JFKs presidential election campaign in 1960 ran on a confrontational policy with the USSR. He claimed that a missle gap had been allowed to develop and promised steep increases in military spending to meet this, when the Corona spy satellites brought back photo reconnaissance showing that the USSR had just four ICBMs capable of hitting the continental United States this generated no change in policy at all, he authorized the Bay of Pigs Invasion, he was belligerent throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis refusing to remove Atlas missiles form Turkey in exchange for the USSR removing its missiles from Cuba even though they were obsolete and earmarked for retirement when the Polaris SSBN became operational because of the insistence on the right of America to place missiles anywhere it chose, he then authorized Operation Mongoose, he began the planning for the 1964 Brazilian coup, and of course he expanded assisting the friendly dictatorship in Vietnam into an all out war. The man was not looking for "peaceful co-existence" with the USSR except on Americas terms.