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Asked a reporter at the Togolese party: "If an intermediary were to be so bold and take the initiative to ask if you would meet with President Eisenhower, how would you reply?" Replied Khrushchev: "When there'll be boldness or initiative, there'll be a reply." Poking his stubby fingers into the thick palm of his hand to make his point, Khrushchev complained that Ike had carefully omitted any mention of the U-2 incident from his speech. "He's ashamed. I think I'll have to remind him."
Claques & Yokes. Before taking his turn on the rostrum next day, he got some unexpected help from Ghana's nationalist Nkrumah. Clad in the traditional kente of his people, Nkrumah addressed the Assembly with a hard-nosed declaration against colonialism, drew several bursts of applause from the Soviet claque. He called for a commission of African states to implement U.N. aid in Africa, demanded that the U.N. support the Lumumba government in the Congo, asked the admission of Communist China to the U.N., etc. But he had praise for Hammarskjold's handling of "a most difficult task," and pledged fervent fealty to the U.N. concept.
Khrushchev himself marched to the rostrum accompanied by polite applause. Sipping Borzhom (a Russian mineral water, which he plugged with every sip), the Soviet boss proceeded to deliver nearly 2½ hours' worth of speech (v. Ike's 41 minutes). He castigated the U.S. for the U-2 incident, disputed Ike's claim that the RB-47 bomber had been safely within international limits when the Russians brought it down, accused the West of roping Africa to the colonialist yoke—a claim that must have seemed remarkable to the newly admitted African delegates in the hall. He touched lightly on Berlin (but said nothing about deadlines). He called for admission of Red China to the U.N. (but made it sound no more important than his demand for the admission of Outer Mongolia). Reading steadily through his 36-page, single-spaced harangue, Khrushchev sent delegate after delegate scooting for the lounge, even reduced three Soviet observers in the VIP gallery to a merciful sleep.
Burned. The genuine surprise (apart from the interminable length) was that Khrushchev had found no way out of the checkmate position forced upon him by President Eisenhower's all-out support of U.N. policies. Having already been burned in the politically costly attempt to discredit Hammarskjold's Congo program, Khrushchev went on to burn himself again. He launched another lengthy attack on the Secretary-General, offered a proposal to abolish the post in favor of a triumvirate representing Communist, West and neutralist blocs, insisted that the U.S. was no longer a place to house the U.N. (Austria or Switzerland would be better; perhaps, he added modestly, even the U.S.S.R.). His much-heralded new disarmament proposals turned out to be little more than a rehash of his old ones (disarmament first,inspection later). Nineteen thousand words after he had begun, he sat down to Communist-heavy applause.