At the beginning of June 1961, the tensions of the Cold War were supposed to abate as both sides sought a resolution. The two most important men in the world, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, met for a summit in Vienna. Yet the high hopes were disappointed. Within months the Cold War had become very hot: Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall and a year later he sent missiles to Cuba to threaten the United States directly.Despite the fact that the Vienna Summit yielded barely any tangible results, it did lead to some very important developments. The superpowers came to see for the first time that there was only one way to escape from the atomic hell of their respective arsenals: dialogue. The "peace through fear" and the "hotline" between Washington and Moscow prevented an atomic confrontation. Austria successfully demonstrated its new role as neutral state and host when Vienna became a meeting place in the Cold War. InThe Vienna Summit and Its Importance in International History international experts use new Russian and Western sources to analyze what really happened during this critical time and why the parties had a close shave with catastrophe.

Günter Bischof is a university research professor and director of CenterAustria at the University of New Orleans, Louisiana.Stefan Karner ishead of the Department of Economic, Social, and Business History at the University of Graz and director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research of War Consequences, Graz-Vienna.Barbara Stelzl-Marx is deputy director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research of War Consequences and lecturer at the University of Graz.

Part I: Introduction and Historical Context1. Introduction: The Vienna Summit and Its Importance in International HistoryGünter Bischof, Stefan Karner, Barbara Stelzl-Marx2. Summitry in the Twentieth Century: An OverviewDavid ReynoldsPart II: Contextualizing the Vienna Summit

United States, France, and Great Britain3. The First Test of [. . .] Détente Will Be the Berlin Negotiation: Berlin, Disarmament, and the 1960 Paris SummitRichard D. Williamson4. Vienna, a City that is Symbolic of the Possibility of Finding Equitable Solutions: John F. Kennedy and His European Summitry in Early June 1961Günter Bischof and Martin Kofler5. Great Britain and the Vienna Summit of June 1961Anne Deighton6. Paris as Beneficiary of the Unsuccessful Vienna SummitGeorges-Henri Soutou

Soviet Union7. SovietAmerican Relations in the Early 1960sVladimir Pechatnov8. Between Pragmatism and Ideology: The U.S. Soviet Negotiating Process in the Khrushchev EraOlga Pavlenko

Asia and Africa9. Casting a Long Shadow over Vienna: The Chinese Factor in the Vienna SummitMichail Prozumenshchikov10. Laos and the Vienna SummitLawrence FreedmanPart III: The Summit11. Two Days of Drama: Preparation and Execution of the Vienna SummitBarbara Stelzl-Marx12. A Difficult Education: John F. Kennedy and Nikita S. Khrushchev in ViennaTimothy Naftali13. Summit Ladies: Gender Arrangements, Media Staging, and Symbolic Scenes of the 1961Vienna Summit TalksIngrid Bauer14. Moral Masculinity: Gender, Power, and the KennedyKhrushchev RelationshipJennifer Lynn Walton15. On the Significance of Austrian Neutrality for Soviet Foreign Policy under Nikita S. KhrushchevPeter Ruggenthaler16. The Personal Recollections of a Presidential Adviser in ViennaTed Sorensen17. The Personal Recollections of Khrushchevs Interpreter in ViennaViktor SukhodrevPart IV: The Berlin Crisis18. Khrushchev, the Berlin Wall, and the Demand for a Peace Treaty, 19611963Gerhard Wettig19. The Vienna Summit and the Construction of the Berlin WallManfred WilkeAppendicesAppendix 1: Soviet Kennedy ProfileAppendix 2: CIA Profile of Krushchev in Kennedys Briefing PapersAppendix 4:Krushchevs Presidium Statement before the Vienna TripAppendix 3-1:Memorandum of Conversation, Vienna, 3 June 1961, 12:45 p.m.Appendix 3-2:Memorandum of Conversation, Vienna, 3 June 1961, 3 p.m.Appendix 3-3:Memorandum of Conversation, Vienna, 4 June 1961, 10:15 a.m.

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