Nikita Khrushchev is a man who likes crowds, and last week in Indonesia he finally found them. In India and Burma, where the touring Communist boss drew relatively sparse turnouts and notably sharp criticism from the newspapers, he had grown progressively more glum and irritable. But as he descended from his silvery Ilyushin-18 turboprop at Djakarta's sun-drenched airport last week, Nikita was met by close to 100,000 people, including brilliantly costumed groups from the outlying islands of the Indonesian nation: pretty girls in sarongs, from Timor; Maduran farmers with rice scythes; barelegged hunters from Borneo. It was an arranged welcome, and less than Communist Ho Chi Minh got a year ago. Still, it looked promising to Khrushchev.
Wearing a lace-trimmed Ukrainian shirt, a light grey suit and a snapbrim straw hat, he advanced briskly over the red carpet to greet his host, President Sukarno, who, with a flashing smile, said: "You have a big job ahead of you. You'll have many hands to shake."
Little Natashas. Thrusting out bulging fists, Nikita crowed: "I have strong hands, and anyway, I love it!" He went happily down the receiving line, and began to warm up when he reached a group of children from the Soviet embassy, who showered him with flowers. To one little girl he boomed: "Your name is Natasha!" The surprised child stammered, "How did you know?" Laughed Nikita: "Every Russian girl is called Natasha."
Turning to the costumed Indonesians, Khrushchev playfully picked out a husky young man clad in the red polka-dot robes of the North Celebes, and tried a few wrestling holds on him to the delight of the crowd. Followed by Sukarno, Khrushchev climbed into the President's red Chrysler Imperial and drove to the vast Merdeka Palace through streets lined with 200,000 more people.
On the Road. So many top Kremlin residents are globetrotting these days, that it might be asked who is home minding the store. Mikoyan has been to Cuba; Voroshilov, Kozlov and Mme. Furtseva were just back from India; Gromyko was among the five planeloads of Russians traveling with Khrushchev. Perhaps they all merely wanted to escape the Russian winter. But Khrushchev had another purpose in mind on this trip—to try to revive Communism's slipping popularity in Southeast Asia.
Khrushchev had gone to Indonesia prepared to offer gifts, which is always a certain method of making Sukarno happy.
The Soviet Union has already given Indonesia a total of $118 million in the form of ships, roads, steel plants and marine institutes (U.S. aid to Indonesia: $500 million). Now there is talk of a Russian-built naval base on Amboina Island, north of Bali, and Khrushchev promised a stadium seating 100,000 in Djakarta for the 1962 Asian Games.