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Shortly before noon, Nixon and Khrushchev turned up at the U.S. exhibition in Sokolniki Park, posed for pictures with the gold-colored dome of the central building gleaming in the background, then set off on a tour of the exhibits. They paused to test new TV equipment that enabled them to speak in front of a TV camera and then, right afterwards, to see themselves on a TV screen and hear a tape playback of their voices. As the camera turned his way, Khrushchev, wearing his floppy straw hat, looked sour. Said Nixon: "You look quite angry, as if you wanted to fight." It soon came out that Khrushchev was still considerably disturbed about the Captive Nations proclamation. "You have churned the water yourselves," said Khrushchev. "Why this was necessary, God only knows. What happened? What black cat crossed your path and confused you?"
Nixon, who had not yet quite caught on to the Khrushchev doctrine of any debate, anywhere, tried politely to turn the conversation to the color TV. But Khrushchev would not be turned.
"In another seven years," he boasted, "we will be on the same level as America." Russians standing near by broke into applause as he added that the Soviet achievement was worth bragging about. Nixon, getting into the Khrushchev spirit, replied that there should be "far more communication and exchange in this area that we speak of. We should hear you more on our television, and you should hear us more on yours." He added that Khrushchev "should not be afraid of ideas."
Khrushchev: We are telling you not to be afraid of ideas. We have no reason to be afraid.
Nixon: Well, let's have more exchange of them, then.
Khrushchev: Fine, I am in agreement.
Then, in a double take, he said he wanted to make sure what he was in agreement about. "I know that I am dealing with a very good lawyer, and I want also to uphold my miners."
Nixon: You would have made a good lawyer yourself . . . After all, you don't know everything.
Khrushchev: You know nothing about Communism except fear.
Khrushchev complained that his impromptu TV appearance would not be translated into English so Americans could understand him. Nixon promised that it would be and—the good lawyer—said quickly: "By the same token, everything that I say will be recorded and translated and carried all over the Soviet Union. That's a bargain." Khrushchev swung his hand in a high, wide arc and literally slapped it into Nixon's to seal the agreement.*
After a stop at a booth where Khrushchev took a skeptical sip at a Pepsi-Cola. Nixon and Khrushchev went on to the exhibition's most publicized display: a six-room, model ranch house with a central viewing corridor so that visitors can see the shiny new furnishings. Soviet propaganda had been telling Russians in advance that the ranch house they would see at the U.S. exhibition was no more typical of workers' homes in the U.S. than the Taj Mahal was typical in India or Buckingham Palace in Britain.