Hello and welcome to Whistlestop a podcast of the presidency. I'm John Dickerson,

co-host of CBS this morning.

It was only the halftime break at the Kennedy Cruceshachev-Vienna summit in June 1961, but it was already clear the

team USA was losing.

Kennedy, in his fumbling responses to the Soviet Premier, had appeared weak to his opponent who noted that Kennedy was young enough to be his son.

Indeed, the 44-year-old president had been born in the same year as Khrushchev's eldest son.

This man is very inexperienced, immature, Khrushchev told his interpreter.

Compared to him, Eisenhower is a man of intelligence and vision.

This is from Fred Kemp's indispensable Berlin 61.

You'll remember, of course, that Khrushchev had a very low opinion of Eisenhower going into the meeting,

and so in comparison to Kennedy, so for him after the first day to put Eisenhower back on the top of the heap is quite a downgrade for Kennedy.

Anyway, welcome to the third and final whistle stop on President Kennedy's meeting with the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

It is a rule of the Whistle Stop Priory that a string of episodes cannot last longer than

the thing that they are describing.

So we are desperately going to try to stop things here at just three episodes on Kennedy and

Khrushchev.

Why have we subjected you to three episodes anyway?

Well, because there's so much to discover.

And our researchers, Brian Rosenwald and Elizabeth Hinson,

have put so much before me, I feel a personal debt to them

for doing all of the excavating.

When you have diamonds brought before you,

...