The U.S. Tour: Dreams Denied

TIME presents a second installment of excerpts from Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, to be published in June by Little, Brown & Co. Based on tape recordings made by former Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev during the last years of his life, the book was translated and edited by TIME Correspondent Strobe Talbott and has introductions by Soviet Affairs Expert Edward Crankshaw and TIME Diplomatic Editor Jerrold L. Schecter.

When I was invited by President Eisenhower to visit the United States in 1959, our embassy in Washington informed us that a certain number of days in our schedule had been set aside for meetings with the President at Camp David. I couldn't for the life of me find out what this Camp David was. I began to make inquiries from our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They said they didn't know what it was either. Then we turned to our embassy in Washington and asked them what it was. One reason I was suspicious was that I remembered in the early years after the Revolution, when contacts were first being established with the bourgeois world, a Soviet delegation was invited to a meeting held on some islands where stray dogs were sent to die. In other words, the Soviet delegation was being discriminated against by being invited there. In those days the capitalists never missed a chance to embarrass or offend the Soviet Union. I was afraid maybe this Camp David was the same sort of place where people who were mistrusted could be kept in quarantine, like a leper colony.

Finally we were informed that Camp David was what we would call a dacha--a country retreat built by [President Franklin D.] Roosevelt during the war as a place for him to get away for a rest. Far from being an act of discrimination, I learned, it was a great honor for me to be invited to spend a few days at Camp David with Eisenhower.

We never told anyone at the time about not knowing what Camp David was. I can laugh about it now, but I'm a little bit ashamed. It shows how ignorant we were in some respects.

Eisenhower told me I would be accompanied on my cross-country tour [of the U.S.] by Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge [then Ambassador to the U.N.]. Lodge was a middle-aged man--tall and strapping. He told me he'd been an officer in the war. According to our system, his rank would have been major general. Lodge and I got to know each other well. He was a clever man, but I can't say the same for the policies he's always stood for. I'd say he is an intelligent official of a not-so-intelligent government. When it came to politics, there was never any doubt that he belonged to the Republican Party, but he treated me well and often joked with me.

Mr. Lodge," I once said, "you're a former military man, and therefore you know the rules of rank. You're a major general and I'm a lieutenant general. Therefore you're my subordinate, and I'll expect you to behave as befits a junior officer."

He started laughing. "Yes, sir. I understand, General." Sometimes when we'd meet, he'd salute and snap, "Major General Lodge reporting for duty, sir!"

Later, while I was in New York, Mr. Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of the state, sent word that he would like to pay a call on me. I answered that I'd be happy to receive him. I'd known him from our meeting in Geneva [in 1955 when Rockefeller was an adviser to Eisenhower at the four-power summit conference]. He was a tall, lively man, very energetic and dignified-looking. He certainly wasn't dressed in cheap clothes, but I wouldn't say he was dressed elegantly either. He was dressed more or less like other Americans. I say this only because here was Rockefeller himself --not just a plain capitalist, but the biggest capitalist in the world!

His visit was brief. He greeted me, and we exchanged a couple of sentences about our previous meeting. There was no real discussion. He simply said, "As the Governor of New York, I am honored to welcome you to our state" --everything according to etiquette. And then he dropped an interesting remark: "I don't exclude the possibility that this meeting won't be the last. I hope we might be able to have certain business contacts with you." I replied I would be delighted to meet him again, especially on business matters. I took his remark as a hint that he hoped to occupy a certain position in the White House, namely the position of President. In that case, of course, he would be meeting me in a different capacity, and we would have an opportunity to build new relations between our countries.

During our stay in Los Angeles, the mayor of the city [Norris Poulson] made a speech at a dinner in my honor. His remarks were brief but very offensive to us. When we got back to our hotel, we all gathered in one of the suites. I was still upset about the way we had been treated and seriously considered canceling the rest of our tour. "How dare this man attack the guest of the President like that!" I shouted. Gromyko's wife ran off to get me a tranquilizer. I threw a look in her direction and made a sign so she would stop worrying and realize I was in full control of my nerves: I was giving vent to my indignation for the ears of the American accompanying us. I was sure that there were eavesdropping devices in our room and that Mr. Lodge, who was staying in the same hotel, was sitting in front of a speaker with an interpreter and listening to our whole conversation. So, for his benefit, I ranted on about how I wouldn't tolerate being treated like this and so on.

During his meeting with Eisenhower at Camp David, Khrushchev continues, the American President rejected a Khrushchev proposal--put forward, he concedes, "to serve a propagandists purpose " --that both sides eliminate military bases on foreign territory. The U.S. was willing to accept a ban on the production and testing of nuclear weapons, but only on condition that there would be international controls and that each side could conduct reconnaissance flights over the other's territory. At that time, the proposal was unacceptable to the Russians, Khrushchev admits, primarily because they lagged behind the U.S. in both the number of nuclear weapons they had and in effective delivery systems.

I was convinced that as long as the U.S. held a big advantage over us, we couldn't submit to international disarmament controls. Now that I'm in retirement, I still give this whole question serious thought, and I've come to the conclusion that today international controls are possible because they would be truly mutual.

Our conversations weren't too productive. In fact, they had failed. We had been unable to remove the major obstacles between us. Eisenhower was deflated. He looked like a man who had fallen through a hole in the ice and been dragged from the river with freezing water still dripping off him.

Lunchtime came; it was more like a funeral than a wedding feast. Well, maybe that's going too far: it wasn't so much like a funeral as it was like a meal served at the bedside of a critically ill patient. Afterward, Eisenhower suggested we go back to Washington by car. If we'd both been more satisfied with the outcome of our talks, it might have been a pleasant drive. But we weren't and it wasn't. I asked some questions just to be polite, and he answered with a few words. Every sentence was a strain to get out. I could see how depressed Eisenhower was, and I knew how he felt, but there wasn't anything I could do to help him.

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