The Queen celebrated her birthday twice a year—once on her actual birth date of April 21 and the other on a day of official celebration later in the spring or summer. In 1956 that day was May 31. All over the world, British embassies hosted elaborate parties honoring the Queen on her thirtieth birthday. In Moscow the British embassy occupied hallowed ground, across the Moscow River facing the Kremlin. During the worst days of the Cold War, Stalin had ordered the embassy to be moved because he did not want to look out of his office window and see the Union Jack defiantly waving in the Moscow breeze. The British, careful not to violate existing diplomatic protocols, promised to move as soon as they could find another appropriate place for their embassy. On May 31, 1956, they were still looking, and looking, and looking.
Meanwhile, on this day, the garden behind the embassy was dressed beautifully in spring flowers and crowded with hundreds of diplomats and journalists eager to partake of the delicious strawberries topped with fresh whipped cream flown from London to Moscow that morning. The sun was shining, as was appropriate on the Queen’s birthday, and roses were in bloom.
All of the embassy’s guests entered through the front door and mingled briefly in the huge lobby before spilling into the garden, where champagne was served and gossip shared. After a while the large iron doors to the garden slowly opened, which attracted immediate attention, and Nikita Khrushchev, of all people, accompanied by his prime minister, Nikolai Bulganin, entered, to be greeted by Sir William Hayter, the British ambassador.
Khrushchev wanted to pay his respects to the Queen, whom he had met the month before on a groundbreaking visit to Great Britain. He respected her, he later said. He admired her style. She wore a “plain white dress… and looked like the sort of young woman you’d be likely to meet walking along Gorky Street on a balmy Sunday afternoon.” Before meeting Elizabeth, Khrushchev had been concerned about protococlass="underline" Would he dress the right way? Would he say the right things? The Queen made things easy. She was, he remembered, “completely unpretentious, completely without haughtiness.”
For her birthday celebration the Soviet leader wore a wrinkled white suit and a flat white hat. I had seen Khrushchev on television, in photos and, most recently, at the May Day parade, when he stood atop the Lenin Mausoleum enjoying the cheers of the Red Square crowd, but I had never before seen him up close, and certainly had never before exchanged a word with him. My initial impression was mixed. As I noted in my diary, “Khrushchev looks like a short, fat, strong, peasant-type leader. He has practically no hair. He has bad teeth. His trousers were baggy. He laughs heartily, and seems to have a good sense of humor.” He wandered into the embassy crowd like a New York politician hustling for votes, willing to talk to anyone about anything. Though raised in the suffocating atmosphere of Stalinist terror, he acted like a Bronx boss ready to fix a parking ticket. He projected the image of a tough communist leader, unafraid to scuttle Stalinism and welcome a new day.
Isaac Stern, a guest at the party who was preparing to leave Moscow after a very successful tour, asked Khrushchev why he was holding up the American tour of the famed Moiseyev Ballet. Khrushchev responded sharply. “No Russian will submit to fingerprinting,” he said. “That is only for criminals.” An American diplomat, overhearing the exchange, volunteered that the fingerprinting of foreigners coming into the United States was the law of the land, and just as he observed Soviet law while working in Moscow, the dancers would have to observe American law while working there. Khrushchev snapped, “Well then, change the law.” Bulganin, standing nearby, parroted, “Yes, change the law,” at which point Khrushchev burst into laughter, prompting all of the other Russians near or around him to burst into laughter.
Khrushchev, enjoying the moment, then told a story that reflected his disdain for Congress and, it seemed, all other legislative assemblies, even the prerevolutionary Russian parliament, the Duma. “A young Duma official,” he began, “leaped from a government building into his droshky [a horse-drawn carriage] and suffered a terrible accident. His head hit the road, and his brains fell out of his head and spilled out on the road.” Khrushchev looked around for approval, and from the Russians got it. They all laughed. Khrushchev continued, “The young official thought nothing of it, left his brains on the road, and marched off. An old woman, seeing the accident, ran after him, and said, ‘Sir, you left your brains on the road.’ ‘That’s all right,’ he replied, ‘I can still do my job. I’m a member of the Duma.’” Khrushchev could barely muffle the sneer in his voice, but he laughed and the other Russians laughed and even a few diplomats, who apparently wanted to be on good terms with the Soviet government, laughed, too—though his story was not funny.
At this moment CBS’s Dan Schorr, who did tell funny stories and had a wonderful sense of humor, grabbed me by the arm as he approached the Soviet leader. “You’re going to be my interpreter,” he said.
“Chairman Khrushchev,” Schorr began. “I have a serious problem, a personal problem, and I hope you can help me.”
Khrushchev looked at Schorr, and smiled. “Of course, how can I help?”
Schorr was smiling, too. “You see, there is a rumor in Moscow. You’ve undoubtedly heard of it—that there is going to be a very important meeting of the Central Committee at the end of June. Probably big announcements, big changes. And I really wanted to go on vacation at that time.”
“Yes?” Khrushchev said, still playing the game.
“Now this is not for a news story,” Schorr insisted, as he tried to keep a straight face. “This concerns only my vacation. You see, my office in New York says if there is going to be a meeting of the Central Committee, I have to stay here to cover it. So, and please understand, this is not for a news story. But, sir, do you think I can go on vacation?”
Khrushchev nodded slowly and seriously. “I understand,” he said. He waited a few pregnant seconds before adding, “Mr. Schorr, go on vacation.” Schorr, thinking he had just got confirmation that there would be no meeting of the Central Committee, began backing away from Khrushchev, almost as one would royalty. “Thank you, sir,” Schorr said. “Thank you very much. I’m so grateful for your help.” At which point Khrushchev added, with a grin that spread from one ear to the other, “And Mr. Schorr, If we decide to have a meeting of the Central Committee, we’ll have it… without you.”
Khrushchev had the last laugh, but Schorr had a joke that he would tell again and again. He always got a laugh.
June 2. Bernie was visiting. He was on his way to a Southeast Asia assignment for the Times, and a stopover in Moscow was a twofer: time with his kid brother and a look at Russia at an interesting time.
The day started with a discussion of an announcement in Pravda: Vyacheslav Molotov, an old Bolshevik for more than thirty years, a close protégé of Stalin, the foreign minister who signed the historic Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939 and the Kremlin order in 1948 expelling Yugoslavia’s Tito from the Soviet orbit for “revisionism,” was “relieved” of his official duties. Molotov was out.
At the JPRS and later at the embassy lunch counter, the questions were obvious. Why? Why now? The answers were, as usual, complicated, involving important policy differences between Molotov and Khrushchev. They argued at a July 1955 Central Committee meeting about the “virgin lands” project, which Khrushchev considered crucial for expanding grain production and Molotov described as not only “premature” but “absurd.” They also argued over housing construction, Molotov favoring more of Stalin’s ugly “wedding cake” skyscrapers and Khrushchev wanting to help ordinary Muscovites who lived in what he called “overcrowded, vermin-infested, intolerable conditions, often two families to a room.” But the disagreement that led ultimately to Molotov’s downfall focused on Kremlin policy toward Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia. Molotov had pressed for Tito’s expulsion from the Soviet orbit because he and Stalin believed that Yugoslavia, under Tito, was “no socialist country.” Khrushchev believed, just as strongly, that Tito’s expulsion was one of Stalin’s gravest errors and that Tito should be brought back into the socialist fold. For one thing, Khrushchev felt, it would strengthen the communist world, and for another, a rapprochement with Tito would allow him finally to get Molotov out of his sight. Every time Khrushchev saw Molotov he saw Stalin, and he wanted desperately to turn the page.