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A note of restrained cordiality was struck from the moment Nixon landed Monday at the Moscow airport. On hand to greet him were President Nikolai Podgorny, Premier Aleksei Kosygin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Brezhnev was absent, but that was not unusual or slighting. The route to Moscow had been cleaned up for the President's visit. U.S. flags waved alongside Soviet banners on lampposts. In the soft glow of twilight, the glittering domes of the Kremlin churches seemed cheerful and inviting as the limousines crossed the Moscow River and swept into the fastness of the Kremlin.
The Nixons were put up in an elegantly furnished seven-room suite that had been searched for electronic bugs by U.S. security agents before their arrival. But the President had barely settled in when he got an invitation to chat with Brezhnev—a parallel to the Peking journey, when Mao Tse-tung also invited him to an early, unscheduled interview. Facing each other across a long green felt-covered table, the two leaders conducted what were described by the White House as "frank and businesslike" talks. Those words were regularly, almost ritually used to describe the meetings for the rest of the week.
At the welcoming banquet in the Grand Kremlin Palace some 100 guests proceeded from one sumptuous setting to the next until they arrived at their destination: the Hall of Facets, where Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great had once celebrated their military victories. In Podgorny's speech there was neither bullying nor appeasement. While not forgetting the differences between the two great powers, he pointed to the number of times they had successfully cooperated in the past. Said Nixon in reply: "The courage of the Russian people, who generation after generation have defended this city from invaders, makes this vivid point: the only way to enter Moscow is to enter it in peace." From then on, the summit was all business, conducted quietly and secretly within the Kremlin.
Good Mood. The talks amounted to a "constant flow," a White House aide remarked. Once Nixon and Brezhnev came to some agreement, lesser officials headed by Henry Kissinger on the American side and Gromyko on the Soviet negotiated the details. Secretary of State William Rogers talked trade. Kissinger seemed more solemn than usual, a bit more preoccupied.
Throughout the week, two essentially incompatible social systems got a close look at each other. The Russians were impressed by the smoothly functioning, youthful White House staff. The openness of the operation, the freewheeling ways of the press astonished Soviets accustomed to older, more staid bureaucrats. The Americans, on the other hand, got a glimpse of decision making in the Kremlin: the constant need to consult, the subtle jockeying among lesser leaders to get closer to the center of power, Brezhnev.
The Americans seized their opportunity to scrutinize the Soviet leadership. Bluff and hearty, Brezhnev was obviously doing his best to make his guests feel at home. At their initial meeting, the first smile crossed Kosygin's face when Nixon rather pointedly mentioned that "I have a reputation as a longtime anti-Communist." Brezhnev's wife Viktoria told the press that her husband had "been in a good mood lately and that's not always the case."