Fist for a Fist

Five days of chilling British indifference had made their smiles sickly and their tempers short. Last week, while Premier Nikolai Bulganin kept up a covering barrage of pleasant generalities, Nikita Khrushchev dropped all pretense of geniality, and got down to business. Comrade Khrushchev's new theme: Russia is a powerful, thriving and scientifically advanced nation, willing and able to trade profitably with the West, but strong enough to do without if necessary.

Ours Are Bigger. Khrushchev deployed his evidence with skill. All week long, three sleek Russian jet airliners whooshed in and out of London Airport on courier missions. He sent Soviet Plane Designer Andrei Tupolev to look at the Britannia, Britain's latest turboprop liner, and Tupolev emerged remarking: "An impressive airplane, but we are building a bigger turboprop, which will carry 170 passengers." He sent Soviet Atomic Expert Igor V. Kurchatov to Harwell to deliver a lecture that left British scientists much impressed (see SCIENCE).

Khrushchev himself laid out the theme in a shrewdly conceived speech delivered at the opening of the British Industries Fair in Birmingham. He began by flexing Russia's muscles. He had noticed that in the streets there were "a few, a very few, placards against us and a few cries. One man even shook his fist at me. My return gesture was this [Khrushchev shook his own fist], and we both understood each other."

The crowd laughed, but Khrushchev's eyes narrowed.

"I would remind that man," he went on, "of the fact that attempts have been made in the past to speak to us in those terms. After the October Revolution in our country there was a landing by the British, by the Americans, by the French at Odessa and by the Japanese at Vladivostok, but then the Russian people made an effort and cleared them all out.

"Later on Hitler shook a clenched fist at us. He is in his grave now. Is it not time that we become more intelligent and not shake our fists at each other? As a matter of fact, fist fighting requires much less brains than trading."

Then Khrushchev launched into his main theme: "Our trade would hardly flourish if it were based on the sale of crabs on our side, and the sale of herring on yours. Though I do believe that our crabs are very good. And your herring is wonderful, particularly if you eat it with a bit of vodka. But that is very little if one wants to develop really large-scale trade."

In a word, Khrushchev wanted the strategic list abolished. "We don't ask you to sell us guns or warships. As a matter of fact, if you want, we could sell you some of our cruisers because they very soon get out of date."

Who's in Front? Russia, in fact, was just as far ahead in warmaking skills as the West. Aircraft? He cited Tupolev's planes.

Hydrogen bombs? Said Khrushchev:"It remains a fact that we were the first to explode the hydrogen bomb from an airplane. Americans are only intending to do so. Their previous explosion was not that of a hydrogen bomb but of a hydrogen installation."

Guided missiles? "We can compete there too. I am certain that we shall quite soon have a ballistic missile with a hydrogen bomb that can fall anywhere in the world."

Demanded Khrushchev: "Do you think we are behind you? It is a question who is behind and who is in front. The point I want to make is that these restrictions of trade do not prevent us in any way from making advances in our armaments. When you refuse to sell us machine tools, you compel us to start and expand production ourselves. The cost is somewhat more, but we do it. Having done it, we are no longer dependent on you for buying these tools. Is that beneficial to you? I do not think it is beneficial to either of us."

It was an effective speech and many a British manufacturer in the audience, already irritated by the frustrations of the strategic list, laughed at Khrushchev's jokes, applauded him at the end, and went thoughtfully away. It took a sober second breath by the Manchester Guardian next day to show that the greatest obstacle to East-West trade is not the ban on strategic materials but the harassing restrictions the Russians put on every transaction: "It does not encourage a British manufacturer of electrical goods when he discovers that he must find someone in the West to buy Hungarian goose-feathers in return before he can get his contract signed."

Vodka Brawl. Time was running out for B. and K., and they spent much of their final days in blunt secret talks with Eden and other British officials at 10 Downing Street. They took time off to watch the House of Commons in session, to see Margot Fonteyn dance Russian composer Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ("Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful," Bulganin told the ballerina afterward), to lay a wreath at the grave of Karl Marx in London's Highgate Cemetery, and to fly up to Edinburgh for a fast look at Scotland, where they were greeted by university students bearing placards reading, "Billy Bulge's Siberian Holiday Camps" and "Serov's Salt Mines Ltd."

Claridge's will never forget the reception given for his bosses by Russian Ambassador Jacob Malik. Some 1,500 politicians, editors, artists, party-liners and gate-crashers crushed into the ballroom, gorged themselves on Russian caviar and salmon. Unused to vodka, many a guest slumped quietly to the carpet; others knocked over flowers and furniture, and next morning Claridge's sadly estimated the damage at close to $6,000.

B. & K. soon retreated to a side room, where Bulganin was heard demanding: "What happened to the vodka?" In the midst of this drunken din, Bulganin encountered Expatriate Charlie Chaplin. "You're the best-known man in Russia," he declared, and took him into the side room to meet Khrushchev. Said Chaplin to Nikita: "Your noble words will live in history." Said Nikita to Charlie, pumping his hand: "You are a genius. They repudiate you, but we recognize you. You have been a big help."

On their last day, the Russians held a press conference. The final communique had been signed, pledging the Russians to support the U.N. efforts to find peace in the Middle East, promising to encourage tourists and cultural exchange, and declaring a Russian readiness to increase their purchases in Britain over the next five years to as much as $2.8 billion, particularly for ships, engineering equipment--"if there were no trade restrictions or discriminations." Bulganin read a long prepared statement, in which he announced Eden had accepted an invitation to go to Moscow, and admitted: "Without risk of revealing any great secret, we can inform you that the course of discussion met on its way certain underwater rocks."

The Russians agreed to answer written questions, and Khrushchev impressed Britain's TV audience with the neatness and dispatch with which he handled them. Asked whether Russia was trying to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Britain, Khrushchev answered: "I should think a wedge already exists, and that the wedge has not been driven by us. It has been driven by the U.S. because Britain, for her part, we would think, is interested in freer trade." Would he like to visit the U.S.? "Who would not like to visit it if he had business there?" asked Khrushchev, then added slyly that sometimes people, such as a recent group of Russian cooks, are refused permits. "Perhaps there was apprehension they might cook up something besides a cutlet."

Reporting to his people, Eden too chose to emphasize prospects for more trade. Of the Russians' shopping list, he said, "We found about two-thirds not affected by restrictions at all. So there really is a big scope for increased trade." Concluded Eden: "All this does not add up to a revolutionary agreement. How could it? Great nations do not change their policies lightly. But the London discussions could be something very important all the same. They could be the beginning of a beginning . . . As a result, the world can rest more secure."

As B. & K. departed aboard the cruiser Ordzhonikidze, and the ship eased away from the dock, Bulganin gave a last shout: "The space between us gets larger, but our hearts are closer." Then Russia's B. & K. sailed back to the land where every Pravda reader knew their visit had been a "smashing success," hailed by "enthusiastic crowds," and there were no boos any more.

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