The Vienna summit was a summit meeting held on June 4, 1961, in Vienna, Austria, between President of the United States John F. Kennedy and the leader of the Soviet Union (First Secretary and Premier) Nikita Khrushchev. The leaders of the two superpowers of the Cold War era discussed many issues in the relationship between their countries.
Context
Khrushchev and Kennedy prior to the summit
Kennedy and Khrushchev first met at the Vienna Summit in June 1961. Prior to meeting face to face, their contact began when Khrushchev sent Kennedy a message on November 9, 1960, congratulating him on his presidential election victory and stating his hope that "relations between [the U.S. and USSR] would again follow the line along which they were developing in Franklin Roosevelt's time." He also told Kennedy that the USSR desired to negotiate with the U.S. on issues relating to "disarmament ... a German peace treaty ... and other questions which could bring about an easing and improvement of the entire international situation." In a reply message, Kennedy thanked Khrushchev and similar niceties continued until 1961.
On February 22, 1961, Kennedy sent Khrushchev a letter stating, "I hope it will be possible, before too long, for us to meet personally for an informal exchange of views." This was the first time either man suggested a diplomatic meeting. Kennedy felt "that if he could just sit down with Khrushchev" the two leaders could work out their interstate conflicts. Yet, Kennedy's advisers told him not to meet with Khrushchev so soon after the presidential election. The American ambassador to Moscow, Llewellyn E. Thompson, feared that Kennedy misjudged Khrushchev's personality and intentions. Likewise, U.S. diplomat Charles Bohlen "worried that JFK underrated Khrushchev's determination to expand world communism." Nevertheless, Khrushchev accepted Kennedy's summit proposal, and the leaders began to make plans for their official meeting. Meanwhile, Cold War rivalries between the two powers escalated in Germany, Laos, and Cuba. These regional conflicts became major items on the Vienna Summit agenda.
The Berlin question
Between 1945 and 1961, 2.7 million East Germans emigrated from East Berlin, a part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), to West Berlin. GDR leader Walter Ulbricht argued that the large number of emigrants leaving East Berlin threatened the existence of the GDR by diminishing its population. In the early months of 1961, Ulbricht pressured Khrushchev to close the border between East and West Berlin. Khrushchev understood Ulbricht's concern but feared that a potential intervention from Western powers would destabilize East Berlin further. Thompson warned in February 1961 that if there were "no progress" on Berlin and Germany, Khrushchev would "almost certainly proceed with [his] separate peace treaty...." The notion of a separate peace treaty threatened American interests in West Germany; if the USSR rendered complete control of East Berlin to the East German government, then the U.S. could only communicate with and control West Berlin with permission from the East German government.
The Berlin Question—whether or not the U.S. would allow the USSR to sign a separate peace treaty with Berlin—dominated Khrushchev and Kennedy's debates at the Vienna Summit. The signing of a separate peace treaty with Berlin did not appeal to American policymakers, who felt comfortable with the division of Germany and Berlin itself. A peace treaty threatened the established balance of power and could potentially lead to the United States losing all its influence in East Berlin.
The Laos question
A lesser-known conflict fueled controversy at the Vienna Summit as well. "As in Berlin, [Kennedy] inherited in Laos a situation aggravated by near-direct armed confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States." During Eisenhower's presidency, the U.S. backed a right-wing conservative government (royal government) in Laos to counter that communist threat of the popular Pathet Lao. In Laos, "the Eisenhower government committed millions of dollars in aid" in order to continue the rule of a pro-American leader. Both the Soviets and the Americans knew that a proxy war in Laos drove both countries further into an arms race. Under this context, Khrushchev and Kennedy discussed the Laos situation at length at the Vienna Summit.