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It's a Joke, Ma'am. This week, in a limited gesture of good will, Gromyko took time out from a busy week to answer, in part, a list of written questions. These facts about him were revealed:
Gromyko's day usually begins at 9 a.m. and ends after midnight. At breakfast he likes to read various morning newspapers. Among his literary favorites he includes, in addition to Russian classics, Hugo. Balzac, Goethe, Shakespeare, Mark Twain. His favorite U.S. movies include Gone With the Wind, Rebecca, Abe Lincoln in Illinois. His father was a farmer. He has a brother and a sister living in Gomel. He met his wife in college, in Minsk.
Recently Gromyko discovered that his labored and pragmatic sense of humor makes good copy for him. Sample Gromykoisms:
Commenting on an article about him in the New York Times: "Well, about half is true and half is false. Since the Times is a balanced newspaper, that is to be expected."
Hearing remarks on his youth: "How old does a man have to be in America to be old?"
Yet Gromyko rarely smiles. At a dinner party, Mrs. Roger Lapham (wife of San Francisco's mayor) asked him: "What do you think of American women?" Gromyko's answer: "I am not impressed." The lady was about to turn her back on him when he explained: "Mrs. Lapham, it is a joke."
What the Thunder Said. Gromyko is a success. A U.N. diplomat calls him "one of Molotov's pet chickens." Russian newspapers nowadays report at length what and how Gromyko "thundered" in the Security Council (Grom means thunder in Russian). The papers used to print the thunderer's name in small 7-pt. type, but things changed after his first vetoes. By the eighth, his name had grown to 14-pt. headlines; then it went to 18-pt. and after the tenth to 27-pt. (which, for Russia, is the works). Nevertheless, the Russian press still does not run his picture.
Gromyko shows no indications of tiring of his U.N. routine. In fact, he is putting on weight.
"Morbid Fantasy." The Greek dispute was the most difficult (and potentially the most dangerous) problem for Gromyko and U.N. It was also quite a problem for the Greeks. Last week came new reports about the Communist International Brigade (which Gromyko dismissed as a mere "morbid fantasy"). Estimates of its strength ran from 5,000 to 50,000 men. A recruiting drive is going on in Western Europe as well as the Balkans.
Guerrilla warfare in Greece's north continued. A high-ranking U.S. officer in Greece last week declared that there was merely a lull in the fighting. Terror still littered the countryside: last week, a picture from Yanina, in Epirus, showed two guerrillas identifying the severed heads of fellow guerrillas recently killed near the Albanian frontier. One of Greece's gravest shortages being transportation, the bodies were left behind.