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Nixon-style, he would thrust his hand at surprised tourists, introduce himself, pat the heads of little children. Few knew who he was, but he was eager to autograph any handy piece of paper, insistently got himself photographed by camera fans ("Send the picture to me. Kozlov, the Kremlin, Moscow"). Accosting one woman during a supermarket tour, he asked whether she was the mother of a child who was with her. "No," replied the elderly woman. "I'm a grandmother." "Ah," roared Kozlov, "but you are so young."
He was in fine, enthusiastic form at a Blair House reception held by Richard Nixon in his honor. To the State Department's Cultural Exchange Boss William Lacy, who showed up with a broken finger, Kozlov quipped that the accident was from an "EastWest handshake." When Nixon introduced House Minority Leader Charlie Halleck as "a tough politician, like you," Kozlov boomed a laugh. He smiled when he called Electrical Workers' Union Boss James Carey a "tradeunion bureaucrat." Introduced to little (5 ft. 10 in.) House Speaker Sam Rayburn, Kozlov observed that Rayburn's opposite number in the Soviet Union is a lot taller. Replied Mister Sam dryly: "I'm kind of like Stalin—they sawed me off."
For a while, it looked as if Kozlov, Christian Herter and Nixon were going to have a small summit meeting right there on the Blair House rug. "I want to straighten out one matter you discussed at the White House this morning," said Secretary Herter. The Russian had told the President that the U.S. had forced the Soviet Union to pay "in gold" for American relief sent to starving Russians in 1921-23. "I was in Russia in 1922," said Herter, who was Herbert Hoover's assistant at the time, "and I went down the Volga. The money which the Congress sent to buy food for the hungry people of Russia was a gift from the American people. You probably don't remember, because you were too young." Replied Kozlov: "I remember very well because I was hungry." Nixon broke in to say that Herbert Hoover had recently shown him a letter testifying to the fact. Cornered, Kozlov shrugged it all off: "The question is not disputed."* Soon Kozlov got his revenge, planted one on Nixon.
Nixon: When it comes to foreign policy, Mr. Herter and I speak as one. You understand that, don't you?
Kozlov: The truth is born out of argument. You should not always be one . . . There is never a day we don't argue.
Nixon: The difference is we publicize our arguments.
Kozlov: You would publicize differences between you and Mr. Herter?
Nixon grinned, and the conversation took another turn.