That Certain Smile

Few if any marital debating tricks are quite so outrageously effective as that of goading a spouse to near frenzy, then coolly inquiring: "For goodness' sake, what are you shouting about?" Last week Nikita Khrushchev elevated this domestic ploy to a diplomatic technique.

While Western leaders from Camp David to Bad Godesberg sought ways to cope with his threats to Berlin, Khrushchev called a press conference in the Sverdlov Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace to explain that he had been grievously misunderstood. Nattily turned out in a dark business suit enlivened by two gold "Hero of the Soviet Union" medals, Nikita spent two hours adroitly fielding questions from 300 Russian and a handful of Western newsmen. The notion that he had given the West an ultimatum to get out of Berlin by May 27, he said, was "an unscrupulous interpretation of our position." How had the six months deadline come about? "We looked up at the ceiling, weighed everything and concluded that ... if children are born in nine months, the question of West Berlin can be settled in six months. Seven months would be fine too."

Long, Long Ago. In equally airy fashion, Khrushchev abandoned the Communist contention that the Western powers had no legal right to maintain forces in Berlin. In one offhand remark designed to render needless all the careful legalist arguments Western chancelleries were preparing, Khrushchev said, "We recognize that they have these rights that stem from the capitulation of Hitlerite Germany 14 years ago, but that's a long time ago." If the West did not voluntarily surrender these rights, he warned, Russia would sign a separate World War II peace treaty with the East German Reds. Then--by Russian logic--conquerors' rights would no longer apply in East Germany--"and West Berlin is in [East German] territory."

In his jaunty, tough way, Khrushchev observed that old Konrad Adenauer is as "quarrelsome as a young rooster," and warned him that in case of war "West Germany would be the first country to go up in flames." In America, he said, "people who incite to war are even listened to by Senators," but if such admirals and generals hope by their "crazy declarations" to frighten Russians, "as the saying goes, look for fools in some other village, there are none in ours."

"We Accept." The West was talking about a foreign ministers' conference on Germany for May n, he said with a grin, and "I'm giving away a Soviet government secret, but I'll tell you anyway that we accept." Of course, he added with a patient shrug, Russia would rather have a summit meeting first: "It would be better if the heavyweights--the chiefs of govern ment--undertook to clear away the enormous debris that has accumulated in international affairs. Let them shift the boulders out of the way and start removing the rubble . . . But if such a proposal finds no support from our partners, we are prepared to start with a meeting of foreign ministers and then proceed to a meeting of chiefs of government."

In London and Washington, Khrushchev's remarks were regarded as setting a more conciliatory atmosphere. But he had abandoned none of his original goals, i.e., to force the West to legitimize the current division of Europe, to accept the Communist hegemony over East Germany and to end West Berlin's role as a free-world outpost behind the Iron Curtain. For all his freewheeling and dealing, Khrushchev had yet to show any interest in settling for anything else.

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