Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story-How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War (38 page)

Khrushchev moved on to the set of
Can-Can
, starring Shirley MacLaine. His face darkened when he saw the high-kicking chorus line, but he applauded politely, chatted with the actors, and posed for pictures with the scantily clad showgirls. Having survived the sustained seduction, he retreated to his armored Cadillac and toured Los Angeles under a dazzling sky, with four hundred photographers and reporters in pursuit. The stars’ mansions with their manicured lawns were a poor substitute for the canceled Disneyland visit, and as the car tour wore on, Khrushchev’s demeanor grew glummer.

That evening, the Soviets attended a plush civic banquet hosted by Los Angeles mayor Norris Poulson, who had decided to shore up his vote by taking a hard line. “Mr. Chairman,” he sternly said, wagging his finger,
“we do not agree with your widely quoted phrase, ‘We shall bury you.’” If necessary, Poulson pledged, America would fight to the death to preserve its way of life. Khrushchev turned scarlet and ordered Alexei Tupolev, the son of the designer of his mammoth plane, to stand up.
“We can always turn round and go home,” Khrushchev barked, his veins bulging. “It will take us ten hours, and we can leave at any moment.” Jane and Tommy Thompson were in the audience, and Jane
burst into tears as she watched all their cocktail diplomacy at endless Moscow receptions unravel before her eyes. “I am the first head of either Russia or the Soviet Union to visit the United States,” Khrushchev darkly ended.
“I can go. But I don’t know when, if ever, another Soviet premier will visit your country.”

Los Angeles had been an unmitigated disaster, and the next day, there was no official to see off the visitors as they left by train for San Francisco. Khrushchev’s mood brightened as he toured the bay
and city, but nose-dived again when he got into a shouting match with union leaders. When they prodded him about cultural values, he retorted that the Soviet people would never want to see what he had seen: honest girls forced to hitch up their skirts and show their bottoms to satisfy the corrupt tastes of rich consumers. He pushed back his chair, turned round, bent over, lifted his coattails, and did an impression of an
“honest girl” dancing the cancan.
“A person’s face is more beautiful than his backside,” he declared, wiggling his ample derriere as evidence. In America, he decided, even
union bosses were traitors to the working class.

After a more relaxing sojourn inspecting hybrid corn in Iowa, Khrushchev returned to Washington to host a
reception at the Soviet embassy. Van had finally received an invitation, and for once he was on time for the receiving line. When he walked in, the orchestra struck up Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1, and Khrushchev, instantly perking up, gave Van a bone-crushing hug. “When you come to Moscow again, you’ll be our guest,” he promised enthusiastically. Van expressed his gratitude and kissed Mrs. Khrushchev’s hand. “Did you get my flowers?” he asked. Nina beamingly explained that they had not been back long enough to know if anything had been delivered.

The next morning, all the papers ran photographs of the two men smiling at each other with unreserved affection as Khrushchev reached up to clasp Van’s face. It was another iconic image that once again permeated the political frost. Khrushchev, too, was warmed by the encounter, and he made space in his packed schedule to spend more time with his young American friend. He was still itching to show off his prized airplane, and early in the day, the two set off for Andrews Air Force Base. Khrushchev proudly
gave Van a tour of the metal beast, with its luxurious cabins for six and full kitchen and dining room. Afterward they went back to town in time for a luncheon at the Soviet embassy, and as Van arrived, reporters peppered him with questions about the mysterious plane. When lunch was over Van accompanied the Soviet leader to his rooms at Blair House, and after they had visited some more, Khrushchev walked him out to
the porch. They shook hands and kissed each other on both cheeks in full sight of the press, which leaped on the un-American display of affection.

Van was not being deliberately brave or courting controversy. His childhood had accustomed him to the company of older people; at sixty-five, Khrushchev was two years older than Rildia Bee. Good manners and natural affection prompted Van to return a kindness, his infatuation with Russia roused him to adopt its customs, and his lack of worldliness prevented him from calculating the political cost of his loyalty. Now more than ever, though, the price of trying to straddle the Iron Curtain became clear. That day, the
Chicago Sun-Times
ran a piece in which friends of Van complained that security agents were investigating him, and a journalist on the rival
Chicago Daily News
called a contact at the FBI. The agent refused to comment but drew up an
internal memorandum. “Stick to ‘no comment,’” J. Edgar Hoover scrawled on the bottom in his emphatic hand, adding, “The ‘kissing bout’ Cliburn &K. had together at Soviet Embassy last evening was disgusting.” With his patriotism under fire, Van was forced to state publicly that he was not a Communist or a Soviet agent, though he refused to apologize for his taste in friends. “These are
my kind of people,” he defiantly said of the Russians.

As the backlash continued, the Cliburns received a call in Kilgore.
“Rildia Bee, this is Sam Rayburn,” rang the firm voice of the veteran Speaker of the House; her father had been Rayburn’s first campaign manager, and he was an old family friend. “Now listen. I want to tell you. I just heard about Van and I called J. Edgar Hoover and told him that he’s no more of a communist than I am. I’ve known him since before he was born.”

As the most unlikely state visit in American history neared its end, Eisenhower took Khrushchev to Camp David for the weekend. When the Soviet leader received the invitation, he had flown into a rage on the assumption that being shuffled off to the presidential dacha was an insult to him and the Soviet Union, but when he understood that it was an honor, he calmed down. Eisenhower had a cold,
so they skipped the first bout of talks and went straight to dinner, followed by a screening of a Western. Over breakfast the next morning, they reminisced about the wartime alliance before moving on to the mainsprings of disagreement: Germany, disarmament, propaganda, and ideological conflicts involving third countries. As usual Berlin was a sticking point.
“Berlin is the testicles of the West,” Khrushchev once gloated. “Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on Berlin.” Yet with free movement between its Soviet and Western sectors, it was also a gash in the Iron Curtain that bled large numbers of professionals and skilled workers whom the Soviet Bloc could ill afford to lose. Khrushchev was convinced he could eventually reverse the flow by building a socialist paradise in the East, but he was also afraid of a resurgent West Germany and eager to conclude a peace treaty that would decouple it from NATO. The discussions got nowhere, and the mood grew so dark by lunchtime that Khrushchev felt he was
at a wake, or at least the bedside meal of a terminally ill patient. Irritated, he flicked barbs at Nixon, who had flown in, lampooning the vice president’s behavior at the Kitchen Debate.
Eisenhower was astonished: the Soviet premier was making himself feel better by insulting the vice president during a social occasion in the presidential retreat.

White House aides had begun to worry that the summit would worsen relations rather than improve them, and to break the ice, Eisenhower suggested a helicopter ride to his Gettysburg farm. There, the Soviet premier played with the president’s grandchildren, invited them to Moscow, and took a lively interest in the Black Angus cattle. Eisenhower offered him one as a gift, and Khrushchev heartily accepted, offering to send Russian birch trees in return. The next day, Khrushchev agreed to abandon his ultimatum for Western forces to leave Berlin while they worked toward a permanent solution, and Eisenhower pledged to attend a four-power summit in Paris followed by a visit to the Soviet Union. At lunchtime the aides were occupied with drafting the communiqué, and there were only nine at the table, including Khrushchev and Eisenhower and their ambassadors
Tommy Thompson and Smiling Mike Menshikov. Thompson later drafted a
memorandum of the conversation:

Mr. Khrushchev produced a box of chocolates which he said had been given to him by Van Cliburn with the request that he and the President eat them together. These were passed around the table and Mr. Khrushchev remarked about the high quality of American chocolates. Ambassador Menshikov said in Russian that Russian chocolates were better. Mr. Khrushchev turned to the interpreter and said “Don’t translate that remark.” Then, having noted that I had heard it and that the President was waiting for a translation, he explained what Ambassador Menshikov had said and said he had asked the translator not to translate the remark because it was so tactless. Ambassador Menshikov’s only reaction was to say rather sourly that at least he personally preferred Soviet chocolates.

With respect to Van Cliburn, Mr. Khrushchev said either on this or an earlier occasion that Van Cliburn had expressed disappointment that he had not been able to play for Mr. Khrushchev on the White House piano which he said was possibly the best instrument in the world. The President said he had not realized that the White House piano was so special. Mr. Khrushchev went on to remark about the great success which Van Cliburn had had in the Soviet Union. It was not quite clear to me whether Mr. Khrushchev was fully aware of Van Cliburn’s presumptuousness in attempting to needle the President through him about failure to use him to entertain Mr. Khrushchev.

After lunch, tempers flared again when Khrushchev vowed to support Mao if he attacked the ousted Chinese nationalists in Taiwan, whom the United States still recognized as the legitimate rulers of China and was committed to defending. When they reverted to Berlin, and Khrushchev insisted on a fixed timetable for negotiations,
Eisenhower angrily rescinded his agreement to attend the Paris summit and visit the Soviet Union. After hurried discussions, a compromise was reached in which Eisenhower would state his point of view at the coming press conference and Khrushchev would not contradict him.

The Soviet leader’s trip had been utter chaos, with any number of diplomatic incidents that could have resulted in a dangerous fiasco. In light of that possibility, it had to be counted a success. Little concrete progress was made, but both sides accepted the need for a nuclear test ban treaty, a German solution, and a permanent means to lowering tensions. Eisenhower found Khrushchev as verbose and ebullient as Stalin was enigmatic and controlled, but he decided he could talk to him. His advisers concluded that the Soviet premier was a very difficult but remarkable man who was open to new ideas so long as they could be reconciled with Communist ideology and who wanted and needed peace in order to carry out his vision. For all his panting and steaming, Khrushchev had relished being the star of his own American show. He had put a very human face on the Soviet Union, and many Americans had responded. “Nikita, come again!” crowds chanted as the Tu-114’s huge propellers started up and the vast plane lumbered down the runway. One last tragedy was narrowly averted when the plane barely managed to clear the treetops as it began the five-thousand-mile return flight to Moscow.

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Khrushchev reflected on his trip and grew increasingly euphoric. He praised Ike’s
“wise statesmanship” and, in January, announced that the peace dividend enabled him to slash the Soviet armed forces by 1.2 million personnel, a third of the total. His detractors, who complained that his one-man diplomatic offensive was erroneous and reckless, were aghast. To hedge his bets, he told the Presidium that Soviet ICBMs made the cuts possible because
“Main Street Americans have begun to shake from fear for the first times in their lives.” Secretly he had been astonished by America with its endless cornfields and self-service cafeterias, its unsubtle power and
raucous debates, and he was newly determined to free up funds to provide for his people. He commissioned the first Soviet golf course so Eisenhower could play his favorite sport, and despite his outrage at
Can-Can
, he kept hold of the photos of himself and a scantily dressed Shirley MacLaine.

Having reported home, Khrushchev headed to Beijing to fill in Mao. Again there was no honor guard at the airport, and this time there was no microphone, either. Khrushchev insisted on speaking anyway, and made pointed comments about Eisenhower’s hospitality. The leaders’ meeting turned into an exchange of insults. Khrushchev took offense at some comments by the Chinese foreign minister, a marshal in the People’s Revolutionary Army: “Look at this lefty!” he scoffed, and when the minister persisted, the Soviet premier lost all restraint.
“Don’t you dare spit on us from your marshal’s height!” he screamed. “You don’t have enough spit!”

In Los Angeles, John Wayne shouted with pleasure when he received a crate containing several cases of premium Russian vodka. The accompanying note read,
“Duke, Merry Christmas. Nikita.” Wayne sent a couple of cases of Sauza Conmemorativo tequila to his Moscow drinking buddy, with an equally terse reply: “Nikita. Thanks. Duke.”