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Mikoyan's life remained just as closely geared to the dictator's. Britain's former Laborite Secretary for Overseas Trade Harold Wilson recalls that, in tune with Stalin's nocturnal habits, negotiations with Mikoyan "usually began at 10 or midnight and ended at 4 or even 6 a.m. Once he said: 'You in England have been traders for many centuries. But we know how to bargain, too—I come from a long line of Armenian traders!' ): Another time, when Wilson chaffed, "The trouble with you Russians . . ." Mikoyan broke in: "I am not a Russian. Premier Stalin is not a Russian. You know that I am never free to meet you at 7 p.m. because at that time I always have a drink with Stalin. Do you know what toast we drink?" "No, tell me," said Wilson. Said Mikoyan, hoisting his glass: "To hell with these bloody Russians."
Culinary Master. This man who bargained so confidently with the world had almost every day of his life to bargain with Stalin. Yet he talked freely, never seemed worried lest he commit an indiscretion, cracked irreverent jokes. In 1946 a group of leading officials were sitting in Mikoyan's dacha, a crenelated red brick atrocity created by a 19th century czarist sugar baron. Malenkov's wife began grumbling about how poor and scarce Soviet nylons were. Snapped Mikoyan: "Yes, my dear young lady, but we have plenty of portraits of Stalin."
One of Mikoyan's favorite pastimes was preparing New Year's gifts, and deciding what to give whom. Some typical decisions of those days: for Stalin, a chocolate jack boot; for Molotov, a chocolate stool; for Khrushchev, a chocolate bottle; for Malenkov, a chocolate table; for Beria, a chocolate pistol. An excellent cook who likes to serve Armenian fare with bottled Crimean wine bearing typewritten notes identifying place of origin, Mikoyan once invited his' crony, the late Secret Police Boss Lavrenty Beria, to try some of his specialties. Beria, sniffing the shish-kebab, saluted him as "Comrade Culinary Master." "Yes, yes," replied Mikoyan, with graveyard humor, "but my dear Lavrenty Pavlovich, in my kitchen you don't find a single damn piece of human meat."
Yet the day came when Trader Mikoyan's supreme assurance broke down. In the last months of Stalin's life, Mikoyan's name was mentioned in connection with the mysterious "doctors' plot"; in his famed secret speech to the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev said that Stalin then scathingly "characterized Molotov and Mikoyan" and "evidently had plans to finish them off." After negotiating a trade agreement with one Scandinavian nation, Mikoyan had become a close acquaintance of the country's ambassador, who entertained him frequently. In their family circle Mikoyan relaxed and played parlor games. But in that winter Mikoyan cut his friend and other foreign acquaintances dead.