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From that decision stemmed the explosive series of events by which 1959 would be long remembered—and which made Eisenhower the Man of the Year. On the morning of July 11, President Eisenhower drafted a formal proposal that Khrushchev visit the U.S. and suggested that the President travel to the Soviet Union. The letter was flown to New York by U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy and Deputy Assistant Secretary Foy Kohler, placed in the hands of the Soviet Union's First Deputy Premier Frol Kozlov, about to return to Russia after a U.S. tour. It was kept tightly secret for almost a month; Vice President Nixon was informed of the plan only the day before his July departure for the Soviet Union; Milton Eisenhower, accompanying Nixon, was not told at all. Ike's invitation and Khrushchev's acceptance crashed into world headlines on Aug. 3.
More Than Personal. To prepare for the confrontation with his tough, clever cold-war adversary, Eisenhower flew to Europe in late August, there to consult and coordinate plans with U.S. allies. In Germany, the land overrun by his Allied armies, in England, the country from which he had launched his vast command upon Europe, and in Paris, the city he had liberated, the swell of popular emotion brought a mist to an old soldier's eyes. The tribute was more than personal. When Ike left Europe, he knew that it was in his capacity as the President of the U.S., in his symbolizing of U.S. prestige and principles, that he bore with him the free world's faith. Supported by that knowledge, Eisenhower was ready for Khrushchev.
Khrushchev came in September, and his visit is recalled in kaleidoscopic flash back—of Khrushchev baronially breathing the morning air in front of Blair House; of Khrushchev bulling his way across the U.S., now boasting of Russian military might and space achievement, now uttering dulcet promises of peace and friendship; of Khrushchev threatening to pick up his marbles and go home when denied a chance to go to Southern California's Disneyland; of Khrushchev falling in love with San Francisco; and of Khrushchev roaring in merriment while an Iowa farmer shied ensilage at the newsmen who had crowded too close.
Closeup View. But it was at Camp David, the presidential retreat on a Maryland mountaintop, that Khrushchev's visit came into focus with its greatest meaning to 1959. At Camp David, under a canopy of oak leaves, the President of the U.S. and the Premier of the U.S.S.R. walked and talked along winding gravel paths, lived together for three days in Ike's grey, batten-board Aspen Lodge.
From their conversations came only one tangible result: Khrushchev agreed to lift his Berlin ultimatum. But more important was the personal, closeup view that Ike got of Khrushchev.
President Eisenhower had already heard from such travelers to the Soviet Union as Nixon, his brother Milton and Democrats Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey that the Russian people seemed desirous of peace. He was told that they stubbornly held to a fund of friendship for the U.S. that had not been washed out by 14 years of hostile propaganda, that they were pushing their own government for more consumer goods and even for a measure of freedom.