Khrushchev's visit to the United States
Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States in September 1959 was a significant event during the Cold War, marking the first time a prominent Soviet leader set foot on U.S. soil. Arriving just weeks after the U.S. had witnessed the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolt, Khrushchev's tour began with a somber reception in Washington, D.C., where Hungarian refugees silently expressed their dissent. Throughout his visit, which included stops in New York, California, Iowa, and Pittsburgh, the atmosphere oscillated between tense confrontations and cordial interactions. In New York, he faced critical questions regarding Soviet censorship, while in Los Angeles, his discomfort with American culture was highlighted when he left a risqué performance. Despite some contentious exchanges, Khrushchev also engaged positively with various American citizens, including trade union leaders and university students. His visit culminated with a meeting with President Eisenhower, resulting in mutual anticipation for a future exchange visit, which later fell through due to escalating tensions. Overall, Khrushchev's trip exemplified the complexities of U.S.-Soviet relations, revealing both the ideological divides and the potential for diplomacy amidst the Cold War backdrop.
Khrushchev's visit to the United States
The Event Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev traveled across the United States and conferred with President Dwight D. Eisenhower at Camp David
Date September 15-27, 1959
Khrushchev’s visit opened the door to better American-Soviet relations and to progress on disarmament.
Khrushchev landed outside Washington, D.C., on September 15, 1959, less than three years after the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolt . Hungarian refugees organized a reception of silence by the public lining the parkway coming into the city and later by the crowds assembled in the streets of New York.
On September 17, Khrushchev addressed the Economic Club in New York. Before his remarks, Khrushchev engaged in thirty minutes of banter with his audience but then had to read through his long speech, already published in Moscow, with consecutive interpretation. Alcohol flowed in the audience, resulting in catcalls, and some attendees began to walk out to catch the last suburban trains so they could get home. At what was already a late hour, the organizers arranged a panel to question Khrushchev. The first question critiqued Soviet impediments to free dissemination of information via government acts such as jamming of foreign broadcasts and banning the free sale of Western newspapers. Khrushchev, already tired from the time difference from Moscow, reacted badly, saying that he would fly home if he was not welcome in the United States. Henry Cabot Lodge , the president’s designated host on Khrushchev’s tour, conceived the idea of rebutting Khrushchev’s assertions while introducing him in each city. Khrushchev clearly did not find Lodge’s debating strategy pleasing.
In a speech to the United Nations in New York, Khrushchev advocated general and complete disarmament, a proposal that evoked a skeptical U.S. press reaction.
Reception in California
In Los Angeles, Khrushchev was shown a somewhat risqué filming of a cancan dance and took offense, walking out of the studio with his wife, Nina, on his arm. At lunch, he exchanged comments about the Soviet Union’s Greek Orthodox heritage with Twentieth Century-Fox film studio president Spyros Skouras, who represented the Christian point of view against Khrushchev’s atheism. Khrushchev also expressed a desire to visit Disneyland, but his own security chief disapproved the visit because ensuring Khrushchev’s security in the amusement park would be virtually impossible. It gave Khrushchev the opportunity, however, to imply that U.S. authorities were keeping him from contact with ordinary Americans even in a place so innocent of strategic importance as Disneyland.
On the evening of September 19, Khrushchev attended a reception at which his host, among others, was Mayor Norris Paulson of Los Angeles. Paulson criticized Khrushchev’s remark that “we shall bury you.” Khrushchev reacted negatively.
At a crucial private meeting in Lodge’s hotel room in Los Angeles, Llewellyn Thompson, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, persuaded Lodge to moderate his introductions and alter the tone of his confrontational hosting. Khrushchev was warmly greeted by Californians at stops on the Los Angeles-San Francisco rail trip. Harry Bridges, the head of the Longshoremen’s Union of the Pacific Coast, arranged to give Khrushchev a warm and enthusiastic reception in the streets and in the union’s hiring hall when Khrushchev reached San Francisco. Khrushchev also met with U.S. Trade Union leaders and visited an IBM computer factory. The visits to San Francisco made an excellent impression, partly because of the beauty of the city, seen by Khrushchev from a ship cruising the bay on a sparkling blue day, and partly because this portion of his trip balanced the previously contentious atmosphere of the visit.
Final Days
In Iowa, Khrushchev visited advanced agriculture-related laboratories at Iowa State University and the farm of Roswell Garst, an innovator in the development of hybrid corn. At Garst farm many of the more than five hundred journalists covering the visit crowded in, and Khrushchev at one point threw a clod of manure at one of them.
In Pittsburgh, the reception of Khrushchev was cordial. Khrushchev spoke at the University of Pittsburgh and visited the Mesta Steel Plant. On September 24, Khrushchev returned to Washington, D.C., where he met with U.S. business and commercial leaders, visited the Beltsville experimental agricultural station, addressed the U.S. public on television, and held talks with President Eisenhower at Camp David. The visit ended with both sides warmly anticipating Eisenhower’s planned return visit to the Soviet Union, which later was aborted when Soviet antiaircraft batteries shot down an American U-2 spy plane in central Russia on May 1, 1960.
Impact
Khrushchev’s visit marked the first time a top Soviet leader set foot on U.S. soil, and the visit occurred at the height of the Cold War. His unpredictability, temper, and wit characterized the visit and proved to Americans that he was a shrewd opponent in ongoing international tensions.
Bibliography
Kharlamov, M., and O. Vadeyev, eds. Face to Face with America: The Story of N. S. Khrushchev’s Visit to the USA. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002. Paperback reprint. Collection of articles by Soviet journalists who accompanied Khrushchev on his trip. First published in Moscow in 1960.
Khrushchev in America. New York: Crosscurrents Press, 1960. Provides full texts of speeches made by Khrushchev during his visit.
Taubman, William. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. An award-winning biography that draws on historical archives opened in the Soviet Union during the early twenty-first century.