It was the most astonishing international show in years. Emerging from the protection of the Kremlin's wall and the shelter of the Kremlin's controlled press, Russia's top men seemed inept, uncertain, boorish. Yugoslavs watched the antics of Nikita Khrushchev with amazement. Western diplomats, remembering the remote, inscrutable, implacable Joseph Stalin, had to keep reminding themselves that this garrulous little man was his successor.
The blunders began, but did not end, with Khrushchev's airport speech (TIME, June 6). At a diplomatic banquet in Belgrade's White Palace, Khrushchev insultingly asked the Belgian ambassador whether his country was free, and when assured that...
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