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"Nearer My God." In this long perspective, the eyes of the world on them, Khrushchev, his wife and the President of the U.S. rode 13 miles in the President's open-top Lincoln from Andrews Air Force Base to Blair House, the President's guest house across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. As the motorcade swung behind blaring brass bands into downtown Washington, the crowds lining the streets stood silent and somber, did not respond to Khrushchev's doffs and waves of his Homburg. A skywriting plane traced a big cross in the sky, and the carillon of St. John's Episcopal Church, across Lafayette Square from the White House, pealed Nearer My God to Thee. A Russian aide reported to Khrushchev that it was all a capitalist plot: a car, he said, had gone through the streets just before the arrival bearing a sign instructing the crowds not to applaud. The Moscow press and radio (see PRESS) reported a triumphal turnout.
In the afternoon Khrushchev headed into talks with Eisenhower in the White House—1 hour 45 minutes with Vice President Nixon, Secretary of State Herter, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko, Ambassador Menshikov, and a few others; 13 minutes with Ike and interpreters alone. Eisenhower told Khrushchev: If you are sincere, you have an opportunity to make a great advancement in reducing tensions. We are willing, but you have got to be equally willing. Khrushchev replied: We hope to improve the international climate. We want to live in peace and to have peaceful competition.
They agreed to meet again this week at Camp David, the presidential retreat on Maryland's Catoctin Mountain. The President put Berlin, Laos and disarmament on the agenda. Said Khrushchev: "We will want to discuss the question of bases on foreign territory."
At talk's end, Eisenhower took Khrushchev on a 33-minute helicopter ride at 700-ft. to 1,000-ft. altitude above prosperous new housing developments and shopping centers, superhighways crowded with cars, and marinas filled with boats.
How-Secret Service? The White House glittered that night for the biggest white-tie dinner of the Eisenhower Administration. Khrushchev arrived in neat black suit, white shirt and pale grey four-in-hand tie; Mrs. Khrushchev in a dark blue-green dress, with a diamond brooch her only jewelry. The Khrushchev family made a brief visit to the Eisenhower family rooms upstairs, posed with the Eisenhowers for pictures, then went down to the huge E-shaped table jammed into the White House dining room.
Khrushchev, all smiles, got into a catlike exchange about the secret service business when he was introduced to Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The dialogue:
Dulles: You, Mr. Chairman, may have seen some of my intelligence reports from time to time.
Khrushchev: I believe we get the same reports—and probably from the same people.
Dulles: Maybe we should pool our efforts.
Khrushchev: Yes. We should buy our intelligence data together and save money. We'd have to pay the people only once.