The Muzhik Man

His smile stretching his brush mustache, his arm half-raised in greeting with fingers waggling briskly, Anastas Mikoyan, the Kremlin's No. 2 man, was busier than a checker in a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon. In the space of a week, he whirled through official and unofficial Washington, raced on to luncheons, dinners and informal question games in Cleveland. Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles. In between appointments, he inspected stores, gave candy to a baby, shook hands along auto assembly lines, peered at new gadgets and chomped on an airline's free Chiclets.

For all that, Amiable Anastas clearly had a bill of goods to sell the U.S. Unmistakably, his was the pitch of an ever-reasonable, just-plain-folks Russian competitor bent on straightening out a few minor differences. Unquestionably, his method was part of Russia's newest device --the soft sell that began last year with the assignment of Ambassador Mikhail ("Smiling Mike") Menshikov to Washington, polished thereafter with headline-catching informal talks between newly ingratiating Nikita Khrushchev and such prominent U.S. callers as Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey.

"Older on the Inside." With imperturbable informality, Mikoyan tried out his pitch first on Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in a go-minute, off-cuff State Department session, during which he once again, in reasonable tones, laid out Russia's unreasonable stand on a "free" Berlin, left behind a fresh memorandum carrying a near imperceptible sign of a willingness to negotiate.

Two hours with Vice President Nixon gave him the chance to invite Nixon to visit Russia (no committal) and to remark on Nixon's youthful appearance (Replied the Vice President, just turned 46: "I feel older inside"). He pitched again at a dinner given by Motion Picture Association President Eric Johnston (who wants bigger sales of U.S. films to the Soviets), which was attended by such big opinion makers as New York Times Pundit Arthur Krock, Missouri's Democratic Senator Stu Symington and Texas' Lyndon Johnson. He had former Disarmament Aide Harold Stassen over for a private lunch at the Russian embassy. Mikoyan even ran the spiel again for the benefit of top labor union bosses James Carey and Walter Reuther (absent: A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s hornyhanded President George Meany, who said he would "not meet Mikoyan any time or place").

Mikoyan's road-show sell got a good house in Cleveland. There, he presented a gift of a Russian troika (three splendid, high-stepping white horses and carriage) to his host, aging (75) Industrialist Cyrus Eaton, was invited for a ride, no sooner got one foot on the little carriage step than the whole shebang lit off around a snowy track at full speed. Jaunty and chipper, he hung on, alighted at last with a gallant swoop of his hat, as Mrs. Eaton cooed: "You're the bravest man I've ever heard of." Eaton, who regards himself as a kind of missionary for Russian-U.S. coexistence (see BUSINESS), received the gift--a memento from Khrushchev of his visit to Russia last September--with the sentimental hope that "between these three fine stallions and our own mares, there can be not only peaceful coexistence but happy relationships."

Purges & Chirps. This was not quite the kind of coexistence that Anastas Mikoyan had in mind. Nevertheless, he went right on making his disarming impression. He was solid in Detroit, got his biggest laugh at a private dinner with top industrial and civic leaders when he brought up the subject of laxatives--one of the products that U.S. manufacturers are permitted to sell in Russia. Cracked Anastas, through his interpreter: "I see this is a capitalistic thing, perhaps designed to weaken us. You see, without laxatives, our top people are likely to be disagreeable and more formidable. But with extravagant use of laxatives, there is the possibility of great weakening effects."

It was in his talks with U.S. businessmen that Mikoyan worked hardest to sell his theme. Weaving wit with bluntness that sometimes bordered on confession ("Solomon would probably split the blame for the cold war down the mid dle"), he entranced his listeners. He heaped praise on American business, chirped, with a twinkle, that Ford and General Motors enjoy just the same kind of peaceful coexistence that Russia wants with the U.S.

True Confessions. He saved his frankest confessions for meetings in Chicago, one of them arranged by Adlai Stevenson, and on the West Coast. Items:

THE HUNGARIAN REVOLT was instigated by "American agents," and Russia was actually invited in to mash it by the Hungarians themselves.

POLICE TERROR in Russia was all the fault of the late liquidated Police Boss Lavrenty Beria, an "adventurer . . . a sort of businessman in politics" (laughter).

RED CHINA'S split with Russia is "wishful thinking. Our relations with China have been good; they remain good, and they are getting better every day. The fact that you do not notice the existence of China does not change the fact that it does exist, and if you don't choose to notice it, that is your loss."

ADLAI STEVENSON is highly regarded by Soviet leadership as one who really wants to understand Russia. "Mr. Stevenson lacked a few million votes of becoming President. Perhaps if we had been approached, we could have lent them to him" (laughter). Murmured Adlai: "I am flattered at the suggestion, but it is a little late."

Bombs & Clips. Mikoyan never seemed to mind the necessity for extra security precautions, such as checking food with Geiger counters (to guard against attempts to poison him with radioactive substances) or the telephone bomb threat that delayed his airplane out of Chicago. In fact, he appeared even philosophical as, from place to place, he was dogged by bitter Hungarian and Ukrainian pickets, who threw stones, snowballs and eggs (no direct hits) in disregard of President Eisenhower's call for a show of courtesy. At first, he thought that "it is like a comedy," but by the time he landed in San Francisco, where huge mobs of pickets chased his taxiing airplane, and indeed swarmed to within lapel's reach, a shaken Mikoyan was ready to observe with a sniff that "in Russia we stand for freedom--not for hoodlums, but for freedom from hoodlums."

But this was accepted as part of the game. State Department experts and newsmen who plowed along on the trip were more concerned about the results of Mikoyan's big effort. Consensus: Anastas Mikoyan was going over the head of the Administration to the U.S. populace itself, doing his best--and quite a best it was--to curry favorable opinion. This week he would head back toward Washington to meet President Eisenhower for the first time. Thanks to the Great Tour, all the world would be watching. And if his nimble cross-country performance was any index, Mikoyan would not hesitate to lug along a fat sheaf of press clippings as his own proof that Russia and the U.S. people could come to terms, even if the Administration could not.

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