John F. Kennedy

====Vienna Summit and the Berlin Wall====
{{see also|Vienna summit|Berlin Crisis of 1961}}
Kennedy anxiously anticipated a summit with Nikita Khrushchev. The proceedings for the summit got off to a problematic start when Kennedy reacted aggressively to a routine Khrushchev speech on Cold War confrontation in early 1961. The speech was intended for domestic audiences in the Soviet Union, but Kennedy interpreted it as a personal challenge. His mistake helped raise tensions going into the [[Vienna summit]].{{sfn|Kempe|2011|pp=76–78}} The summit would cover several topics, but both leaders knew that the most contentious issue would be [[Berlin]], which had been divided in two with the start of the Cold War. The enclave of [[West Berlin]] lay within Soviet-allied [[East Germany]], but was supported by the U.S. and other Western powers. The Soviets wanted to reunify Berlin under the control of East Germany, partly due to the large number of East Germans who had fled to West Berlin.{{sfn|Brinkley|2012|pp=74, 77–78}}
[[File:John Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev 1961.jpg|thumb|left|Kennedy meeting with [[Soviet Premier]] [[Nikita Khrushchev]] in [[Vienna]] in June 1961]]

On June 4, 1961, Kennedy met with Khrushchev in Vienna and left the meeting angry and disappointed that he had allowed the premier to bully him, despite the warnings he had received. Khrushchev, for his part, was impressed with the president's intelligence but thought him weak. Kennedy did succeed in conveying the bottom line to Khrushchev on the most sensitive issue before them, a proposed treaty between Moscow and [[East Berlin]]. He made it clear that any treaty interfering with U.S. access rights in West Berlin would be regarded as an act of war.{{sfn|Reeves|1993|pp=161–171}} Shortly after Kennedy returned home, the Soviet Union announced its plan to sign a treaty with East Berlin, abrogating any third-party occupation rights in either sector of the city. Kennedy assumed that his only option was to prepare the country for nuclear war, which he thought had a one-in-five chance of occurring.{{sfn|Reeves|1993|p=175}}

In the weeks immediately following the summit, more than 20,000 people [[Republikflucht|fled from East Berlin]] to the western sector, reacting to statements from the Soviet Union. Kennedy began intensive meetings on the Berlin issue, where [[Dean Acheson]] took the lead in recommending a military buildup alongside NATO allies.{{sfn|Reeves|1993|p=185}} In a July 1961 speech, Kennedy announced his decision to add $3.25&nbsp;billion (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|3.25|1961|r=2}}&nbsp;billion in {{Inflation-year|US}}) to the defense budget, along with over 200,000 additional troops, stating that an attack on West Berlin would be taken as an attack on the U.S. The speech received an 85% approval rating.{{sfn|Reeves|1993|p=201}}

A month later, both the Soviet Union and East Berlin began blocking any further passage of East Germans into West Berlin and erected [[barbed-wire]] fences, which were quickly upgraded to the [[Berlin Wall]]. Kennedy acquiesced to the wall, though he sent Vice President Johnson to West Berlin to reaffirm U.S. commitment to the enclave's defense. In the following months, in a sign of rising Cold War tensions, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union ended a moratorium on nuclear weapon testing.{{sfn|Giglio|2006|pp=85–86}} A brief stand-off between U.S. and Soviet tanks occurred at [[Checkpoint Charlie]] in October following a dispute over free movement of Allied personnel. The [[Berlin Crisis of 1961|crisis]] was defused largely through a backchannel communication the Kennedy administration had set up with Soviet spy [[Georgi Bolshakov]].{{sfn|Kempe|2011|pp=[https://archive.org/details/berlin1961kenned0000kemp/page/478 478–479]}} In remarks to his aides on the Berlin Wall, Kennedy noted that "it's not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Updegrove |first1=Mark K. |title=Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency |date=2022 |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |page=118}}</ref>