January 1960–January 1961: Disappointment and Renewal

Abstract

The year 1960 opened with a glimmer of hope for a positive change in the international situation. Largely the result of the initiative of an enthusiastic Prime Minister Macmillan and an initially reluctant President Eisenhower, the Western alliance was poised to enter into meaningful negotiations with the Soviet Union for the first time in the Cold War. The success of these negotiations, of course, depended upon the willingness of Nikita Khrushchev and the Soviet leadership to entertain the prospect of acceptable solutions to the issues which divided East and West. In 1959, in talks with Macmillan in Moscow in February, at the “kitchen debate” in Moscow with Vice President Richard Nixon in July, and finally with Eisenhower at Camp David in September, Khrushchev appeared open to a dialogue with the West.