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The inaugural music was just fading away in Washington when, across the top of the world, U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Llewellyn ("Tommy") Thompson was summoned to the Kremlin office of Nikita Khrushchev. For two hours Thompson and Khrushchev talked, and within minutes after Thompson emerged into the bitter Russian winter, the diplomatic wires were humming between the capitals of the two great cold war powers.
For the next two days, top Administration officials hurried in and out of the White House—but kept strict silence as to the subject of their conversations with President Kennedy. Washington newsmen began to sense that something big was in the works, something more than the energetic enthusiasm of a new Administration plowing into its problems; the New York Herald Tribune actually dug out the story, but withheld it after Presidential Press Secretary Pierre Salinger explained that publication would be "inimical to the interests of the U.S."
In Moscow, an observant reporter remarked on the unusual bustle of activity around the U.S. military attaché's office; he was immediately pledged to silence. Out at Sheremetyevo Airport a few hours later, a British newsman spotted the U.S. air attaché's car and came up to cadge a ride to town. Then he spotted two strangers in the back seat, decided not to intrude—and missed the story of his life.
That story broke the next day when President Kennedy, at his first news conference, made a dramatic announcement: "Captains Freeman B. Olmstead and John R. McKone, members of the crew of the U.S.A.F. RB-47 aircraft who have been detained by Soviet authorities since July 1, 1960, have been released by the Soviet government and are now en route to the U.S."
In human terms, the release of Bruce Olmstead, 25, and John McKone, 28, was a heart-touching event. In diplomatic terms it was a blatant Khrushchev move in the continuing cold war, a Soviet gesture toward the new U.S. Administration that cost Russia nothing. In political terms it was a first test of the Kennedy Administration's ability to stay cool while the heat is on—and, from the moment that Ambassador Thompson entered Khrushchev's office, the Administration passed its test handsomely.
Three Strings. In his talk with Thompson, Khrushchev made it perfectly plain that he has not by one jot or tittle changed his views on the outstanding issues of the cold war—Berlin, the Congo, Laos, disarmament or nuclear testing. Khrushchev's offer to free Olmstead and McKone came at the very start of the session. He attached three strings: 1) the announcements of the airmen's release must be made simultaneously in Washington and Moscow, with no advance news leaks; 2) the U.S. must publicly declare that it has discontinued its U-2 flights over Soviet territory; 3) the U.S. must promise not to make international political capital out of the prisoners' release—that is, it must not remind the world that they had been criminally held captive after being shot down over open sea.