When Nikita warned Mao of the responsibility of having such a weapon, and the retaliatory destruction waging such a war would bring, the Chinaman had only laughed.
“Even so,” the panda had said, “there would still be three hundred million Chinese left!”
A more dangerous man, Nikita had never met — Stalin included.
Rather than this deadly ally, the premier would far rather deal with his enemy, Eisenhower, any day of any year. The colorless American president, at least, said exactly what was on his mind — that is, once something had been placed there by that pompous bastard John Foster Dulles, who was always passing the president schoolgirl notes and whispering in his ear.
Last week, in Washington, Eisenhower had seemed tired to Nikita — almost ill of health; perhaps that was why the president hadn’t accompanied the premier on the cross-country tour. Whereas the war with Hitler had strengthened Nikita, it appeared to have taken a toll on the former warrior, “Ike.” Russian intelligence — not always reliable, but worth considering — had passed along information of a serious heart condition, which now appeared to be true.
If so, a healthy Nikita might be able to take advantage of a weakened Eisenhower at week’s end, when they were to meet at the fabled Camp David. No Russian had ever been invited to this “camp” before, and it struck the premier as a strange custom for world leaders to indulge in… maybe it was this American pioneer heritage they trumpeted so — Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone. Should they have brought their own sleeping cots, he wondered?
Nonetheless, despite their opposing positions, Nikita sensed the president was a genuine, decent man. At the close of World War II, as Berlin had been about to fall, the Americans — under the orders of General Eisenhower — halted their offensive, allowing the Russians to step forward and take the city. This was in recognition of the rivers of Soviet blood spilled at the hands of the Germans.
This show of generosity Nikita would never forget. Nor could he be sure he would have done so magnanimous a thing for the Americans, had their roles been reversed. And it gnawed at the back of Nikita’s brain, this incongruity — that these selfish decadent Americans could be possessed of such a large heart.
The limousine bearing Nikita and his family cruised along through a commercial section, where some storefronts looked shabby (even the Americans couldn’t hide everything) and pedestrians — women in cotton dresses and men in lightweight suits — occasionally glanced at the passing sedan, their faces perking expectantly.
“They think we must be movie stars,” Sergei said to his father with a little smile.
“And when they find we are not,” Nikita said, “you see their disappointment?”
Nikita folded his arms and snorted. Even if they were too ignorant to recognize the most powerful leader of the world — their precious “Ike” had fallen to second place behind him, since the launching of Sputnik, and recent rocket to the moon — the premier certainly must have looked like someone important in his expensive, tailored clothes (the best his government could buy from the Western world, for this trip — no Moscow haberdasher could have managed them).
A self-made man, born poor in Kalinovka, Nikita took care not to repeat a naive blunder he’d made six years ago when he attended the Geneva Summit — the first time he met with the leaders of the so-called “free” world: the United States, England, and France.
While the head men of the other three world powers each arrived in impressive new four-engine planes, he putt-putted in, in a beat-up two-engine Ilyushin, making himself look like the peasant he at heart still was — and putting the Russian contingent at an immediate psychological disadvantage.
When Nikita and then-Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin disembarked in their saggy, baggy summer cotton suits — Bulganin looking like a Model-T motorist in his long coat and goggles — and on the tarmac joined Eisenhower, Eden, and Faure (in their impeccable, expensive, tailored woolen suits), Nikita had felt a shame of station that he had never before experienced. He could see the veiled contempt in the eyes of the other world leaders — except perhaps the kind-visaged Eisenhower — and could almost read their minds: “Why should serious sophisticated men like ourselves pay any attention to such clownish country bumpkins?”
In his political life, Nikita had made his share of mistakes; but he never made the same one twice.
The limousine had been stopped at a red light and was beginning to slide on through the intersection when a tremendous thump shook Nikita’s side of the vehicle. Startled, everyone in the back of the sedan jumped, as a man — where had he come from? — threw himself against the car, plastering his face against the rear window, a dirty, hawkish countenance, long-haired, bearded, an American echo of the insane Rasputin, pressing and distorting his features against the thick glass, smearing it with saliva, banging on it with grimy hands, his shouts muffled.
Nikita, leaning protectively over his wife, was jolted again as the sedan screeched to a stop.
Within seconds, the State Department man, Harrigan — having leapt from the car following them — wrestled the man quickly to the pavement. And within a few more seconds, the limo windows revealed that Nikita and his family were surrounded by more security men, both American Secret Service and the premier’s own uniformed KGB agents.
With the danger now past, Nikita ascertained that his family members had not been injured by the sudden stop; then he peered out the vehicle’s window at the beggar-like man in tattered clothes, who was being dragged away by two of the plain-clothes agents at Harrigan’s direction.
The State Department agent opened the back door of the limousine and poked his head inside.
“Everyone all right?” Harrigan asked. His voice sounded calm, but Nikita could see excitement dancing in the man’s hazel eyes.
Oleg Troyanovsky translated.
Everyone nodded numbly.
“That was just an indigent,” Harrigan explained with a shrug that did not entirely conceal his chagrin. “You know, a poor homeless wretch. California has more than its share, because of the warm weather.”
Troyanovsky reported what the agent had said.
Surprised and pleased by the agent’s candor, Nikita grunted and spoke to the translator, and Troyanovsky turned to Harrigan.
“The premier said we have the homeless too… only in Moscow they freeze.”
Nikita watched closely for the agent’s reaction. He wanted to know if the man understood Russian humor.
And perhaps he did: Nikita thought he caught a tiny smile… or was that just a twitch?
Nikita again spoke to his personal translator.
“Mr. Khrushchev,” Oleg said, “saw something very interesting in Washington last week… Men running alongside President Eisenhower’s limousine.”
There was a pause as Harrigan considered this, the eyes widening, the excitement gone now.
“Yes,” Harrigan said, with a nod. “The Secret Service does that to provide the president with extra protection.”
This was translated for Nikita, who replied (and Oleg conveyed this to Harrigan): “Would this extra protection be, for example, to keep a homeless man from assaulting the president’s rear window? Upsetting the president’s family, perhaps?”
Harrigan paused again — and he smiled… that tiny smile again, lingering past the twitch stage into unmistakable if gentle amusement.
The agent asked, “Would the premier feel more comfortable if we did that?”