Exchange of Visits

Rarely in peacetime had a Cabinet session been so charged with talk of wide-ranging travel, wide-ranging hopes--and a mood of crossed fingers. From the two dozen members of the President's official family and staff, ranged around the big hexagonal table in the White House's Cabinet room, Vice President Nixon got a rare burst of applause for his hour-long report on his fortnight behind the Iron Curtain. Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, back from Geneva and scheduled to take off this week for a meeting of the American republics' foreign ministers in Santiago, Chile, reported on the Big Four foreign ministers' conference on Berlin, which ended in stalemate after 65 days of futile negotiations (see FOREIGN NEWS). But the Geneva gloom was lightened by hopes of results from Premier Nikita Khrushchev's two-week visit to the U.S. starting in mid-September, Dwight Eisenhower's visit to the U.S.S.R. later in the fall, and the President's' trip this month to London and Paris (Bonn was added later).

Beyond Stalemate. By this time, most Cabinet members had been filled in on the steps that led to the Eisenhower exchange of visits. The story: Back in June, when the Geneva conference on Berlin recessed for three weeks, Secretary of State Herter decided that there was little real prospect of anything but a stalemate at Geneva. Looking ahead to the conference's end, Herter saw two possibilities, both unpleasant: a dangerous hotting-up of the Berlin crisis or a face-losing Western agreement to go to the summit despite President Eisenhower's public avowals that progress at Geneva was a precondition to a summit meeting. As a way of avoiding both alternatives, Herter urged the President to invite Khrushchev to the U.S. Ike had often discussed the pros and cons of a Khrushchev visit with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles; he agreed with Herter that the pros now might outweigh the cons.

In Washington in early July, Herter asked touring First Deputy Premier Frol Kozlov (TIME, July 13) to tell Khrushchev that if he wanted to visit the U.S. the President was willing to receive him. Shortly before Vice President Nixon left for Moscow, the President told Nixon that Khrushchev-visit negotiations were under way. Nixon's own talks with Khrushchev confirmed his own belief that a Khrushchev visit to the U.S. might do some good. With the Geneva conference fizzling to an end, the President and Secretary Herter decided to get the visits announced while the conference was still on, so as to avoid any appearance that the exchange was hastily improvised after the conference failed.

Beneath Dignity. To calm fears among U.S. allies that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. might get together on a Big Two deal, the President made it clear at his special press conference last week that his discussions with Khrushchev would be "exploratory rather than any attempt at negotiation." At the NATO Council meeting in Paris, the U.S.'s NATO Ambassador Randolph Burgess assured the allies that the Eisenhower-Khrushchev meetings would not be a Big Two summit conference.

To give point to his promise, the President made plans to fly to Europe in late August for talks with West Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Bonn, Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in London, and with France's President Charles de Gaulle in Paris. While in Paris, Ike will meet with Italy's Premier Antonio Segni and Foreign Minister Giuseppe Pella, NATO's Council President Joseph Luns and Secretary-General Paul-Henri Spaak.

Ike's U.S.S.R. travel plans were still vague at week's end, but he let it be known that he has no intention of getting into public debates with Khrushchev anywhere, considers public sparring beneath the dignity of his office.

A Stop at Coon Rapids. Khrushchev seemed ready to reciprocate. At a rare, Western-style press conference at the Kremlin, he said that he was going to the U.S. as a "man of peace ... I am prepared to turn my pockets out to show I am harmless." He would, he said, refuse any invitations to visit U.S. military installations. He was not going to the U.S. to find out how strong the U.S. is--"One would be stupid not to know that the U.S. is strong and rich."

Khrushchev's tentative itinerary includes New York and Chicago, stops in Iowa, Texas and California--where Vice President Nixon will greet the Russians in his native state. Khrushchev announced that he would probably accept an invitation from Farmer-Businessman Roswell Garst to visit his corn farm at Coon Rapids, Iowa. Explained Garst, who met Khrushchev on a trip to the U.S.S.R.: "He's primarily interested in raising corn so that Russia can raise more livestock. And we know how to raise corn."

With only a fortnight to tour the U.S., Khrushchev would have to turn down most of the invitations that began rolling in to the Soviet embassy in Washington. Mayor Richardson Dilworth invited him to Philadelphia. In Columbus, Ohio State University alumni eagerly plotted to get Khrushchev to the football stadium for the Duke game. Officials in Marshalltown, Iowa urged him to visit their town "in the heartland of America." Invitations to make speeches poured in from an assortment of clubs, ranging from the Young Republicans in New York City to Rotary in Crossett, Ark. And inevitably, an invitation was on the way from the Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, Idaho (pop. 12,000).

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