Word: sukarno
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...times last week it looked as if Nikita Khrushchev might be running for the presidency of Indonesia. When Sukarno, the President, proudly showed him a model of an Olympic village for the 1962 Asian Games, Nikita said contemptuously, "Oldfashioned and inefficient," and intimated that, if he were running things, he would build instead "a big hotel with modern conveniences." Like a candidate ambitious for office, Khrushchev commented repeatedly in public on Indonesia's chaotic economy, with the implication that it is due to inefficiency and lack of organization...
Khrushchev had gone to Indonesia prepared to offer gifts, which is always a certain method of making Sukarno happy...
...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 90° 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...
...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...