Reverse Response

The Norwegians had had enough of Nikita Khrushchev even before he arrived. Television had shown the Russian Premier touring Sweden and Denmark, had reported his boorish belittling of Danish farming and his sneering remarks on Swedish defenses. When he clambered onto the quay in Oslo, a ragged cheer broke out from assembled Iron Curtain diplomats--but not from the 3,000 curious Norwegians who had gathered to examine the visitor. One little old lady was moved to waggle her umbrella at Khrushchev and shout "Murderer" until a manners-minded policeman placed his white-gloved hand firmly over her mouth.

But, as always, Khrushchev on tour turned out to be part frolicking peasant, part common scold. In his lighter moments, he was engagingly frank. With half a glass of beer inside him, he was asked at an after-dinner party whether the Russians had ever solved their succession problem. Khrushchev's response was a jocular account of the 1957 at tempt by Bulganin, Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich to depose him. "Bulganin," said Khrushchev, "was and is a very good bookkeeper. He was even being a bookkeeper during the anti-party revolt. He thought that four was bigger than seven. He knows better now." Malenkov was "a weak man who could not make decisions. But we've solved that. That power plant he supervises is fully automated."

At Bergen's famed fish market, there was more heavy-handed fun. Khrushchev greeted an aquarium-housed Volga beluga as a fellow countryman, saw a market stall collapse and a photographer topple into a pile of fish, roared with laughter when the owner of another stall chased off a newsman by wildly swinging a fish as a weapon.

But in more serious moments, Khrushchev threw his hosts into a wintry Norwegian chill. On Cuba, he gave the impression that he would approve if Castro shot down an overflying U.S. reconnaissance plane, and would come to his aid if the U.S. retaliated. He denounced recent NATO maneuvers near the Russian-Norway border, and, as he had the Danes, advised Norwegians to get out of the Atlantic Pact altogether. The Norwegians neither needed nor wanted the advice--and their response was just the reverse of what Khrushchev was suggesting. The Russian, said an outraged Norwegian government official, succeeded only in "solidifying all of our ministers in favor of NATO. If anyone had been wavering--and I don't think they were--then they are now totally determined."

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