Kennedy and Khrushchev at the Vienna Summit, 3 June 1961
Kennedy and Khrushchev photographed in Vienna on 3 June 1961. The picture was released while the talks were still going badly; both sides understood that the images travelling home mattered nearly as much as anything said in the room.
Vienna produced no agreement. Khrushchev pressed his ultimatum on Berlin, Kennedy left shaken enough to tell a reporter it had been the roughest thing in his life, and the wall went up ten weeks later. What the summit did produce, in quantity, was pictures — two leaders shaking hands, walking together, seated in armchairs — distributed by wire and broadcast on television in both countries. The photograph is held by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, PX 96-33:12. See the global impact of the 1961 Vienna summit broadcasts.
Public domain — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
