Six Crises (46 page)

I knew that my most important meeting with Khrushchev was yet to come—on Sunday when we were to have a private conversation. That is why, after the reception, I spent most of the night going over again my voluminous briefing notes on issues that might arise in those discussions.

The next day I paid official calls on Deputy Premiers Mikoyan and Kozlov, visited the Soviet Agricultural Exhibition, lunched with Soviet officials at the sumptuous Golden Sheaf Restaurant, and in the evening attended the dinner tendered by Ambassador Thompson at Spaso House for Khrushchev and the Soviet top hierarchy.

The dinner was a culinary and social success except for one incident. Khrushchev had always shown a great interest in American corn production. Mrs. Thompson thought she would surprise him by having some fresh corn flown to Moscow in our plane and served at the dinner in his honor. Her cook, however, had never prepared corn on the cob before and, despite Mrs. Thompson's most careful instructions, boiled it for over an hour until it was nothing but an unpalatable, soggy mass of kernels hanging on the cobs. Mrs. Thompson could not have been more chagrined, but the Premier and Mrs. Khrushchev dutifully went through the motions of nibbling at it and proclaiming it a fine dish. I could sympathize with them because I could recall the many occasions when Pat and I had been confronted with some very strange concoctions on our trips abroad, which we would gulp down in complete ignorance of what we were eating and with dire forebodings of how our systems might react the following day.

Khrushchev, who was in an expansive mood, insisted that we all spend the night at his
dacha,
or summer home, so that we could have the entire day there on Sunday. When Ambassador Thompson's dinner ended, shortly after 10:00, our American party drove the twenty-two miles to Khrushchev's beautiful summer mansion overlooking the Moscow River.

On Sunday morning, Mrs. Nixon and I, Ambassador Thompson, Milton Eisenhower, and others in our party walked over the grounds of the dacha, as luxurious an estate as any I had ever visited. I could not help but think that the old Bolsheviks had come a long way since the days of their revolution. Mikoyan, Kozlov, Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Kuznetsov, and several aides arrived later in the morning, and then at about noon Mr. and Mrs. Khrushchev drove up in their limousine. Khrushchev, dressed for the summer Sunday in a dazzling embroidered sports shirt, posed for photographers with me and then seeing the one pool reporter allowed on the grounds, he made a point to correct any unfavorable impression he might have left at the kitchen debate. “Some newsmen described our talk at the fair as if we were quarreling and offending each other,” he said. “Were you offended?” he asked me. “Never,” I replied. Then turning to the reporter, Ernie Barcella, Khrushchev told him, “You can write down a refutation by Vice President Nixon on some reports that our kitchen talk was so quarrelsome that we insulted each other, while in fact we had a really friendly talk. . . .” I managed to keep the record straight by giving my own characterization of the talks as “direct, frank, and nonbelligerent,” lest Khrushchev shape the interpretation entirely to his own liking.

Here again was an example of Khrushchev, the persistent Communist tactician: every little propaganda point was important to him in the Cold War. He obviously had received the same reactions to the kitchen debate as I had, and now he was trying to use me to correct any unfavorable impression he may have made.

After the news pictures were taken, he proposed that we take a boat ride on the Moscow River “to see how the slaves live.” For two hours I rode down the Moscow River in a twenty-five-foot motor launch with Khrushchev, the others following in boats behind us, and I was treated to probably the most novel boat ride ever taken by two representatives of government. I saw a brand of politicking which would be envied by any man running for office in the United States. On eight separate occasions, Khrushchev had the boat stopped so he
could stoop down to shake hands with bathers in the water. “Are you captives? Are you slaves?” he would shout out to them. “Nyet, nyet!” the swimmers would shout back, treading water and waving at us. Then he would nudge me in the ribs and shout, “See how our slaves live!” The Soviet newsmen in the nearby boats took down every word.

On the way back to the dacha, the boat in which Khrushchev and I were riding struck a sand bar and we were left high and dry while the other boats raced on down the river. Khrushchev looked as if he were going to shoot the pilot of the boat on the spot. I tried to break the tension by pointing out that just a few months before I had been in Florida with a friend who was a very experienced boatman and who had had the same kind of accident. But as we climbed out of our boat into another one and continued our trip, I looked back at the pilot and saw the most forlorn, hopeless-looking individual I was to see in my visit in the Soviet Union. He was at least fortunate that things apparently have changed in the “worker's paradise” so that a worker who now makes a mistake generally loses only his job, not his head.

When we returned to the boat landing at the dacha, Mikoyan commented with great enjoyment about the “fine river rallies.” I told the beaming Khrushchev, “You know, I really must admire you; you never miss a chance to make propaganda.”

“No, no,” he retorted, “I don't make propaganda, I tell the truth.” Thompson told me later in the afternoon that the only bathers who were allowed to use the beaches on the Moscow River were the elite of Communist society.

•  •  •

We sat down to lunch with our wives at a long table set up on the lawn of the dacha, beneath stately birches and pines planted originally in the time of Catherine the Great. It was then that I got some further insight into Khrushchev's habits—and his essential nature as a cold, calculating, self-controlled tactician. The table was laden with all sorts of food, delicacies, and liquor, but I noticed that Khrushchev, despite his world-wide reputation for imbibing, hardly touched the array of vodka and wine bottles. He likes both his food and his drink. But just as his famed temper is always his servant and not his master, his drinking is strictly for pleasure and is never permitted to interfere with business. He was stone sober throughout our long afternoon of talks.

Khrushchev played the role of jovial and gallant host as the first course was served. When Mikoyan tried to start a conversation across the table with Pat, who was seated on Khrushchev's right, the Premier
cut in and said: “Now look here, you crafty Armenian. Mrs. Nixon belongs to me. You stay on your side of the table.” He then drew a line with his finger down the middle of the table and added: “This is an iron curtain. And don't you step over it!”

Then came an unusual course. It was a frozen white fish from Siberia, sliced thin and served raw, spiced with salt, pepper, and garlic. “It was Stalin's favorite dish. He said it put steel in his backbone,” remarked Khrushchev, urging me to try some. Since Khrushchev had taken a double portion, I did likewise. I knew that I needed as much fortification as he before the afternoon's talks.

As we ate the raw fish, Mikoyan, who often served as the straight man for Khrushchev's jokes, commented that Stalin had some peculiar work habits. He would often summon his subordinates in the middle of the night to work on a particular project, said Mikoyan—commenting, “We sleep much better now since Comrade Khrushchev is our Premier.” Then Mikoyan did a double take at what he had said. Smiling, he added, “I guess you can take that in more ways than one.”

It was right after the fish course, whether by coincidence or otherwise, that Khrushchev suddenly dispensed with the diplomatic small talk and started to act like a Stalinist. In a cold, matter-of-fact tone, he launched into a long discussion designed to impress me with the missile power of the Soviet Union. He told of plans for shooting a Soviet rocket into orbit around the earth with a pay load of 100 tons, enough to carry a man and equipment into outer space and bring him back safely. He reported that just the week before the Soviets had launched an ICBM over a 7000-kilometer course with final deviation off target of only 1.7 kilometers to the right.

And then, leaning across the table toward me, he said that he wanted to tell me a “secret.” Just a month ago the Soviet Government had been very concerned because the engine cut-off system in an ICBM had failed and the rocket had overshot its course and headed toward Alaska. Though the missile had not contained a warhead, Khrushchev said he had feared a “fuss” if the missile had landed in Alaska; fortunately, it had fallen in the Atlantic, well short of the continental United States.

For the next four hours he went on to tell me several “secrets” of the Soviet Union. He said the Soviet Union was in possession of the “United States operational plans for war,” and that he suspected American spies probably had obtained Soviet operational plans as well. He said the USSR was building submarines to carry missiles which could
destroy ports, coastal areas, and an enemy's navy. He told us he planned to build missile bases in Albania, if and when the United States constructed missile bases in Italy. He said the Soviet Union had on hand at that time intermediate and long-range missiles in sufficient quantity to destroy all of its enemies in Europe and the major cities in the United States. He had no doubt that he could destroy Germany, France, England, and other European countries on the first day of a war. While the Soviet Union would, of course, suffer losses too, the other countries would become deserts. He spelled out in specific detail the massive military power which he had described in general terms in our “kitchen debate.”

But in this discussion the rules were different, as far as I was concerned. This was a private conversation. I could answer him and counterattack, point by point, and I proceeded to do so. It was cold steel between us all afternoon.

I asked why he had refused to let me see his missile plants, when we had invited Kozlov to observe missile launchings at Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral on his visit to the United States.

He replied that the time for such exchanges would come only when U. S. bases abroad had been liquidated.

I retorted that this was a two-way street and referred to Averell Harriman's report that Khrushchev had told him that he had given the Communist Chinese missiles for use against Quemoy.

Khrushchev denied that he had said this, and contended that all he said was that he would supply China with missiles if it were attacked by the United States.

I asked him why, in view of the confidence he had expressed in the number and accuracy of his missiles, he was continuing to build bombers. He replied that bomber production had almost been stopped, because missiles were much more accurate and because humans were sometimes incapable of dropping bombs on targets because of emotional revulsion, a factor which was not present where missiles were concerned.

He then said that the military service he really felt sorry for was the Navy; except for submarines it was completely obsolete and could only provide “fodder for sharks.” Cruisers and aircraft carriers, because of their slow speed, were “sitting ducks” for missiles and he had stopped building them.

I knew that we were ahead of him in the development of Polaris-type submarines which could launch missiles from underwater. But
when I asked him what progress he had made in this respect, he replied that the Soviets believed that launching from land was better than from the sea.

I also knew that we were ahead in the development of solid fuels which greatly facilitate missile mobility. He said that he did not want to discuss this question because it was a technical subject and he, as a politician rather than a technician, was not qualified to discuss it.

This was the only point in the five-and-a-half-hour discussion at which one of the six ladies present put in a word. Pat laughingly expressed surprise that there was any subject Khrushchev was not prepared to discuss. She had thought up to this time that in his one-man government he had everything in his own hands and knew everything. Everybody laughed, and Mikoyan stepped in with the remark that not even Khrushchev had enough hands to handle everything and needed others to help him.

I asked him if the real reason he was considering putting bases in Albania was that if missiles were launched from there, there would be no danger in the Soviet Union from fallout. He denied this was the case.

I then took him on frontally on his practice of constantly bragging in public statements about the superiority of his power over that of the United States and other countries. I suggested that such tactics, whether he intended to or not, created the impression that he was threatening other countries and the peace of the world. I returned to my theme that each of our two countries should recognize and respect the military power of the other without creating tension and fear by constantly debating which was the stronger.

Khrushchev now in private agreed with my thesis, claiming that he had never engaged in such talk. But he charged that “U. S. generals” had done so. Then he proceeded, on the spot, to do what he had just denied. He referred to Marshal Vershinin's interview of the year before with regard to Soviet destructive capabilities. He said the Soviet Union was superior to the United States in rockets, that there was no defense against rockets, and that there was no need for pin-point accuracy since a 100-kilometer tolerance would be adequate. He laughingly referred to a joke he said was current in England about pessimists and optimists. The pessimist said only six atomic bombs would be needed to wipe out the United Kingdom, while the optimist said nine or ten would be required.

Khrushchev moved now to another line of attack and said that his agents had obtained copies of a secret U.S.-Iranian agreement which
provided for United States assistance to Iran in the event of “indirect aggression.” This meant, he charged, that the United States would be against the Iranian people when they arose against the government.