Birds & Flowers

The slivovitz had hardly stopped flowing at Khrushchev's Belgrade party last week when the Kremlin gang (including the returning celebrants) set out to win India's teetotalling Nehru. This time the technique was birds and flowers, and the scene was the more easily stage-managed environs of Moscow. What did the Kremlin gang want from Nehru, who as a neutralist is convinced that his world stature depends on refusing to become a second-string player on either side? Nehru warned his countrymen before leaving home: "I'm not going to negotiate between any blocs on any issue, nor am I going to intervene in any issues." But it would have taken a man less vain than Nehru to resist the Soviet welcome, the grandest given to any foreigner within memory.

The entire Presidium of the Central Committee and all Cabinet ministers were on the tarmac at 6 p.m. when the gleaming Soviet plane taxied into Moscow's main airport. As Nehru, in Gandhi cap, white churidar (trousers) and brown sherwani (coat), a red rose in his second buttonhole, stepped from the plane, 18 Russian children released a cloud of white doves and rushed forward with huge bouquets of flowers. So engulfed in flowers was Nehru that Marshal Georgy Zhukov ordered Red army guards to pass the flowers over to Indian embassy officials. Premier Bulganin came forward and introduced his Cabinet, all wearing broad-bottom trousers and broader, slap-happy grins, showmen of the new bureaucratic beatitude.

Doves in the Streets. "I have wanted to visit the Soviet Union for a long time, to see this remarkable and celebrated city," said Nehru in Hindi.* The Russians had it all fixed for him. In a big black ZIS open convertible, Nehru and Bulganin headed a procession of official cars down the Leningradsky Chaussee into Moscow's Gorky Street. Every mile of the way was crowded with thousands of cheering Muscovites.

Prompted by an unprecedented press campaign (in which Pravda devoted a third of its space to Nehru, including a Page One picture, a rare compliment to a non-Communist foreigner), the crowd released white doves, threw bouquets into Nehru's lap, or broke the sidelines to heap strings of lilacs on Nehru's daughter, Mrs. Indira Gandhi (no kin of the late great Mahatma, who is described in the latest Soviet Encyclopedia as an enemy of the people).

The unusual procession also gave many Muscovites their first closeup of their own bigwigs, usually only to be seen high atop Lenin's tomb. Unrehearsed and unexpectedly, there was loud applause for the cars of the U.S. and British ambassadors as they passed.

Next morning Nehru, wearing a white rose, laid a wreath at the Lenin-Stalin mausoleum in Red Square, and set out on the standard Kremlin tour, interrupted at intervals by "passing" groups of happy Russian tourists, who just chanced to have bouquets of flowers to give to him. In the Kremlin armory Nehru lingered over a small dirk of Indian craftsmanship, once owned by Peter the Great.

Mangoes & Marvels. Lunch with Molotov was followed by a conversation with Bulganin. Then Nehru doubled through the Stalin Auto Works ("Tabloid impressions are very bad," he said, non-committally). At a reception at the Indian embassy that evening, the Indians served mangoes. Nehru showed Bulganin how to eat them, later presented him with 1,000 for his own table, while the Indian ambassador gave Molotov a bagful to take to San Francisco with him.

Despite the ceaseless exchange of generalities about peace, and whispers of "economic aid without strings" spread among Nehru's journalistic entourage, the Russians had, at week's end, wrung nothing firm out of the Indian Prime Minister.

At the official banquet in the newly air-conditioned Grand Palace of the Kremlin, Premier Bulganin plied Nehru with compliments as sweet as the Caucasian wines, hoped that "our joint efforts will result in an easing of tensions on the east coast of China near Formosa." Smooth as ghee, Nehru reminded Bulganin that India was only recently independent, and could not speak with a strong voice in the world: "We speak with a soft voice, and I hope a gentle voice, for that is the tradition of India," he said.

Troikas & Atoms. The Russians showed him the view from the 24th floor of Moscow University, a jet-aircraft factory, the marvels of the 60-mile subway (and Mrs. Fedorova, the train driver), and a local school (more bouquets). At a horse show, Nehru was just getting interested in the trotting horses and troikas, when he was dragged away to see Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theater. At a garden party at the Indian embassy, ex-Premier Georgy Malenkov, now Minister of Power Stations, promised that on his tour of Siberian industrial centers, Nehru would be shown the Soviet Union's new 5,000-kw. atomic power plants. Talking with Western newsmen, Malenkov gave the impression that atomic energy is now his charge. He said affably that he would like to visit the U.S. if it didn't require fingerprints, adding quickly, "I'm only joking." At week's end, as Nehru left Moscow to tour the provinces, and there was still no joint communique affirming common purposes, it was apparent that Moscow probably needed Nehru more than Nehru needed Moscow. To attract to itself some of the aura of peace-loving neutralism which Nehru has made his own particular patent, the Kremlin was willing to pay a price: in New Delhi the Central Committee of the Indian Communist Party announced that it would give up its policy of total opposition, and cooperate with Nehru in his foreign policy and land reforms.

*Actually this was his second visit. Nehru, age 38, saw Moscow with his family in November 1927.

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