In the predawn darkness at New York's Idlewild Airport, a mustached, parrot-nosed man in a snap-brim hat and grey overcoat alighted from a chartered Scandinavian Airlines DC-7C, was soon swept into a knot of welcomers and greeted in a torrent of Russian. The visitor: Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas I. Mikoyan, Khrushchev's top economic adviser and political crony.
Technically, Mikoyan and his son Sergo, 29, were guests of Soviet Ambassador Mikhail A. Menshikov—not the U.S.—and "Smiling Mike" Menshikov shepherded them through customs, bundled them into a Cadillac at the head of a procession of five embassy cars. The procession skipped the announced...
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