A Fine Italian Hand

The paucity of facts in Moscow lends a certain credibility to every rumor about the Kremlin, especially when it concerns the supposed ups and downs of Nikita Khrushchev.* Thus it was last week that a whisper from Moscow via Rome became a blast of hot air felt around the world.

It all began with a Moscow dispatch by Giuseppe Boffa. correspondent for Italy's Communist newspaper L'Unita, which soberly described Soviet troubles in domestic and foreign affairs and at one point permitted itself the flat assertion that "Moscow is living through a delicate and interesting political moment." Rome's volatile press erupted with screaming headlines predicting Nikita's imminent downfall. Big papers in New York, London and Paris gave way to similar speculation.

Though Khrushchev was surely under pressure, he did not act like a fellow on the skids. He sent a note to his poison pen pal Mao Tse-tung politely declining Mao's invitation to talk over the Sino-Soviet split in Peking (TIME, March 22). Instead he invited Mao or a group of colleagues to Moscow. Suggested time for the confrontation of quarreling Communists: in the spring or summer, "which are good seasons of the year in our country."

* Even the ups and downs of Soviet space technology were shrouded in uncertainty last week. Moscow launched a fourth moon probe, but with typical secrecy did not reveal its mission. The size of Lunik IV (1 1/2 tons) led some Western scientists to believe it was designed to carry out a soft landing on the moon. But after 3 1/2 days in flight, Lunik IV missed the moon by 5,281 miles. Was Lunik IV a flop? Tass reported only that experiments "had been carried out," then curtly added it would have nothing more to report about the flight.

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