Georgy & Dick

California's Republican Representative Pat Hillings ushered into his office one day last week a man with a Russian accent. The caller was an aide to retiring Soviet Ambassador Georgy Zarubin, and he needed some advice. The situation : Zarubin, headed home to the Kremlin, wanted to pay his protocol farewell visit not to the President of the U.S. but to Hillings' good friend and patron Vice President Richard Nixon. Could this be arranged? Hillings said he would see--and did. The White House had no objections. Nixon was agreeable. The State Department said "sure."

In Nixon's ornate reception room-office just off the Senate floor, the two men and their interpreters got together. Zarubin opened things up by saying that he was not snubbing the President but knew that the President was busy; he offered the President his good wishes, which Nixon said he would pass along. They chatted about wider exchanges of information and people between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Zarubin added cagily that it might be a good idea to swap visits between delegations of U.S. Congressmen and members of the Supreme Soviet. Nixon suggested that the U.S.S.R. ought to accept President Eisenhower's recent call for peaceful uses of outer space. Time of meeting: 42 minutes.

"I think the conversation was useful," said Zarubin afterward. Nixon agreed that the talks had been "useful," but would not pose for photographs with his caller.

Was Zarubin trying to give the impression that Nixon, and not Eisenhower, was the man really in charge of the U.S. Government? Capital consensus: No, but Zarubin wanted to take back to Moscow's interested bosses his impressions of the man who might one day be in charge. As Go-Between Pat Hillings put it: "I think they're interested in meeting Nixon and talking with him to get to know what kind of fellow he is."

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