167. Salinger Diary Entry0
The President and Sorensen thought it would be a good idea to put Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Khrushchev on the TV program. I was instructed to call Bolshakov—which I did—and asked if this would be possible. Bolshakov told me I had reached him at home where he was sick in bed. He said he throught it was a good idea and would transmit it immediately to Mikhail Khalarmov.
A half hour later Bolshakov called me back to say it was urgent that he see me. I made an appointment to see him at 6:45 p.m. in the Hay-Adams Hotel bar. By coincidence Bob Manning was in the bar with Bruce Rothwell of the London Daily Mail, Adalbert de Segonzac of France Soire, and Werner Imhoof of the Swiss Neue Zuercher Zeitung. They observed Bolshakov and I entering the bar together.
Bolshakov said he was about to transmit my message to Moscow when he received a message from Moscow saying the Soviet Government [Page 389] no longer thought the time was propitious for a Kennedy/Khrushchev TV exchange. He said the Presidentʼs decision to resume nuclear testing1 had caused the Soviet Government to defer the program to a later date; that the Soviet people would not understand why Chairman Khrushchev appeared with the President in view of the latterʼs testing decision. Bolshakov said this development did not affect my trip to the Soviet Union.
I told Bolshakov I considered the decision most unfortunate; that I could not see how the decision could not but affect my trip; that it was a personal blow to the President as well as for me; that, on the contrary, that in these difficult times we should strive, in communications, to keep the lines open; it was always most essential to communicate when our relations were improved. I told Bolshakov I could not believe that he himself agreed with the Soviet Government decision and I did not think there was anybody in the high ranks of the Soviet Government who was naive enough to think that we would not test. I said Mr. Khrushchev himself had made the statement that after the first country tested it was natural to expect the other country to test.
Mr. Bolshakov said he was sorry about it and that we had already accomplished a great deal in communications. I told Bolshakov that I had been able to say, since January 20, 1961, that every commitment made with a Soviet official regarding communications had been carried out to the fullest extreme; that I had staked my personal reputation on Adzhubeiʼs commitment to interview the President. I told Bolshakov I could now no longer make this claim. Mr. Bolshakov was obviously upset about the Soviet decision but did not enter much into the conversation.
I left the Hay-Adams and returned to the White House where I reported to the President, who was alone in the office. He immediately called Sorensen who had prepared the draft TV remarks. The President told me to call Bolshakov back and tell him this was another manifestation as to why it was so difficult to come to any agreement with the Russians; that this particular decision was as if Khrushchev had arranged for a Summit with the President and then cancelled out two days prior to [it] because of some change in the political climate. The first thought the President had was that I should immediately announce cancellation of my Moscow trip in retaliation. On second thought he said we would not do this because to do so would reduce the climate of American-Soviet relations to an even lower point than now existed.
The President called Chip Bohlen and informed him of the Soviet decision; Bohlen suggested that it be made to appear as a joint one. I was thereupon instructed to call Bolshakov back and tell him of the Presidentʼs [Page 390] displeasure; point out the difficulties with our own press because of the great many people who knew of this matter, particularly the network heads; without further raising of tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States we would attempt to play down the decision. This I did.
- Source: Kennedy Library, Salinger Papers, Box 144, Visits. Secret.↩
- See Document 166.↩