Word: nikita
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...more than two years the leaders of the two great power blocs have been slowly picking their way toward the summit. This week, under the long, tapering shadow of the U2's wings, the summit conference and the dream of peaceful coexistence smashed against the rock of Nikita Khrushchev's intransigent belligerence...
When his white Ilyushin jet bore him into Paris a day earlier than he had originally planned. Nikita appeared to be in a comparatively calm mood. At the country residence of Soviet Ambassador to Paris Sergei Vinogradov, he fed bread crumbs to the swans, even borrowed the scythe of a neighboring farmer and tried his hand at making hay. "Mr. Khrushchev has a fair cutting motion," reported the farmer, "but since he is a stout gentleman, his stomach interfered with his swing...
Just how bad became apparent when Nikita coldly refused to attend the first scheduled summit meeting, which had been planned as an intimate and secret confab amongst the Big Four alone. Instead, he announced, he would show up only for the large (24 people), on-record meeting whose proceedings he would be free to blare out to the world...
...Last Slap. Next came an almost incredible ultimatum. The U.S. Government, said Nikita, "must, firstly, condemn the inadmissible provocative actions of the U.S. Air Force with regard to the Soviet Union, and secondly, refrain from continuing such actions and such a policy against the U.S.S.R. in the future. It goes without saying that in this case the U.S. Government cannot fail to call to strict account those who are directly guilty of the deliberate violation by American aircraft of the borders of the U.S.S.R. Until this is done, the Soviet government sees no possibility for productive negotiations with...
...Unpleasant Facts. Nikita finally subsided. Ike listened with no visible sign of anger. When his turn came to speak, he rejected the Soviet ultimatum, but came surprisingly close to apologizing for the U-2 incident. Khrushchev, he said, "alleges that the U.S. has, through official statements, threatened continued overflights . . . The U.S. has made no such threat. Neither I nor my Government has intended any ... In point of fact, these flights were suspended after the recent incident and are not to be resumed. Accordingly, this cannot be the issue...