DIPLOMACY: Visit with a Hot Wire

Trailed by the 50-odd members of his own entourage, by State Department officers, and by a platoon of U.S. and Soviet newsmen, Russia’s First Deputy Premier Frol Kozlov last week sped by plane and car across the U.S. on the final half of his first look at the U.S. What he saw was a richer panorama of Americana than many a U.S. resident sees in a lifetime. In California there were elegant dinners, a ceremonial visit to a winery, and a tour of the University of California’s Berkeley Radiation Laboratory. In Detroit (where Mayor Louis Miriani refused to meet him), he got the full treatment from the top automakers and a private, free-for-all debate with Michigan’s G. Mennen Williams (Williams on Kozlov: “Urbane, gracious, shrewd, tough.” Kozlov on Williams: “Not well informed on foreign affairs”). He visited Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley (who, said Kozlov, reminded him of the mayor of Leningrad), inspected an Illinois farm, a Pittsburgh steel mill. Through it all, Frol Kozlov plainly showed that he was having a good time, just as plainly took every opportunity to call for the kind of “peaceful coexistence” that means peace at Communism’s price.

He had his rough moments of boos pickets and catcalls, but not until he got to the atomic showplace of Shippingport, Pa. (pop. 400), where since 1957 a nuclear power plant has produced electricity, did Kozlov look as though he had grabbed hold of a hot wire. The hot wire: none other than Vice Admiral Hyman Rickover, the deadpan boss of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Naval Reactors Branch.

The Politician. Peppery Rick, trim in mufti, started right off lecturing the Kozlov party. “It is incumbent on all politicians and statesmen,” said he, “to realize their great moral responsibility in handling a force” such as atomic energy. As the tour began, Rickover began stepping up the voltage. “Are you smart enough to understand everything I explain to you?” he asked. “Da,” grinned Kozlov. Pointing out a relatively simple, 2,300-volt pump, Rickover cracked: “Even a politician can understand this.” A few minutes later, without batting an eye, the admiral announced: “We can detect your bomb explosions.” Kozlov guffawed. Said Rickover: “I wanted to see how long it would take you to react.”

“You’ve got a good sense of humor,” Rickover went on. “You are looking for publicity. If you were here all day, we would make an atomic expert of you.” He added that he would like to see “exchanges of atomic experts, provided the people were as amiable as you.”

“Fine idea,” said Kozlov.

“Then your specialists would be able to tell you whether we’re telling you everything.”

“You won’t tell us everything,” replied Kozlov.

“That’s because, I think, by not telling you everything, the peace of the world will be better preserved.”

“You’re a diplomat,” the Russian said.

“I’m no diplomat,” retorted Rickover. “I’m just a naval officer. You’re thediplomat because you hide things.”

When photographers asked the two to pose for a gag photo (see cut), Rirkover said: “In the U.S. we have to obey the orders of photographers.”

“Yes, we do, too,” replied Kozlov. “We have freedom, too.”

“Freedom to write what you think?”

Declared Kozlov steadily: “Freedom to think what we want and freedom to write what we think.”

The Dove. Soon the conversation turned to atomic submarines. “It is better,” said Kozlov amiably, “to build atomic surface vessels, because atomic submarines are for the purpose of destruction.”

“Sure,” cracked Hyman Rickover. “All Soviet naval vessels have doves of peace on their masts.”

“Isn’t it fine we’ve been able to spend so much time together talking about peace?” said Frol Kozlov graciously as he departed.

Ever so imperceptibly, Rickover smiled and delivered the last word. “It’s all right to talk about peace. Now you go home and do something about it.”

This week, Frol Kozlov went home.