Traveling Act

Nikita Khrushchev never worries about the dangers of "overexposure." While Western statesmen make quick flying visits abroad, Nikita stays for weeks and weeks. Last week, as he arrived in Copenhagen for an 18-day journey through Scandinavia, it was quickly clear that his once effective act as the heavily charming, frank and shrewd Russian cornball has grown stale. It was his 52nd foreign voyage since he took power a decade ago, and the style was still the same, but the welcoming crowds were scanty and almost silent.

As Nikita made his way down the gangplank of the blue and white Soviet ship Bashkiria that had brought him, Wife Nina and 40 others across the Baltic, he glimpsed the handsome wife of Premier Jens Otto Krag, who used to be one of Denmark's best-known actresses. Pushing toward her, Khrushchev cried, "I've brought some bread for you, my girl," recalling the fondness for Ukrainian bread she had expressed during the Krags' trip to Moscow last February.

Within a matter of hours he had laid a wreath on a Danish war memorial, bussed a classroomful of kindergarten mites (who squealed "We want Khrushy!"), urged total disarmament to anyone who would listen, heavy-handedly told Danish shipyard workers how to strike against their employers, and promised to tear up his party card if Russia does not solve its food-growing problems by 1970 or so. At a school, Khrushchev jovially declined a cigar offered him by a woman teacher ("I am not old enough to smoke"), but accepted a glass of vermouth. That was about the strongest thing Khrushchev drank all week, and he wanted to make it quite clear that he was still on the wagon-- and perhaps that is why he seemed so dull.

Touring a farm on the island of Fyn, a rich beef and pork area, Khrushchev irritated his hosts slightly by saying, "I saw your wonderful farms today, but I saw nothing that I would care to take home with me. You have such small farms. Our farms are big." When the swarms of photographers crowded too close around him, Khrushchev got furious: "These barbarians would scare the devil, let alone the cows," he said. "Let the bull at them!"

In the confusion, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko stepped in a pile of cow dung, and the alarmed cows trotted off to a distant corner of the pasture. Finally one Red Danish stood still long enough to be patted on the nose by the Russian leader. "That cow doesn't seem frightened of Communism," chuckled the owner of the farm. "Of course not," snapped Khrushchev. "All cows know Communism is their friend."

Cows may know it, but what about people?

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