The Vienna summit was a summit meeting held on June 4, 1961, in Vienna, Austria, between President of the United States John F. Kennedy and the leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. The leaders of the two superpowers of the Cold War era discussed many issues in the relationship between their countries.

The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major European political and military incident of the Cold War concerning the status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post–World War II Germany. The crisis culminated in the city's de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall.