Context
In November 1960, Kennedy had defeated U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon in the presidential election of that year. The Vienna summit was the first time Kennedy met the Soviet premier, and Khrushchev (who had been in power since Joseph Stalin's death in 1953) was determined to prove his apparent superiority over the young and inexperienced Kennedy. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961, initially planned during the Eisenhower administration but finalized and carried out on Kennedy's watch, made Khrushchev all the more determined to display his apparent superiority over Kennedy.
The discussions were amicable, unlike the breakdown in talks between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Khrushchev in 1960 over the U-2 incident in May of that year. Accordingly, there was a great deal of speculation before the summit as to whether it would be a success or not.
Read more about this topic: Vienna Summit
Famous quotes containing the word context:
“Parents are led to believe that they must be consistent, that is, always respond to the same issue the same way. Consistency is good up to a point but your child also needs to understand context and subtlety . . . much of adult life is governed by context: what is appropriate in one setting is not appropriate in another; the way something is said may be more important than what is said. . . .”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of—career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)