The Dignity Bit

At five o'clock one afternoon last week, two stocky figures in ill-fitting topcoats and battered felt hats stepped out of a shabby green railway coach onto the red-carpeted platform of Helsinki Station. After an exchange of platitudes with Finnish Premier V. J. Sukselainen, resplendent in top hat and cutaway, the elder of the two visitors shouted out a greeting to a Finnish army honor guard. Like well-drilled children in an old-fashioned schoolroom, the soldiers chorused back: "Hyvaapaivaa, Herra Paaminesteri--Good day, Mr. Prime Minister." For the first time since their visit to Britain more than a year ago, Bulganin and Khrushchev had again taken their road show outside the Iron Curtain.

Finland, unlike the Scandinavian countries, maintained its invitation to the Russian leaders after the Soviet brutality in Hungary, but only because, say quietly bitter Finns, their country must be "something between a neutral and a satellite."

The Whirling Finger. From the moment they crossed the Finnish border, B. and K. were patently determined to keep things dignified. With only the faintest signs of ennui, they dutifully inspected housing developments and a children's hospital, strode through driving rain to lay a wreath on the grave of Finland's late President Juho Paasikivi*. For the first 24 hours they even belied their well-earned reputation for heavy tippling. At the first state banquet in Helsinki, high-living Nikita Khrushchev limited himself to one Martini, and goateed Premier Bulganin clung firmly to a glass of orange juice, whirling his forefinger alongside his temple to indicate that stronger liquids made him dizzy. What little serious drinking took place was done by dour Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who hopped about clinking glasses in an unpracticed attempt to work up a bit of gaiety. Perhaps he was still smarting under Bulganin's description of him to the Finns: "Quite a nice chap, but one of those fellows who will sit around all evening at a party saying only two words and next day will say 'What a wonderful time we all had last night.' "

The Waving Hand. Unhappily for B. and K., the dignity bit failed to impress the Finns any more than the jollity bit had impressed the British (TIME. April 30, 1956). The crowds that gathered to watch the comings and goings of the Soviet leaders were small and unsmiling. When Khrushchev, riding through Helsinki in an open car, waved to the sidewalk throngs, nol one hand waved in reply, and many a back was pointedly turned. By the end of their first day in Finland, the Russians were so inured to being ignored that when at last a dozen Finns applauded, both Bulganin and Khrushchev swiveled around to see who had broken the silence.

At a state dinner in Finland's White House, President Urho Kekkonen made no attempt to pretend that Finnish "friendship" for the U.S.S.R. came from the heart. "Finland's foreign policy," said he, staring straight at B. and K., "has been a policy of national necessity."

*Tactfully, the Finns spared B. and K. the customary pilgrimage to the grave of Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, whose strategic genius cost the Red army nearly 50,000 dead during the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40.

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