Word: gronchi
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...Moscow Airport things got off to a bumpy start. Turning to Italian Foreign Minister Giuseppe Pella, whom the Russians regard as "hopelessly" pro-Western, Nikita Khrushchev began to twit him on the Alitalia DC-6B in which the Gronchi party had arrived. Said Khrushchev: "Since you buy your airplanes abroad, you should know that ours go much faster. Why don't you buy airplanes that are faster and perhaps cheaper?" Taken aback, Pella began to argue that Russian jets actually cost more than the U.S.-made DC-6B (an obsolescent type on U.S. airlines). Khrushchev dismissed the point with...
...Timekeepers. The real trouble began when Gronchi and Pella, in fashionable Italian style, arrived 15 minutes late for a business session with Khrushchev and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, found the Russians scowling heavily at their watches. When Gronchi suggested that the summit meeting should take up reunification of Germany through free elections, Khrushchev broke in to growl that his utmost concession on Germany would be to guarantee Berlin as a "free city" once the West withdrew its troops. Things were not helped even when Gronchi presented Khrushchev with a 16th century bust of Marcus Aurelius...
That evening, at a big Italian embassy reception, Khrushchev made it clear that he had abandoned all hope of capitalizing on Gronchi's vague visions of a more "flexible" Italian foreign policy. In a long, menacing toast, Khrushchev bluntly warned that Russia would not relax its hold over Communist East Germany ("The situation created by World War II cannot be changed without a war"); he was not interested in West German views ("We cannot accept conditions from men who were beaten at Stalingrad"), then launched into a series of unfavorable comparisons between Italy and Russia...
Money & the Moon. Icily, Gronchi retorted: "I would like to present Premier Khrushchev with a good wish. Maybe one day, touched by divine grace, he will enter the Christian Democratic Party." Khrushchev (angrily): Which party gives most to the people? Our flag has reached the moon. And you? What have you done...
...Gronchi answered mildly that only the rich can afford some things...