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As the formal conferences broke up, the Russians were invited to Tito's Adriatic island of Brioni to be his guests in his glass-fronted villa overhanging the sea. Tito seemed a man who had things under control. Khrushchev had retreated by offering a concluding toast to the success of negotiations between the Yugoslav and Soviet "states"—no parties mentioned. Tito herded his distinguished guests around with an air of authority. When photographers asked if he could get one group closer together, Tito gestured at the Russian Premier, uttered one brusque word: "Bulganin." Bulganin came closer.
Posing with Khrushchev, Tito remarked genially in English to the Western and Yugoslav photographers: "This is coex istence." Khrushchev smiled. Turning to the photographers, Tito asked in part ing, "Are you satisfied, gentlemen?" One photographer yelled: "Yes. Are you?"
Always cocky, at week's end Yugoslav Communists proclaimed that they found Khrushchev an ersatz Stalin, headlong, a little stupid, uninformed about the out side world. After a special performance of the ballet one night, the crowd cheered Tito and greeted Russia's bigwigs in silence. The Russians had the crumpled look of men who had misjudged and knew it.
As for Tito, the worried outcast of yesterday was now feeling his oats. So far, his "active coexistence" was doing well: just look at what important guests he had lured to his small country—the Premier and the party boss of Russia. And this week, Burma's U Nu is coming; after him, India's Nehru. What more could a peasant's son ask?