From the course: How to Save Face in a Negotiation

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The mutual benefits of saving face

The mutual benefits of saving face

- [Interviewer] And now in this situation with Kennedy and Khrushchev, what was the next play? Because the opening gambit was kind of aggressive from Khrushchev, and then Kennedy responded in that way. But for Kennedy, we understand that this helped Khrushchev save face. But how did it help Kennedy save face for the hardliners here in the U.S? - [Interviewee] So what it did was by responding to the the quote unquote softer letter, the demand that really Kennedy couldn't accept, at least publicly, was the removal, in exchange for the removal of missiles from Cuba, Khrushchev wanted the United States to remove missiles from Turkey. And that was something that he demanded in the letter. And that was not something that the United States, at least at this point in the crisis, was publicly willing to do. So they basically responded to the softer letter and accepted the other demand of the Soviet Union, to basically guarantee…

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