(4 of 6)
When President John Kennedy met with Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, the Soviet Premier did his best to intimidate his rival. Brezhnev made no such effort. Russians speculated that he might well be awed by Nixon's skillful use of power. "He has impressed our leaders by his seriousness and concentration," was the word. "They are still deciding if they can trust him."
While the President was confined to quarters in the Kremlin, Pat Nixon was free to sample the wonders and pleasures of Moscow. Her activities, very much a part of the summit atmosphere, were serious and significant in their own way; they seemed designed to show that Americans can admire the achievements of the Russians, an essential point in the psychology and the relationship the summit was trying to create.
Pat Nixon managed a colorful change of garb with only one gray suitcase and a plastic dress bag that she packed with 15 outfits, including a few that could be worn in any weather—a prime consideration for a woman traveling from Moscow to Teheran. Wherever she went, she was accompanied by wives of top Soviet officials, who are normally withdrawn and formal. They joined her for tea in the czarist family apartments in the Kremlin or posed gamely for incessant picture taking in front of statues in Red Square.
Always poised, invariably smiling, she expressed delight at everything she was shown—which pleased Muscovites, who have a nagging sense of inferiority about all things Russian. Visiting a secondary school, she held Mrs. Brezhnev's hand and gave it an occasional pat. In an art class, she was delighted by an eight-year-old girl's painting of the sun. "Oh, I have to have it!" she exclaimed. "I love it. When the sun shines, everybody is happy." She hugged the budding artist and kissed her on the cheek. Leaving the school, she observed pointedly: "The students are better disciplined here."
That Guy. She descended to the subway—clean and imposing but overrun with sweating, squabbling newsmen on top of the normal Russian crowds. Jostled as she was, she never lost her cool and she even found something to admire: "I'm impressed with the fact that there are no advertisements like in New York." To be sure, there were posters outside extolling a noncommercial institution, the Communist Party. Then from the depths to the heights: the 32nd floor of the city's tallest building, Moscow University. The First Lady managed to descry a church in the distance. She asked who attended it. "None of those present," her Communist guide conscientiously assured her. "I would love to go," she said—to a rather studied silence. It was definitely not on her itinerary.