Is That Bad?

His talk was like a stream, which runs

With rapid change from rocks to roses:

It slipped from politics to puns,

It passed from Mahomet to Moses;

Beginning with the laws which keep

The planets in their radiant courses

And ending with some precept deep

For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.

--The Vicar,

by Winthrop Praed (1802-39)

Nikita Khrushchev may write shorter letters than Bulganin, but he talks longer, oftener, and with more asides, anecdotes, wit and rhetorical questions than any other head of state. Last week, back in Moscow from eight days of spellbinding in Hungary, Khrushchev mounted a rostrum in Luzhniki Sports Palace, apologized for a strained throat, and then went at it for 45 minutes, getting more laughs and a bigger hand from his hometown audience than he got for all of his speechifying before numbed Hungarians.

Some excerpts from Nikita's logorrheal week in Hungary and at home:

P: On President Eisenhower's "open skies" proposal: "They say, 'Let us fly over your country and you fly over ours.' But we don't want to fly over your country, and we don't want you to be here. Is that bad?"

P: On Western protests that the Soviet Union was offering "too little" in its proposals for reducing armed forces in the satellites and Western Europe: "Well, listen! 'Little!' The only thing you will be satisfied with is the end of the Soviet system, that it should no longer exist. Well, we would like to see the end of capitalism, too. But that is not in our power. And it is not in your power to end Communism."

P: On detection of nuclear explosions: "Scientists of all countries say it is impossible to carry out secret explosions. They would be quickly detected. American statesmen say this is not so. Then, under pressure of their own scientists, they said it was so. Now they again say it is not so."

P: On rivalry with the U.S.: "What country has the largest number of people getting a higher education? Answer: the Soviet Union. What country sent the first Sputniks into the cosmos? Answer: those were Socialist Sputniks. Who wants to overtake whom in science? Answer: the U.S. would like to overtake the Soviet Union." Then, looking down at LIFE photographer Lisa Larsen, he added: "But don't misunderstand me. There is an American girl standing in front. There may be other Americans, too. I don't want to hurt anyone's national feelings. Americans, British--all are good people."

P: On the Hungarian "counter-revolution": "You Hungarians were careless in not noticing the coming of the counterrevolution until it was on your doorstep. We Russians had to crush the counterrevolution, but, as a worker, I must say that you Hungarians should not stand around like fools with your mouths open. Don't be offended. You slept soundly with your fists clenched like children, and when the counterrevolution came, Russia had to help."

P: On collective farms: "There are some people who join collectives and then are sorry afterward. I suppose that, just as in the Soviet Union, women are more responsible for that sentiment than men. It reminds me of a Russian peasant whose wife had not backed him in joining a collective. The peasant told me: 'Not until I broke a couple of sticks over her back did she see the correctness of my position.' "

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