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The Sausages. Nikita Khrushchev's most effective and dismaying speech was delivered earlier in the week to a partially filled Assembly and a nearly empty press box. Ostensibly, his speech was a plea for "complete and immediate" disarmament, but it came out as a threat. His words dropped heavily into the hushed chamber beside the East River: "We will not be bullied, we will not be scared. Our economy is flowering, our technology is on a steep upturn, our working class is united in full solidarity. You want to compete with us in the arms race? We will beat you in that. Production of rockets is now a matter of mass delivery—like sausages that come out of an automatic machine."
Now he was waving his stubby arms. "Of course, you are going to complain all over the place, 'Khrushchev is threatening!' Well, he is not threatening. He is really predicting the future . . . The arms race will go on, and this will bring about war, and in that war you will lose, and many of those sitting here will not be found any longer—and not many, but perhaps all. You are accustomed to listen to words that lull you. But, as for Khrushchev, I do not wish to pat your heads when the world is on the verge of catastrophe. You want to listen to pleasant words. Well, if these words are unpleasant, that means I have achieved my purpose. That is exactly what I intended."
As a result of that display, there will be great pressure this year, especially from the small, uncommitted neutrals, for quick agreement on disarmament—with or without foolproof controls. Said a senior delegate: "The picture that Mr. Khrushchev drew of rockets coming out of Russian factories like sausages is a terrible picture of the arms race. It has deeply impressed most delegates. I think it has increased the feeling of alarm and urgency about the cold war."
As Nikita Khrushchev's huge, white Tupolev turboprop last week made the nonstop flight from New York to Moscow, millions in the West were relieved that the long, intemperate harangue was over. U.S. Delegate James Wadsworth pointed out that Khrushchev "once again has laid down the gauntlet and said to 98 other countries here, 'You should do it my way or not at all.' "
In Moscow the crowds were out, and the Communist daily Pravda sang its hosannas for the returning hero, even if no one in the U.N. had. Western leaders, crowed Pravda, wanted to make the U.N. "the world's quietest waters," but they "wriggled as the head of the Soviet delegation, brushing aside all the subtleties of protocol, put his foot on their tail."