The Traveler

Nikita Khrushchev is a man who likes crowds, and last week in Indonesia he finally found them. In India and Burma, where the touring Communist boss drew relatively sparse turnouts and notably sharp criticism from the newspapers, he had grown progressively more glum and irritable. But as he descended from his silvery Ilyushin-18 turboprop at Djakarta's sun-drenched airport last week, Nikita was met by close to 100,000 people, including brilliantly costumed groups from the outlying islands of the Indonesian nation: pretty girls in sarongs, from Timor; Maduran farmers with rice scythes; barelegged hunters from Borneo. It was an arranged welcome, and less than Communist Ho Chi Minh got a year ago. Still, it looked promising to Khrushchev.

Wearing a lace-trimmed Ukrainian shirt, a light grey suit and a snapbrim straw hat, he advanced briskly over the red carpet to greet his host, President Sukarno, who, with a flashing smile, said: "You have a big job ahead of you. You'll have many hands to shake."

Little Natashas. Thrusting out bulging fists, Nikita crowed: "I have strong hands, and anyway, I love it!" He went happily down the receiving line, and began to warm up when he reached a group of children from the Soviet embassy, who showered him with flowers. To one little girl he boomed: "Your name is Natasha!" The surprised child stammered, "How did you know?" Laughed Nikita: "Every Russian girl is called Natasha."

Turning to the costumed Indonesians, Khrushchev playfully picked out a husky young man clad in the red polka-dot robes of the North Celebes, and tried a few wrestling holds on him to the delight of the crowd. Followed by Sukarno, Khrushchev climbed into the President's red Chrysler Imperial and drove to the vast Merdeka Palace through streets lined with 200,000 more people.

On the Road. So many top Kremlin residents are globetrotting these days, that it might be asked who is home minding the store. Mikoyan has been to Cuba; Voroshilov, Kozlov and Mme. Furtseva were just back from India; Gromyko was among the five planeloads of Russians traveling with Khrushchev. Perhaps they all merely wanted to escape the Russian winter. But Khrushchev had another purpose in mind on this trip--to try to revive Communism's slipping popularity in Southeast Asia.

Khrushchev had gone to Indonesia prepared to offer gifts, which is always a certain method of making Sukarno happy.

The Soviet Union has already given Indonesia a total of $118 million in the form of ships, roads, steel plants and marine institutes (U.S. aid to Indonesia: $500 million). Now there is talk of a Russian-built naval base on Amboina Island, north of Bali, and Khrushchev promised a stadium seating 100,000 in Djakarta for the 1962 Asian Games.

In India and Burma, where Khrushchev was received correctly but with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, he responded with heavy-handed boasts about Soviet achievements and waspish attacks on the motives behind Western offers of economic aid. But his theme seemed dated in lands that have been independent for more than ten years. At a banquet in Calcutta he snapped, "I don't think all of you understand us correctly when we manifest a certain hotheadedness against the colonialists. Just as you don't understand us, neither can we understand you Indians. For so many ages you have been oppressed by colonialists, but still it has not awakened in you the strong feelings which inspire us in Russia."

He sounded the same theme in Indonesia, where President Sukarno often uses the continued Dutch occupation of Western New Guinea to divert his countrymen's minds from the staggering national economy and the festering rebellions in the island.* In an extemporaneous speech Khrushchev cried: "Your country is rich, and it is understandable that the colonialists were reluctant to leave it," and he delivered himself of a cautionary homily: "You cannot get rid of colonialism with prayers any more than you can teach a tiger to eat grass. Independence is possible only by fighting."

Giggling Maidens. It was typical of Sukarno's charming but rather feckless character that in the first days of his visit, Khrushchev was taken to no factories, plantations or workshops, or even allowed to mingle with any real people. Instead, there were constant spectacles in the 90DEG heat of midday, with giggling maidens flinging hibiscus and frangipani petals on the sweating Nikita; there were gargantuan meals, with endless courses of Indonesian and Dutch delicacies (to which Khrushchev always brought his own sour black bread), and nights filled with the tinkling music of gamelan orchestras.

At an exhibition of Javanese art--beautiful hand-dipped batik cloth and finely worked silver--Sukarno smilingly asked Nikita, "Which would you like?" Growled Khrushchev: "I don't like anything, I don't like anything," but added grudgingly, "The workmanship is good." When Sukarno, nettled, tried to explain the intricate handwork involved, Khrushchev put him straight on the new industrialism: "They cost too much, not only in price but in human life. If we go on like this, there will be no progress. Machines, machines are what you need!" But he posed for photographers when Sukarno wrapped a sarong around his waist, and whispered to his host the same aside that countless foreigners have asked kilt-wearing Scots. Queried Khrushchev: "Don't you wear pants under these things?" Sukarno seemed to enjoy all the dancing festivity more than he did the company of his guest. What Nikita thought of it all he did not say, but he looked heat-weary and frequently bored. One of the Soviet party commented: "I am a Marxist and a Communist, and I think America is imperialistic. But when she started as a young country, America worked hard. Just look at Indonesia. Nobody does anything. What a waste!"

* Army helicopters circled over Khrushchev's party as it progressed from Bogor to Bandung. Reason: a fear that one of the nearby Moslem rebel groups might try to pull off an assassination.

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