Russian Officials Tried to Help John F. Kennedy Win the Presidency

In recent days, as Donald Trump Jr. has found himself in hot water over a newly disclosed meeting that he took with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during his father's presidential campaign last year, some historically minded observers noted that this is not the first time Russian operatives have sought to engage with a campaign for the U.S. Presidency….

Nearly six decades earlier, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev supported John F. Kennedy over incumbent Republican Vice President Richard Nixon in the 1960 Presidential election. Nixon, as serving VP, represented a past during which Khrushchev had struggled to connect to his Cold War counterparts. Khrushchev had also clashed with Nixon during a July 1959 debate in Moscow over the benefits of socialism versus capitalism. Khrushchev was offended and came to believe that “any candidate would be better than Nixon,” Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov write in the book Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev.

And, thanks in part to the public writings of a former Soviet intelligence officer, which the authors cite, it is believed that Russian operatives even attempted to contact Kennedy campaign officials during the 1960 election, only to be denied.

"Never before had Khrushchev followed a U.S. presidential campaign so closely," Zubok and Pleshakov write.