What Every Candidate Could Learn from J.F.K.

In early June, 1961, against the advice of people like the Russian expert George Kennan, President John F. Kennedy travelled to Vienna to hold face-to-face talks with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier. Kennedy had been in office for less than five months. There was a lot to discuss—the possible neutrality of a fragmented Laos, the nuclear-arms race—but nothing was so difficult as the future of Berlin. The city was situated entirely within the borders of the former East Germany but, since 1945, had been occupied by the four victorious allies and, for all practical purposes, divided between East and West.