From Vienna the President plans to proceed to London, where he and Mrs. Kennedy will visit Mrs. Kennedy's sister and her husband, Prince Radziwill, to be present at the christening of their daughter the next day. The President will meet Prime Minister Macmillan at lunch on June 5. He will depart London for Washington late in the evening the same day. Mrs. Kennedy plans to remain with her sister in London for several days.

226. THE PURPOSE OF THE PRESIDENT'S TRIP TO PARIS AND VIENNA: Address by the President (Kennedy), Boston, May 29, 1961 (Excerpt) 32

I leave tomorrow night on a trip to France. The United States is, as President de Gaulle has said, the daughter of Europe, and in a special way we have the most intimate relations with France. Paul Revere, who is regarded as a good Yankee, was of French descent. Benjamin Franklin spent 7 years in France and played a leading role in bringing France to our assistance in a moment of need and emerged from France in 1783 bearing the treaty with the British which proclaimed us a sovereign and independent nation. Americans in the 19th Century went back to Europe. This time on peaceful missions, and particularly to France, and gained from France some of its great understanding of the past and its view of the future, and twice in this century Americans have gone to France, this time not on a peaceful mission, but on behalf of the new world in its efforts to redress the balance of the old, in 1917 and again in 1944. I go to France on this occasion not in order to invoke old memories, even though those memories are important, but to look to the future of the close relationship which must exist between France and the United States if the cause of Freedom in the Atlantic community is to be preserved. And I go to pay a visit to a distinguished captain of the West, General de Gaulle, who has been involved for more than 20 years in a struggle to protect the integrity of Western Europe, and therefore I go with good wishes of all of our citizens of our country as we pay a visit to an old friend.

I go also to Vienna, and I know there are some Americans who wonder why I take that journey. I am only 44, but I have lived in my 44 years through three wars, the First World War, the Second World War, and the Korean War. No one can study the origins of any of those three struggles without realizing the serious miscalculations, the serious misapprehensions, about the possible actions of the other side which existed in the minds of the adversaries which helped bring about all those wars. The War of 1914, where the Austrians gave an ultimatum to Serbia and the Russians then mobilized and the French, then

33 White House press release (Boston), dated May 29, 1961. The President addressed the guests attending a dinner in the Boston Armory honoring his 44th birthday.

in alliance with Russia, then mobilized and then the Germans mobilized, and then when the Germans saw that France and the Russians mobilized attacked through Belgium which brought the British in. One week before the British never would have dreamed they would have been at war and I doubt that the French would. No one would have dreamed that two years later the United States would be involved in a war on the continent. In 1939 and 1940, after the loss of Austria and Czechoslovakia, finally the British guaranteed Poland, but there is certainly some evidence that Hitler never believed that the British would come to the assistance of Poland and he never believed that the United States would again become involved in a great struggle on the plains of Europe. Certainly in the War of 1950 in Korea, the North Koreans never imagined that the United States would come to the assistance by war-like means of the Republic of South Korea, and we on our part did not imagine that the Chinese Communists would intervene as we approached to the north of North Korea. Now we live in 1961, where freedom is in battle all around the globe, where the United States has intimate alliances with more than 40 countries, and where the communists in their meeting in Moscow and in the speech of the Chairman of the Communist Party, in his speech of January 6th, enunciated the Doctrine of the Wars of Liberation, where the possibility of escalation is always with us. I see value in talking to those with whom we are allied, but I also think it valuable at a time when both sides possess weapons of mutual destruction and annihilation, I think it is also valuable that there should be understanding and communication and a firm realization of what we believe.

33

So I go to see Mr. Khrushchev in Vienna. I go as the leader of the greatest revolutionary country on earth. I know that there is in some areas of the world, and even in some parts of the United States an image of us as a fixed society. Bernard DeVoto once said New England is a finished place, and some people may think that of the United States. That is not my view. When John Quincy Adams went to call on the British Governor, before the Revolution, about the problem of the British here in this state, they had an amiable conversation until finally Adams mentioned the word "revolution", and then he wrote in his diary "It was then I saw his knees tremble." Now, our knees do not tremble at the word "revolution". We believe in it. We believe in the progress of mankind. We believe in freedom, and we intend to be associated with it in the days to come.

So I come back to this old city, to express my thanks to all of you who are my oldest friends, beginning with Dr. Good,34 to express my appreciation for your confidence and support tonight, on past occasions, and I hope in the future, and I carry with me a message which is written on one of our statues by a distinguished and vigorous New Englander, William Lloyd Garrison, "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard."

"See ante, doc. 212.

"Dr. Frederick L. Good, the physician in attendance at the President's birth.

[FRENCH-UNITED STATES DISCUSSION OF "THE PRINCIPAL ISSUES IN THE PRESENT INTERNATIONAL SITUATION": Joint Communiqué Issued at Paris by the President of the French Republic (General de Gaulle) and the President of the United States (Kennedy), June 2, 1961—Ante, doc. 199]

227. "I GO TO VIENNA WITH A GOOD DEAL OF CONFIDENCE": Replies Made by the President (Kennedy) to Questions Asked at a News Conference, Paris, June 2, 1961 (Excerpts) 35

The purpose of this meeting [with Chairman Khrushchev in Vienna] is to permit me to make a more precise judgment on those matters which involve the interests of the United States and the Soviet Union, and those countries which are associated with us and those countries which are members of the Sino-Soviet bloc. We are involved in two conferences at Geneva.36 We hope that more progress can be made at both of them. And if there is anything that may be said in the meetings Saturday and Sunday which may improve that prospect, then, of course, that makes the trip worthwhile. There are other matters, also, on which we have not come to an agreement with Mr. Khrushchev, and I think it important that we understand fully his viewpoint and all of its implications, and that, in return, he has the same understanding of our viewpoint.

When responsibility is pressed heavily on anyone to make a judg ment, it seems to me useful to have as close an understanding of the view of each side as possible. I think that it is most valuable to talk to those with whom we are allied. I also think it is important that we talk to those who are separated from us, because, in the final analysis, heavy decisions rest, constitutionally, upon the President of the United States. He must, under some conditions, make the final judgment himself, and if my judgment may be more lucid, may be based more on reality as a result of this exchange, then I think the trip will be useful.

If I were in Mr. Khrushchev's place, it would be because I was Mr. Khrushchev and had lived his life, and therefore I would look to the West and I would see a good deal of reports of disagreement. I would see where all Western leaders may not agree on every issue. I would see where distinguished American correspondents who speak with great influence take a different view on what actions the United States should take. I would see Mr. Kennedy under critical attack by many of his fellow countrymen, as well as those who live across the ocean.

35 The replies printed here are taken from pp. 433 and 436-437 of Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961. See post, docs. 571 et seq. and 510 et seq.

I would look at my own country, where everything on the surface is serene, where nobody criticizes or opposes, and everyone is united behind me. And therefore I would draw a conclusion that the tide of history was moving with me.

If I were Mr. Khrushchev, however, and had spent some time in the West, I would take a somewhat different view of the tide of history. I would read those distinguished spokesmen who had prophesied the imminent collapse of Europe in 1947 and '48. I would read those others who had felt it would be impossible for us to associate more closely together, and I would also recognize that dissent and controversy brings a kind of vitality and also protects individual liberty. And I would consider that possibly we could improve Russian society. I will say that I don't agree very basically with one of the assumptions which a good many Communists put forward, and that is, from the events of the last 15 years, they have made the judgment that the tide is determined and in their favor. You cannot look at the relations between the countries behind the Iron Curtain-for example, the rather strange relationship between Albania and China, or between Yugoslavia and Albania and Russia, or between all the other countries of the bloc-to feel that if time were permitted to pass and the Communists were permitted to be successful, that there would not inevitably be the same rivalries which we now see already in evidence.

The difficulty, of course, is that Caesar and Pompey, and Antony and Octavius and the others did not fall out until they were successful. We cannot afford the luxury of permitting them [the members of the Communist bloc] the kind of success which will prove them wrong finally in the kind of world [of] which they were witness. We have to maintain our position. And therefore, I hope Mr. Khrushchev is not misled by those signs of democracy which we understand but they do not, but instead recognizes that the United States of America, divided as it may be on many important questions-including governmental spending-is united in its determination to fulfill its commitments and to play the role that history and its own free choice have brought upon it in these years.

So I may say, as I said at the beginning, I go to Vienna with a good deal of confidence, and I go to Vienna with more confidence as a result of my last 2 days.

B. Efforts To Improve Soviet-United States Understanding the Kennedy-Khrushchev Meeting at Vienna

228. "PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND PREMIER KHRUSHCHEV... HAVE AGREED TO MAINTAIN CONTACT ON ALL QUESTIONS OF INTEREST TO THE TWO COUNTRIES": Joint Communiqué Issued at Vienna by the President of the United States (Kennedy) and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. (Khrushchev), June 4, 1961 1

President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev have concluded two days of useful meetings, during which they have reviewed the relationships between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., as well as other questions that are of interest to the two States. Today, in the company of their advisors, they discussed the problems of nuclear testing, disarmament, and Germany. The President and the Chairman reaffirmed their support of a neutral and independent Laos under a government chosen by the Laotians themselves, and of international agreements for insuring that neutrality and independence, and in this connection they have recognized the importance of an effective cease-fire. The President and the Chairman have agreed to maintain contact on all questions of interest to the two countries and for the whole world.

229. THE SUBSTANCE OF THE KENNEDY-KHRUSHCHEV TALKS AT VIENNA, JUNE 3-4, 1961: Address by the President (Kennedy) to the Nation, June 6, 1961 (Excerpt) s

I went to Vienna to meet the leader of the Soviet Union, Mr. Khrushchev. For 2 days we met in sober, intensive conversation, and I believe it is my obligation to the people, to the Congress, and to our allies to report on those conversations candidly and publicly.

1

1 White House (Vienna) press release dated June 4, 1961 (text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, June 26, 1961, p. 999). President and Mrs. Kennedy were in Vienna June 3-4, 1961. For these meetings, which took place in the American and Soviet Embassies, the President had as advisers Secretary Rusk, Ambassadors Llewellyn E. Thompson, Foy D. Kohler, and Charles E. Bohlen. For the announcement of this meeting, see ante, doc. 225. For the texts of Soviet aide-mémoires handed to President Kennedy by Chairman Khrushchev, June 4, 1961, and the U.S. replies, see post, docs. 231, 239 and 576–577. Secretary Rusk and Ambassador Kohler respectively advised President de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer of the results of these talks.

2 See post, docs. 489-528.

White House press release dated June 6, 1961 (text as printed in the Depart ment of State Bulletin, June 26, 1961, pp. 991-995). The President's address was carried by the principal radio and television networks.