Word: khrushchevism
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...Khrushchev began rushing intermediate-range nuclear missiles, launching equipment and Ilyushin-28 bombers to Cuba. President Kennedy's dramatic response was to order a naval blockade of Cuba and to warn that the U.S. would take "whatever means may be necessary" to remove the missiles. Khrushchev grew alarmed. Seeking "to take the heat off the situation," he suggested to other members of his government: "Comrades, let's go to the Bolshoi Theater this evening. Our own people as well as foreign eyes will notice, and perhaps it will calm them down." After he and Kennedy had begun exchanging...
Dignified Way Out. The break in the crisis, says Khrushchev, came with a secret visit by Robert Kennedy to Soviet Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Dobrynin. Khrushchev says that Kennedy told Dobrynin: "We are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba. If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power." That quote is clearly suspect, suggesting that Khrushchev himself magnanimously found what he describes as "a dignified way out" of the crisis; most Western accounts give that credit to the Kennedys. In any case, Khrushchev continues...
Other gleanings from Khrushchev's memory...
...VIET NAM: Before the Geneva conference of 1954, when Viet Nam was divided into North and South, Ho Chi Minh visited Moscow. The Communists had not yet scored their stunning victory at Dienbienphu and their situation was "very grave," says Khrushchev. When the Russians heard that France proposed the 17th Parallel as the dividing line at the conference, "we gasped with surprise and pleasure. The 17th Parallel was the absolute maximum we would have claimed ourselves...
...took great care never to offend China until the Chinese actually started to crucify us. And when they did start to crucify us, well, I'm no Jesus Christ, and I didn't have to turn the other cheek." On his final visit to Peking, in 1959, Khrushchev tried vainly to get Mao Tse-tung's permission to build a radio in China that would reach Soviet submarines. Mao's reply: "No! We don't want you here. We've had foreigners on our territory for years now, and we're not ever...