President Kennedy’s proposal to the Congress and the nation that the United States embark on an extremely ambitious space effort, with Project Apollo as its centerpiece, received wide­spread political support. The idea that the lunar landing program might be a joint U. S.-Soviet undertaking appeared stillborn, and other areas of poten­tial space cooperation remained unexplored.