Word: molotov
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Baiting Aunty Molly was one of Stalin's pet pastimes during World War II. To General de Gaulle, who went to Moscow to negotiate a Franco-Soviet treaty, Stalin wisecracked: "You are a hard bargainer. You got the better of Molotov. I think we shall have to shoot him." Frenchman and Russian laughed until they noticed Molotov white with fear...
Molly's Offensive. As Foreign Minister, Molotov has made his mistakes, some of them thumping big ones. He misread Tito, lost the airlift battle of Berlin, mis judged U.S. reaction to the invasion of South Korea. Above all, he and his "fellow Politburocrats allowed the nakedness of Communist aggression to alert the West to rearm. To undo that "error" is now the principal external target of Russia's peace offensive...
Alias Mr. Brown. In May 1939, while still Premier, Molotov succeeded Maxim Litvinoff as Foreign Commissar. Three-and-a-half months later he shocked the world with the Nazi-Soviet pact. Both sides solemnly swore to "refrain from every aggressive action"; the effect was that the Reich was free to attack the democracies while Russia grabbed half of Poland and the Baltic Republics: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Then Hitler invaded Russia. Talking before Allied diplomats, Stalin would speak to Molotov of "your treaty with Ribbentrop." Stalin startled Sir Stafford Cripps by offering to sack Molotov, if the British wished...
...Molotov's wartime role was to win friends for the Soviet Union. He did it well. As "Mr. Smith," he flew to London to sign a 20-year treaty of alliance that is still, theoretically, the basis of Anglo-Soviet relations. Winston Churchill put him up in his country home at Chequers, and wrote afterwards: "Molotov's room [was] thoroughly searched by his police officers . . . The mattresses were all prodded in case of infernal machines. At night a revolver was laid out beside his dressing gown and his dispatch case...
British officialdom believes that Molotov will be the Lepidus to Malenkov's Antony and Beria's Octavian. "It's as though he has been thrown across the gap between the old and the new regime, like a Bailey bridge. While Molotov's got a use, they'll use him. But once they've got their feet firmly planted on the other bank, the bridge will be discarded...