Khrushchev’s moment came after the 20th Party Congress. If he was to abolish Stalin and his policies, which he was in the process of doing, he could at the same time correct the late dictator’s decision to expel Tito. He could also get rid of Molotov, who was a drag on his new post-Stalinist policy. Khrushchev arranged for Tito to visit Moscow in early June and for Molotov to be officially demoted on the same day—hardly a coincidence.
Tito arrived by train. Bernie and I rushed to the Kievsky Station, buttoned down by heavy security, to observe this special moment in communist reconciliation. We joined a bursting contingent of foreign diplomats and journalists. The railroad station, like Moscow, was dressed for the occasion, and Soviet and Yugoslav flags crisscrossed on the top of flagpoles. Senior Soviet officials, led by Khrushchev and, remarkably, including the just ousted Molotov, stood waiting on a red-bunting-decorated reviewing stand. Tito, looking vigorous and ramrod straight, alighted from his compartment as the railroad clock struck 5:00 p.m. Khrushchev greeted Tito with a warm handshake but no hugs. Both leaders watched the honor guard march by with brisk, almost Teutonic, precision and then listened respectfully to the playing by a military band of their national anthems. I suspected that everyone on the platform noticed that one large flag bore a face strongly resembling Stalin’s. As it was carried past Tito, a brisk wind suddenly snapped it to show its full expanse, and the Yugoslav leader as well as Khrushchev must have seen it and realized that the late dictator’s ghost was also present to observe this repudiation of one of his major policy moves. De-Stalinization was comparatively easy to proclaim, but much more difficult to implement.
CHAPTER EIGHT
From Zhukov to Poznan
Khrushchev always knew that his decision to dethrone Stalin was a huge risk—to himself, to his party, and to his country. Yet he took it. He was convinced that without meaningful change the communist system would slowly rot. Stalin’s legacy had to be uprooted and destroyed: fear had to be replaced by hope, economic stagnation had to give way to genuine reform, and the pervasive paralysis of Kremlin politics had to yield to new ideas and new leaders. Unfortunately, the speech accomplished only half the job—it demolished the Stalinist legacy, triggering a tidal wave of popular confusion and relief. But it did not initiate a program of political and economic reform, without which nothing much could be changed. The system survived the speech.
By June 1956 Khrushchev faced a rising crescendo of doubts about his controversial policy. At JPRS we were beginning to find hints in the controlled press of Kremlin concern about “opportunistic vacillations” and “hostile propaganda,” which in the context of the time suggested anti-party sentiment was on the rise, and the public had to be on alert.
On a trip to Sverdlovsk, Khrushchev warned that a “principled and disciplined struggle” must be waged against these “opportunists.” He blasted the sudden upsurge of “slanderous fabrications” and attacked “anti-party slanderers,” although he did not name them. Bulganin, on a trip to Warsaw, noted that “in connection with the struggle against ‘the cult of the individual,’ not only have hostile and opportunistic elements become more active, but unstable and vacillating people in our own ranks have also come out into the open. These people, misled by ‘hostile propaganda,’ at times incorrectly interpret individual propositions connected with ‘the cult of the individual,’ and this has found its reflection in some press organs of the socialist countries, Poland included.” In other words, some communists in Russia and Eastern Europe had openly defied Khrushchev, even in the press, and argued against his anti-Stalin policy, and this had to be crushed.
That evening I noted in my diary that “it is no easy job running a totalitarian government in a half-totalitarian, half-free manner.”
But on July 4 Khrushchev arrived at Spasso House, the Moscow home of the American ambassador, as if he did not have a care in the world. He had begun to make a habit of dropping in on national day receptions, his way of telling the world that a new day was dawning in the Soviet Union. Ambassador Bohlen had been informed the night before that Khrushchev and several other top government officials would be attending America’s national day celebration, and Bohlen alerted the embassy’s three other Russian speakers, me among them, that each of us would be responsible for a Soviet leader, meaning we had to make certain that he was enjoying himself. The ambassador, of course, would get Khrushchev, and I got… Marshal Zhukov! Why, I don’t know, but there was something wildly incongruous about my new responsibility. Zhukov was a sixty-year-old marshal in the Soviet Army, a World War II hero who had led troops into battle at Kiev and Stalingrad, a minister of defense in charge of nuclear weapons. I was a twenty-six-year-old, ex-PFC (private first class) in the U.S. Army, a translator who happened to have learned enough Russian to get a job at the American embassy in Moscow.
Zhukov was as short as he was wide, his chest was adorned with a forest of medals, all richly deserved, and he loved his vodka. I was tall and thin and indulged in a glass of wine once every week or two, if that. I decided almost immediately that if I was to do no harm to U.S.-Russian relations, I had to find a way to drink with Zhukov without consuming any vodka. Early on July 4 I raced to Spasso House and conferred with Tang, the ambassador’s Chinese-born butler-waiter-handyman, who I always thought was in the employ of at least six secret services. He was short, wiry, and imaginative. More important on this special July 4, he was a master of conspiracy. How, I wondered, could Tang serve vodka to Zhukov and water to me? That was the challenge, rivaling in importance, I imagined, the U.S.-Russian competition for influence in the oil-rich Middle East. Thinking for no more than a minute, Tang, with a broad smile on his face, exclaimed, “Got it!”
He ran to the kitchen, where he found the large round tray, on which he would serve drinks at the reception. He held it out in front of him. “When I come to you and the marshal,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes, “I shall be holding the tray just like this.” He nodded to the right side of the tray. “That’s where the vodka will be. The water will be in the same type of glass, but always on the left side.” Tang looked up at me. “Understand, sir?” he asked playfully.
“Indeed, I do,” I replied, feeling as though I was party to a diplomatic conspiracy that only a Metternich could appreciate.
At exactly 3:00 p.m., Khrushchev and company arrived. The garden in back of Spasso House was magnificently aglow with colorful flowers, none more stunning than the red roses hanging from red-white-and-blue trellises. Tables groaning with food and drink were situated strategically so that none of the hundreds of guests had to move more than a few feet for replenishments. And of course Tang led a small army of waiters, each carrying a tray of goodies, including Russia’s best caviar and America’s best hot dogs. Everywhere, American flags fluttered in the breeze. Khrushchev, as usual during the summer, wore a suit that was off-white in color and in desperate need of pressing. He seemed to be in good spirits. Bohlen greeted him with a friendly handshake.