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Where Khrushchev, the proletarian, overflows with animal vigor, Bulganin exudes good manners 1;and a faint whiff of eau de cologne. Khrushchev's idea of fun is to strip off his shirt and wrestle with his colleagues; Bulganin's sport is fishing, and he loves ballet. "Dress Bulganin up in striped pants and a black coat, and he'd look at home in any European Parliament," says one Western diplomat. "Khrushchev in the same garb would still look what he isa tough proletarian."
Watching Bulganin take hold of his new job as Premier, Moscow's foreign diplomats have been impressed by his relaxed manner and self-confidence. Once, referring to Stalin (six months after Stalin's death). Bulganin remarked casually: "He messed everything up." To one veteran U.S. observer, Bulganin seems "reasonable, intelligent and able." "He talks freely about delicate problems," said a Dispatch to the Quai d'Orsay. "He is a master at creating an atmosphere of relaxed tension." Recently, before deciding to go himself to Geneva, Khrushchev remarked at a garden party: "I trust Bulganin. No one has to hover at his elbow."
The Committee. Western diplomats and analysts are in general agreement that Russia now has a committee government, in which no one has clearly emerged as No. 1, because most of the committeemen are resolved that no one should. Khrushchev, as party boss (Stalin's old job) and by force of personality, is the man with most to say. But the rest do not jump to do Khrushchev's bidding as they did in Stalin's day. At least not yet.
Though top-level strategy is hammered out collectively, execution and considerable power of discretion is often delegated to one committee member. Thus, Molotov at San Francisco agreed to pay half the cost of a U.S. plane shot down over the Bering Strait, after only the most casual refer-back to Moscow. Mikoyan, negotiating the economic clauses of the Austrian state treaty, accepted a sizable reduction in Austria's reparations payments without leaving the room.
A rough consensus of Western diplomatic opinion on the committee members:
KHRUSHCHEV: "A brute," says a senior Western ambassador. Khrushchev meddles in all fields but, except for the mechanics of powergrabbing, is really knowledgeable in none. A headlong, rough-house character with more drive and gusto than the others, he also has a peasant's cunning. He is gradually packing the Politburo with men of his own choosing, and seems not to have suffered for making a drunken spectacle of himself in Belgrade.
BULGANIN : The only man among them who has experience in every aspect of Soviet leadership—police, party, industry, state and army. "He has no blind side," says one French authority. An American diplomat judges that Bulganin is stronger than most Westerners suspect. "I got the impression," said another, "that he takes orders from no man." In public appearances, however, he seems content to let Khrushchev steal the show.
MOLOTOV: The world's most experienced diplomat; a tenacious, relentless negotiator. As an Old Bolshevik, he has considerable Kremlin prestige, but is not regarded as a contestant in the power stakes.