Dwight D. Eisenhower
thirty-fourth U.S. President

Our common purpose should be, as always, a just, universal, and enduring peace. It is in this spirit, Mr. Chairman, that I welcome you to Washington and the United States.

On September 15, 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, promising an ‘open heart and good intentions,’ began an unprecedented tour of the United States. The Soviet leader, regarded as more moderate than his predecessor Joseph Stalin, was greeted warmly by President Dwight D. Eisenhower at Andrew's Air Force Base. Khrushchev toured cities and rural areas, and on September 18, addressed the United Nations in New York, calling for total nuclear disarmament within four years. One week later, Eisenhower and Khrushchev began the first-ever superpowers summit at Camp David in Maryland, and the two leaders agreed to relieve world tensions by compromising on Cold War sticking points such as the status of Berlin. Khrushchev's American tour, which ended on September 27, was heralded as a new high in U.S.-Soviet relations. Unfortunately, in the early 1960s, events such as the U-2 spy plane controversy, Fidel Castro's Communist revolution in Cuba, and the construction of the Berlin Wall brought about a dangerous cooling in Cold War relations.