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Turning to the Geneva foreign ministers' conference on Berlin, Nixon added gravely: "In order to have peace. Mr. Prime Minister, there must be a sitting down at the table and a discussion in which each sees the points of the other. The world looks to you for the success of the Geneva conference, [even though] we have great respect for [Russian Foreign Minister Andrei] Gromyko, who looks like me but is better looking."
Khrushchev: Only outwardly.
Nixon (looking intently into Khrushchev's eyes): It would be a great mistake and a blow to peace if that conference were to fail.
Khrushchev: That is our understanding as well.
Nixon put his arm on Khrushchev's shoulder and said: "I'm afraid I haven't been a good host." Khrushchev smiled and, underscoring the weird aspect of the whole performance, turned toward the American guide who had been standing in the model kitchen and said: "Thank the housewife for letting us use her kitchen for our argument."
Richest Opportunity. At the formal opening of the exhibition that evening. Khrushchev conceded in his speech to some 4,000 official guests that he had felt "a certain envy" in looking at the displays. But, he went on, the U.S.S.R. would "surpass the U.S., not only in total volume of production but also in per capita production." Russians, he said, "see the American exhibition as an exhibition of our own achievements in the near future." The day is not far off "when our country will overtake our American partner in peaceful economic competition and will then, at some station, come alongside America, salute her with a signal, and move on ahead."
Nixon's speech was a ringing retort to Soviet internal propaganda that the exhibition was not typical of U.S. life. Expecting that his speech' would reach millions of Russians (it was printed in both Pravda and Izvestia), Nixon had thrown away the State Department's proposed drafts and written his own text to take advantage of the richest propaganda opportunity the Soviet government had ever handed a U.S. official.
"To what extent does this exhibition accurately present life in the U.S. as it really is?" Nixon asked. "Can only the wealthy people afford the things exhibited here?" The average U.S. factory worker, he said, can "afford to own a house, a TV set and a car in the price range of those you will see in this exhibit." Of the U.S.'s 44 million families, 31 million own their own homes. Those. 44 million families own 56 million cars, 50 million TV sets. He did not cite these statistics to boast of material wealth, said Nixon. "But what these statistics do dramatically demonstrate is this: that the United States, the world's largest capitalist country, has from the standpoint of distribution of wealth come closest to the ideal of prosperity for all in a classless society."