American Experience

Historian Stephen Ambrose on the Paris Summit

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I think the reason Khrushchev made such a big deal out of the U2 when he could have underplayed it, had many roots to the decision. One of which was he was insulted that Eisenhower, he felt personally that Eisenhower had double-crossed him on this. He was under pressure from his military to slow down the pace of rapprochement with the United States. And then you've got to get into the specific. The reason for that Paris summit was to discuss the situation in Berlin. And Khrushchev knew that Eisenhower was not going to back out of Berlin, as the Russians were demanding. I think Krushchev broke up that summit because he knew that it wasn't going to get anywhere, that he wasn't going to be able to force the West out of Berlin, and that therefore there was no point to having the meeting and he used the U2 as a way to very dramatically bring the meeting to a crushing stop, and lay the onus on the Americans for it.

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