While summer 1967 wasn’t the Cold War’s most tense period — such as during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis or the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — there was nothing simple and easy about that year in regard to relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The U.S. was bogged down in a brutal war against North Vietnam, a crucial ally of Moscow in Asia. Also, a civil war had begun in Nigeria and turmoil in the Middle East threatened to drag the superpowers into direct confrontation.
In this increasingly hostile atmosphere, at the last minute and to the surprise of nearly everyone, the American and Soviet leaders decided to meet. Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was going to be in the U.S. anyway to address the United Nations on June 19.
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