Hello and welcome to Whistlestop a podcast of the presidency. I'm John Dickerson, co-host of CBS this morning.

When last we left, President Kennedy was June 1961.

He was fresh off a successful visit to France, but when he landed in Vienna, Austria carrying

his gray hat in one hand, he was tense, for reasons that went beyond his stiff back.

Kennedy faced a high stakes parlay with Soviet Premier Nikiti Khrushchev

the son of a multi-millionaire businessman and graduate of the toniest U.S. College meeting with

Khrushchev, the son of a Ukrainian coal miner who had three years of grammar school.

It was the first time the two would meet leader to leader.

Give him hell, Jack, read a placard at the airport when Kennedy arrived.

You'll remember, of course, our backdrop, Vienna, the capital of Austria, its streets refreshed after the shelling

and marching of World War II welcomed the two main adversaries of the Cold War.

The meetings purported purpose, which is not to say a purported

porpoise, which is really just a fake dolphin. The purpose was to lessen

Cold War tensions. The two countries had not met since the Soviets downed an American U2 spy plane in May of 1960.

The spy plane incident showed American vulnerability.

The failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, which had happened even more recently, also demonstrated that America

could not work its will everywhere that it wanted.

This created a destabilizing fizzle in the atmosphere in Vienna.

The stakes were high.

Khrushchev spied an opening.

His age urged him to gambit's, particularly on the question of Germany and Berlin.

Moscow wanted Germany under its sway.

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