"We Are In No Hurry"

There would have been no threat to peace in Europe this year if Nikita Khrushchev had not abruptly and without warning proclaimed last Nov. 27 that he wanted the Western Allies to get out of Berlin within six months. Since then, in a stupefying whirl of fighting words and friendly asides, he has raised and lowered the cold war temperature at will. How much this constant shifting of attitudes was deliberate, how much impulsive, perhaps not even Khrushchev himself knew, or knows. But no one could deny his skill at getting the most out of manner without giving way on matter.

After his hug-slug-hug scrimmage in Moscow with Macmillan, Khrushchev turned up last week at the East German industrial capital of Leipzig to proclaim that what he wants is "peace, peace and more peace"--that it is "hotheads in the West" who threaten war by refusing to quit Berlin and sign a peace treaty with his puppet East German regime.

Officially, Khrushchev was in Leipzig to attend the spring opening of the city's 800-year-old fair. The fair these days is a key meeting ground between Eastern Communists and Western businessmen. Rolling into a Town Hall luncheon with his familiar spraddle-footed gait, Khrushchev settled down at a table with three British M.P.s. "I didn't come here to talk politics," he began with a grin. "I represent business circles of the Soviet Union." That raised a laugh that brought reporters running. Thereupon, Laborite M.P. Ian Mikardo asked what might come of the proposed Foreign Ministers' meeting. "We have a saying," answered Khrushchev: "Don't count your chickens until autumn." The May 27 deadline on Berlin, he said expansively, was no deadline. "It might be postponed until June 27 or July 27. We are in no hurry."

Water Leveler. Spotting a member of a delegation from Ghana at the table, he raised a toast to "Africa and all countries fighting for their independence." Said Khrushchev: "Our hearts are on their side. People are the same all over the world. One cannot tell a czar from anyone else. All people look alike in the bathtub."

Having wigwagged one relaxing message to the West, the Soviet boss felt called upon to resume his menace. He rose to make an impromptu speech. "Elbow us and we will break your elbow," he growled. "The Western countries who want to maintain the state of war do not want to secure peace. If you want to frighten us, all right, we are frightened. But do not go on frightening us."

The audience, mostly representatives of Soviet, East German and Eastern European governments, cheered. Said Nikita: "We shall sign the peace treaty. We shall defend peace with all our force. We shall not yield. I have said it all before. But repetition is the mother of wisdom."

When Red Meets Red. Flanked by the ever obsequious East German party boss, Walter Ulbricht, and other flunkies with high titles, Nikita bowled on to the fair, with police making way for him through the crowds (a process referred to in the Communist press as "indescribable scenes of friendship"). In a spirited tour he tossed off a glass of champagne at the French pavilion ("One cannot refuse such a pretty girl"), accepted a British tie of

Tory blue over another of Marxist red ("Red irritates my eyes. I have had red telephones, but I had them thrown out"), and barged into the Krupp exhibit to drink "good health" in cognac and send "personal regards" to West Germany's Industrialist Alfried Krupp, whose firm recently signed a $12 million contract to build a chemical plant in Russia.

At an East German exhibit, Nikita, five-foot-five, hopped onto a bathroom scale. Reading: 220 Ibs. At a reception later he complained of a photographer: "Every time I raise my glass, the fellow takes a picture." Said Khrushchev, who has been campaigning back home to cut down on vodka drinking: "A great man who has his weaknesses is still a great man."

At week's end this self-styled great man with weaknesses swept on to East Berlin. There, hoarse and tired at last, he cut his big speech to an apathetic crowd of 50.000 in East Berlin's Stalin Alice to only five minutes. He said that he had had "useful conversations" and "painless negotiations" with the East German leaders, and "will' certainly continue them." As he spoke, a Western airliner flew over, headed for West Berlin's Tempelhof field.

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