Trick or Treat

The neutrals' decision to send their message to Khrushchev by both Nkrumah and Nehru threw Moscow into turmoil. Flags and banners welcoming Nehru were hastily torn down when the Russians learned that Nkrumah would arrive first in his Ghana Airways jet. The Russians then worked furiously to get them all back up again for Nehru's arrival a bare 50 minutes later. Nkrumah himself was discreetly spirited away from the airport in a Bentley so as not to intrude upon Nehru's red-carpet welcome by Khrushchev, and he stayed in Moscow only long enough to join Nehru to deliver the Belgrade letter to Khrushchev. Then Nkrumah flew off to the Crimea where his family is vacationing.

If Nehru had any hopes of reining in Khrushchev's recklessness over Berlin or persuading him to stop his nuclear tests, they were soon blasted. He came from Belgrade, he told Khrushchev, to express "the minds of hundreds of millions of people" and their hopes that "the great powers who hold the key to war and peace will remove the threat of war and lead the world to peace." The Russian people have yet to be told that Khrushchev has actually begun testing, and Nehru tactfully avoided mentioning the fact. But his tact earned him nothing. Khrushchev, hacking away on his current canard, replied that "aggressive forces want to plunge the world into another war," and that "in view of the direct threat to the U.S.S.R., we are faced with the need to carry out experimental explosions of nuclear weapons."

Nehru came out of his talks with Khrushchev clearly disheartened, warned that the "foul winds of war are blowing" (see THE NATION). But at an Indian embassy luncheon for Nikita, Nehru was more cheerful, back at the old neutralist two-way stand doing business as usual. Thanking the Soviet government for its economic aid to India in a toast, Nehru quipped: "I am afraid that after we receive this assistance, my appetite will grow and I will want to ask for more."

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