Foreign News: HOST WITH THE MOST

Morning after the elections in which the Soviet dictatorship of the proletariat ratified its contempt for the democratic process of free popular choice, the three Americans appointed by the State Department to observe the show went off to an interview with Nikita Khrushchev at the Communist Party’s stucco-front headquarters near the Kremlin. The Americans-Cyril E. Black, professor of modern European history at Princeton University; Richard Scammon, director of elections research for Washington’s Governmental Affairs Institute; and Hedley Donovan, managing editor of FORTUNE-were official guests of the Soviet government, repaying a visit that three Soviet observers had made to the U.S. during the 1956 campaign. Afterward, Newsman Donovan cabled from Warsaw his impressions of the host with the most votes of all:

KHRUCHCHEV looked tired; he was also older-looking than I had expected, and softer and shorter-looking. Perhaps this was only because for weeks his picture had been gazing out over me from hundreds of Soviet walls, and in these tinted official photographs, two or three times lifesize, his features are planed off and hardened. He was wearing a well-cut suit, dark blue verging on black, a soft white shirt with French cuffs, and a light grey tie. He placed the young interpreter from the Foreign Ministry at the head of the long, green baize conference table, and himself took a seat at the side, his back to the windows that look out across an interior courtyard to an expanse of zinc roofs.

“You are quite right,” he conceded at the outset, “in noting that the party organization plays an active role in the selection of candidates.”

Communism has never had a spokesman who could state a bad case more ingratiatingly. As official observers, we felt that courtesy demanded a minimum of argument, and this suited Khrushchev. He put on quite a show. When I said we had been much impressed by the earnestness with which people talked of “overtaking and surpassing” U.S. production in 10 or 15 years, Khrushchev answered with a trace of irritation: “I don’t know why some people in your country don’t take this slogan seriously. Our rates and tempos of growth are three and four times those of your country. I don’t know about the time, but the lines are bound to cross. We are all convinced that we will overtake you, and this is not a matter of theory but of facts.”

I said it would be a good thing for the U.S. to understand the U.S.S.R.’s determination, and that Americans would welcome the competition. “We are not threatening the U.S. with just competition,” he said. “We consider that the task should be for all the people of the earth to achieve the American level of living and go even beyond that, and we are sure the whole earth has enough resources for this to take place.”

What kind of life would he visualize for the Soviet people after they had surpassed U.S. production? “All our young people will have at least a secondary education. Perhaps this is a dream of fantasy or imagination, but the time will come when 25% 30% or even 50% of our people will have higher education.” Working hours would be very short-“perhaps three or four hours a day.” In his leisure, the Soviet citizen would “enrich his mind, his knowledge and his spiritual forces.” In what way? “That will depend on his nature and ability-perhaps in engineering studies, or the theatrical arts, or astronomy. Soviet society will provide the means for this development of all the spiritual resources of man.”

At the beginning, Khrushchev had seemed somewhat subdued; now, as he talked of the future, the lively little eyes were glittering, the bullet head was wagging vigorously, and the soft, pleasant voice picked up speed. The translator, only 26 years old and seemingly unawed, calmly waited for his chance to break in. And there was time for the Americans to glance around.

Khrushchev is a five-telephone man: two green, two white, one black. He is not a clean-desk man, and in this respect he is refreshingly different from the general run of Soviet officialdom, who work in vast, antiseptic offices from which all traces of the occupant’s personality, taste and his tory have been rigorously excluded. Khrushchev’s office is big, too—about 45 ft. by 25 ft.-but it has some of the agreeable clutter that gets into a room being used by an individual human being. There are pictures of Marx and Lenin, and half a dozen big wall maps and charts—the world, the U.S.S.R., various parts of the U.S.S.R.. various projects. At one end, beyond his cluttered working desk, is a big ceremonial desk loaded with souvenirs. Around its perimeter were piles of bright-colored reports and books, perhaps 40 in all. There were also a model of the Soviets’ new jet airliner, the TU-104, a helicopter model, a small bust of Lenin, two ears of corn encased in plastic, and—ironically—a white statuette of Mahatma Gandhi. I wondered how this apostle of nonviolence had arrived at this particular desk; perhaps the statuette was a gift from Nehru, a souvenir of his visit to Moscow in 1955.

Now Khrushchev was speculating, at Black’s request, on how an all-Communist world would be administered. “When humanity comes to this, it will find the means and forms to organize itself. Say that socialism wins the U.S.A. This does not mean taking away the living standard of the U.S.A., but raising the rest of the world to that standard and even greater. Of course we consider that wars are the product of capitalism, and if there is no more capitalism there will be no more wars, and enormous resources would be freed. Everyone will be able to satisfy his needs, not only material but spiritual. Everyone will have his own language— the U.S.S.R., with its many officially recognized languages, is a practical example of this. The main thing is to raise the material welfare of all people as a necessary prerequisite of the transition from capitalism to socialism.”

As he talked, Khrushchev made expensive gestures with his pudgy hands. “Now you people are sitting here thinking how Khrushchev is mistaken. You are sorry that poor Khrushchev is so misguided as to be a Communist. And I am thinking, what a shame for three such able people to be servants of capitalism. But you are convinced of your society, so peaceful co existence is the only alternative left to us. War means annihilation.”

The Soviet press, he said, would soon publish the complete text of C.I.O.-A.F.L. President George Meany’s recent speech on the state of the U.S. economy—”because we want our young people, who do not know what capitalism means, to learn about the drawbacks of your system, not from the words of Mr. Khrushchev, who is known to be anticapitalist, but from Mr. Meany, who supports capitalism.” He was getting more playful as the conversation continued, and after one more critique of capitalism, he asked: “Is this propaganda?” He seemed delighted when Dick Scammon said: “In a word, yes.”

As we pushed back our chairs to end the interview. I asked Khrushchev if he knew yet how the election had come out in the Moscow district where he himself was a candidate for the Supreme Soviet. He did not know, but it looked as if he would have a majority of 99.5% “or perhaps 99.7% or 99.8%.” I congratulated him on his showing; he nodded his thanks, and I congratulated the people of his district for having such an able candidate. He picked up this ball and ran with it: “Oh, we have a great many able candidates. That’s one of our advantages here—in order to run for election here, you need haveonly ability. In America you must have capital behind you.”

For much the same reasons, he said, America “from this time on will always be lagging-in science. This will not be because the American people are less educated than the Soviet people. But here every capable young person has the opportunity to develop his ability. In your country this is not so. And if a young person does not get an opportunity to use his talents, they will wither away.”

“Now, gentlemen, you are smiling. But there is a saying in Russia that the good smile is the last smile. And the time will come when we are smiling at you—not because we are more capable, but because we chose a better way of developing our talents. Well, think it over.”

A few minutes later we ran into Khrushchev in the corridor. Now he was bundled up in his black overcoat with the curly black fur collar and the cylindrical black fur hat. He gave us a grin and a sort of salute. Then, accompanied by a general, he moved on down the hall, as round and jolly a commissar as ever stoked the fires or marshaled the might of international Communism.