Six Crises (44 page)

Pravda, Izvestia,
and
Trud,
the three largest and most influential government and Party newspapers, accused me of trying to “bribe” and “degrade” a Soviet citizen. One account said that I had pulled a capitalistic trick of handing money to a “poor Soviet citizen” while my capitalistic photographers recorded the scene for the “Wall Street press.” The Communist newspapers made a
cause célèbre
out of the incident, even though there had been no photographers at the market at the time.

Later that morning, accompanied by Milton Eisenhower and Ambassador Thompson, I paid my first courtesy call in the Kremlin, a walled city within a city, housing the government and Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Marshal Kliment Y. Voroshilov, President
of the Supreme Soviet, a figurehead in the Communist hierarchy little-known outside Russia, greeted me “as a dear guest of the Soviet Union” and wished me “health and success” on my trip through his country. After the usual courtesies and protocol of the visit, we left his office and were escorted down the hall to the office of the real boss—the First Secretary of the Communist Party.

This was the moment for which I had been preparing myself for many months. I was on edge with suspense as I entered Khrushchev's office shortly after 10:00. He was toying with a model of Lunik, the satellite which the Russians had shot off toward the moon several months before. It looked like an oversized baseball in Khrushchev's chubby hands. I have no clear recollection of his office, except that it was large and luxurious. But I remember vividly that while Khrushchev was somewhat shorter than I expected, he somehow conveyed the unmistakable impression of great physical strength and vitality.

The reporters and photographers recorded our first handshake and his accepting from me the personal letter of greetings which President Eisenhower had asked me to deliver. Then he abruptly asked them to leave the room.

This was supposed to be a pure protocol courtesy visit at which serious business was not to be discussed. Our talks on substantive issues were scheduled for Sunday in the Soviet Government guesthouse about twenty miles outside Moscow. But as soon as the newspapermen had left the office Khrushchev motioned us to sit around the conference table. I could sense that he was in a testy mood. He kept looking me up and down from head to toe, as a tailor might estimate a customer's size for a suit of clothes, or perhaps more as an undertaker might view a prospective corpse with a coffin in mind. There was nothing about Khrushchev to match the jovial bombast of Kozlov or the suave courtesy of Mikoyan. I expected him to take me on, but I had thought that since today's events were primarily protocol in nature he would wait until we had our private talks the next day. But Khrushchev never plays by the rules. He delights in doing the unexpected. Just as soon as we sat down at the conference table, he started in on a bone of contention that was to be the major Soviet irritant throughout my tour. It was the Captive Nations Resolution, passed by Congress on July 6, calling on the President to issue a proclamation designating the third week in July as Captive Nations Week, during which free people would rededicate themselves and pray for the liberation of “enslaved peoples” behind the Iron Curtain. President Eisenhower
had issued the proclamation on July 17, five days before my departure for Russia.

In a long harangue, speaking in a high-pitched voice and frequently pounding the table, Khrushchev declared that the Soviet Government regarded the resolution as a very serious “provocation.”

Why did President Eisenhower issue such a proclamation just before my trip if he wanted me to have a good reception, he asked. And this resolution would certainly not improve the chances for any agreement at the Geneva Conference on a peace treaty for Germany or for a general improvement in relations between our two countries, he added.

As he talked and the translation was made, I had to make a quick decision on how to react to his attack. I did not feel that this was the time to debate with him on the merits of the resolution, on which I had some strong feelings. I was sure that he was going through an act—that he was using the resolution as a pretext for taking the offensive against me, and that had it not been for this resolution, he would have found some other excuse for doing so. But I could not tell whether he was trying to get me to lose my temper and respond in kind so that he could make an incident out of my conduct, or whether he simply was trying to put me on the defensive at the very outset of my visit.

Consequently, I decided at this time to try to finesse his attack by answering him collaterally. I pointed out that this was a decision made by the Congress over which Eisenhower had no control. And the resolution was not a provocation, but an expression of opinion widely held in the United States.

Khrushchev expressed bewilderment. “Any action by an authoritative body like Congress must have a purpose,” he exclaimed, “and I wonder what the purpose of this particular action can be?” He asserted that the resolution could not change anything in the USSR or in any other country, adding that if the United States meant to bring about any change it would mean war. Then he recalled how the Russian people had repulsed what he called United States intervention at the time of the birth of the Soviet regime, during 1919–21, and certainly would do so now.

I tried again to explain to him the operation of our constitutional system—how our Congressmen and Senators represent all segments of our population, how millions of U. S. citizens emigrated from or had their relatives in Eastern European countries, and how the resolution represented the strongly-held views of those citizens, as well as many other Americans. I also pointed out that the resolution did not call for
our intervention, or even for our support of a revolution in the satellite nations, but only expressed moral support and asked for prayers for those who want freedom in those nations.

But Khrushchev chose not to understand. He belabored the point. I listened carefully and responded each time he allowed me to make a point. Now I could see what Khrushchev was trying to do. He was on the offensive, trying to throw me off balance and to force me to debate him on the ground he selected. Each time I tried to reason with him or even to change the subject, he brushed my answer aside. He did this not because he thought my arguments were unreasonable but because he wanted to create and maintain all the tension he could on this point.

Toward the end of the conversation, he shook his finger at me and warned that I would be hearing about this Captive Nations Resolution throughout my stay in the Soviet Union. I told him I welcomed free discussion on any point. He warned me that I might even hear catcalls. I responded that I had had some experience as far as catcalls were concerned. We went round and round in this fashion until I reminded the Premier of the American expression, “We have beaten this horse to death; let's change to another.” But Khrushchev insisted that he wanted to tell us once more what he thought of that resolution.

“This resolution stinks!” he shouted, pounding the table. Then he spelled out what he meant in some earthy four-letter words, so beyond the pale of diplomacy that Troyanovsky, his interpreter, blushed bright red and hesitated before finally translating his words.

It was on that “peasant” note that my courtesy call on the leader of the world Communist movement came to an end. His attack at this early stage of my visit had been a surprise. His vehemence and choice of language had been a shock. But my intense preparation for this visit and my study of his past tactics helped me to meet his attack without losing my temper or my sense of balance.

From the Kremlin, we drove to Sokolniki Park for a preview of the American Exhibition. I expressed concern to Thompson about the meeting we had just had. I had done my best to turn away Khrushchev's wrath with soft answers, but with very little apparent success. Thompson advised me, however, that I should continue to follow the same tactics. He said that Khrushchev's purpose was to goad me into some rash and impulsive statements and that I should avoid falling into this trap.

As we arrived at the exhibition grounds, I had no idea what to expect,
except to be on guard for almost anything. Since Khrushchev had blown off so much steam at our private meeting, however, I thought he might put on the air of the proper host for the benefit of the hundred or so newsmen who were now observing every move he made. But when God created Khrushchev (something Khrushchev would deny), He broke the mold.

No sooner had we started to walk around the exhibition grounds with more than a hundred newsmen gathered around us than Khrushchev let loose with a jibe. “Americans have lost their ability to trade. Now you have grown older and you don't trade the way you used to. You need to be invigorated.”

“But
you
need to have goods to trade,” I responded.

He quickly dropped that subject and moved to another one. And then through a combination of circumstances neither of us could anticipate, we found ourselves by accident, rather than design, standing on a stage with literally millions of potential viewers and listeners watching every action and listening to every word we were saying. We had come upon a model television studio featuring a new type of color-television tape. A young Ampex Company executive steered us to a stage in front of a camera and asked each of us to say something which later could be played as a form of greeting to visitors to the fair.

Khrushchev at first seemed reluctant to say anything. He apparently thought he was being tricked. But then he saw a large crowd of Soviet workmen in a gallery overhead, and the corps of newspapermen around us, and the temptation was too much for him. He seized the opportunity as eagerly as an American politician accepts free television time. Instead of greeting the visitors to the exhibition, he took out after me.

First, he said the Soviet Union wanted to live in peace and friendship—but was fully prepared to protect itself in war. Then, boasting that the Soviet Union would be on the same economic level with the United States in another seven years, he twitted me by saying, “When we catch up with you, in passing you by, we will wave to you. Then if you wish, we can stop and say: 'Please follow up. . . .'” Then he denounced the Captive Nations Resolution again. Wrapping his arms around a Soviet workman nearby, he declared, “Does this man look like a slave laborer? With men of such spirit how can we lose?”

As Akalovsky, my interpreter, whispered what he was saying into my ear I again had to do some quick thinking. Should I try to answer
his outlandish and sometimes even insulting charges on the spot, or should I take a conciliatory line as I had at our first meeting? Again, I had to remind myself that I was the host at the exhibition with the obligation to treat a guest with courtesy. I was his inferior in rank, a Vice President speaking to a head of government. And again, I could not be sure what his motive was. Was he trying to goad me into giving him an excuse to break off the current Geneva negotiations? Or was he attacking me for propaganda purposes to display Soviet superiority over “soft” Western negotiators and leaders?

As at our previous conference, I decided this was not the time to take him on. I tried to change the subject to color television, and the other consumer items which were on display at the American Exhibition. I urged that we needed a free exchange of ideas between our two countries. “You must not be afraid of ideas,” I said. “After all, you don't know everything . . .”

“If I don't know everything,” he interrupted, “you don't know anything about Communism—except fear of it.”

Still determined not to be provoked or goaded into saying anything which could be misinterpreted, I tried again to change the tone of the conversation, but he would have none of it. Constantly interrupting me, he insisted that I was a lawyer and he was a coal miner, but that he still could outargue me on Communism vs. capitalism.

As we watched the playback of the conversation, I could see that he had been aggressive, rude, and forceful. He had gone after me with no holds barred. And I had had to counter him like a fighter with one hand tied behind his back. It was this television tape which was later played before millions of viewers in the United States and in other countries. Khrushchev's obvious rudeness made an unfavorable impression and my keeping my temper despite considerable provocation met with public approval. But his attack had shaken me right to my toes. He had been on the offensive and I on the defensive throughout. I knew that he had scored heavily and I felt it was imperative that I find an opportunity to strike back so that the record could be set straight publicly. Bob Considine later compared the episode to the first round of the Dempsey-Firpo fight. Khrushchev had started the encounter by knocking me out of the ring. At the end, I had climbed back in to fight again. And the second round was still coming up.

As we continued to walk through the exhibition grounds he kept up his needling. Once he believes he has gained an advantage over an
opponent, he never lets up. He kept making references to me as a smart lawyer with the innuendo that I was a slick and dishonest manipulator of words in contrast with his own “honest” background as a miner and a worker.

Consequently, as we walked by a model American grocery store, I commented, “You may be interested to know that my father owned a small general store in California, and all the Nixon boys worked there while going to school.” Khrushchev with a wave of his arms snorted, “Oh, all shopkeepers are thieves.” But this one I did not let pass. “Thieving happens everywhere,” I responded. “Even in the store I visited this morning, I saw people weighing food after they had bought it from the State.” This time it was Khrushchev who changed the subject.

Then we came to the center attraction of the exhibition, a model American home, fully furnished and equipped with all our modern conveniences. The Soviet press had focused their ridicule on this model home during the past week, saying that it was no more typical of a worker's home in the United States than the Taj Mahal was typical in India or Buckingham Palace in Great Britain. Khrushchev and I walked up the center hall of the model home, looking into the exposed rooms, and we stopped at the kitchen.