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Excerpt from President Kennedy: Profile of Power
Richard Reeves, 1994 Touchstone
He had been in office only three weeks when the first feelers came from Krushchev for and early meeting. He had jumped at the chance, writing to the Soviet leader on February 22 to suggest a meeting, and he wrote again when Krushchev repeated the invitation after the Bay of Pigs. The chairman had emphasized that he was not interested in talking about that embarrassing piece of business. The challenge, the action, was irresistible to Kennedy. And it must have been irresistible to Krushchev. The timing was right: triumphant in space, on the move in a half dozen countries around the world, Soviet power and influence were at a peak, and Krushchev wanted the Americans to acknowledge that before the world.
The first meeting was scheduled to begin just twenty minutes after the President arrived at the residence of the US Ambassador to Austria, H. Freeman Matthews. The President’s men were already circulating among reporters outside, telling them how ready their president was, repeating that this would be like the Kennedy-Nixon debates of last year. The American entourage almost ran down the steps from Air Force One, scattering to their hotels as the president was rushed off to pay a courtesy call on the president of Austria, Dr. Adolf Schärf.
Dr. Max Jacobson was not listed as a member of the official presidential party, but he was in the entourage and on the White House housing list, rooming with the president’s military attachés. As he did back in the United States, the doctor responded to calls from “Mrs. Dunn,” a simple code name for the White House. There was a call soon after Air Force One landed in Vienna.
“Krushchev will be here any minute,” Kennedy said to Jacobson as the doctor prepared an injection in an upstairs bedroom of the residence. “This could go on for hours. I can’t afford any complications with my back.”
“You won’t have that for an excuse,” the doctor said.
A few minutes later, Kennedy was pacing the halls downstairs when the cars bringing Krushchev and his party rolled slowly through the gates at 12:45 p.m. As the cars stopped, Kennedy burst out the front door, running down the steps. It was the same race he had won with Eisenhower at the White House six months before. But Krushchev was quicker than he looked, and he was double-timing, too, as they met for one of the most photographed handshakes of all time.
“Another one,” the photographers shouted.
“Tell the Chairman,” Kennedy said to his interpreter, Alexander Akalovsky, “that it’s all right with me if it’s all right with him.” It was. Krushchev grinned and stuck out his hand. The leader of the Soviet Union, sixty-seven years old and fat as a sausage, came up to the nose of the trim president of the United States. No hats: they were both bareheaded in the rain.