History of the Soviet Union (1953–64)
Khrushchev anxiously awaited the results of the 1960 United States presidential election, preferring Kennedy to Richard Nixon, whom he took as a hardline anti-communist cold warrior, and openly celebrated the former's victory on November 8. In truth however, Khrushchev's opinion of Kennedy was mixed. He knew that the new president was from a wealthy background and Harvard-educated. On the other, Kennedy was the youngest elected US president at 43 and gave off the impression of inexperience and "a boy wearing his father's pants" that Khrushchev assumed he could pounce on and dominate. If however Kennedy was that weak, there stood the possibility that he could merely be a puppet of "reactionary" forces and the US military-industrial complex. Almost immediately after the polls closed on Election Day, Khrushchev attempted to barrage the president-elect with proposals and the hope of improved US-Soviet relations, specifically turning the clock back to the accommodating diplomatic atmosphere of President Roosevelt's time. However, Khrushchev was informed that he was acting too quickly and it would not be possible to have a formal summit with Kennedy until he took office in January, and even then, arranging such a meeting would still take time.
Presidency of John F. Kennedy
On November 8, 1960, Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th century. Kennedy won the popular vote by a narrow margin of 120,000 votes out of a record 68.8 million ballots cast. He won the electoral vote by a wider margin, receiving 303 votes to Nixon's 219. 14 unpledged electors from two states—Alabama and Mississippi—voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, as did one faithless elector in Oklahoma. In the concurrent congressional elections, Democrats retained wide majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Kennedy was the first person born in the 20th century to be elected president, and, at age 43, the youngest person elected to the office. He was also the first Roman Catholic elected to the presidency.