The Tiddly Bear

First Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev was 63 last week, and like a-red-eyed Russian bear he barged through Moscow reception rooms with hugs and handclasps, slaps and swipes for his startled guests. At a party for Albania's visiting Communist Boss Enver Hoxha, he spotted tall, handsome Yugoslav Ambassador Veljko Micunovic. "There's no need to be hiding in the back of the hall," cried Khrushchev. "Come up here. Let's have a toast." Khrushchev bubbled on: "The Hungarian situation was pretty hot, as hot as Hungarian pepper, and added to this pepper was Egypt. But things are settling down. We fought the Germans and the Japanese, and yet we want better relations with them. We never fought the Yugoslavs and never will."

As Ambassador Micunovic's smile broadened. Nikita gave his arm a playful twist. "We must achieve unity, and I am confident we will. I am certain some of the Yugoslav leaders and the people of Yugoslavia wish it." (Marshal Tito, bridling at Nikita's implication that there was a division among Yugoslav leaders, asked:

'Whom shall we believe now? Today the one says one thing and tomorrow the other makes a 180-degree turn.")

Amiable Person. Lurching over to Norway's Ambassador Braadland (who had just delivered Norway's polite but stiff reply to a Soviet threat of massive atomic retaliation), Khrushchev chortled: "Look what an amiable person he is. He represents a neighboring country and a member of NATO. Well, willy-nilly we have to reckon with this."

Another foreigner caught his eye. "And here too is M. Dejean, the French Ambassador. He represents a country the ruling circles of which, jointly with the governments of Britain and Israel, organized the aggression against Egypt. They tried to subjugate Egypt by force of arms, but nothing came of it, and they had to clear out. We were upset when the war against Egypt was unleashed, but we rejoiced when the hostilities were ended."

Two nights later at the Syrian embassy, Khrushchev put his arm around U.S. Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen (who left the Soviet Union the following day on his way to take over the U.S. Embassy at Manila), declared expansively: "We do not understand why they are taking you away from us and sending you so far away. We understand you. and you understand us. We hate to see you go."

Rapped Knuckles. On other occasions the friendly bear was in a rib-crushing mood. At a reception for Poland's Premier Jozef Cyrankiewicz, the expansive Nikita, tiddly again, joked about the number of times "our troops have been in Poland and your troops have been in Moscow." Twitting the sweating Polish Premier over the negotiations now going on between the U.S. and Poland for economic aid, he said with a grin: "Comrade Cyrankiewicz, you are now being wooed like a bride, but it is not because you are young." Then the bear lifted his heavy paw in a warning.

Said he: "We want to warn the capitalist countries: do not joke with us. Do not try to test us like you did in Hungary with the Putsch. You think of doing it, not only in Hungary, but also maybe in East Germany. Be careful. We are not saints, and if necessary we will rap your knuckles."

How heavily the Soviet Union might rap was indicated by Soviet Defense Minister Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who told reporters present at the gathering that Russia would arm her Communist allies with nuclear weapons and guided missiles to match the weapons provided by America for its NATO allies.

The weapons might be placed in satellite territories. But after the lesson of Hungary, it was likely that the weapons would be in Russian--not satellite--hands.

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