THE top leaders of the Labor Party had planned a quiet little dinner for B. & K. in a private dining room in the Houses of Parliament, and looked forward to the kind of pleasantly informal discussion they had had with Georgy Malenkov. They knew there would be differences, but hoped these might be cordially discussed. So they planned. But they expected too much of their No. 1 guest. Churlish Nikita Khrushchev made it a night to remember.
The chill of the British crowds had begun to get under the skin of the burly Khrushchev, and he was obviously feeling edgy. So, for different reasons, was George Brown, a tough, belligerent trade unionist who is slated to become a minister if Labor gets back into office.
After the toasts, Brown began picking on Khrushchev's studious young (22) son, seated near by. "You don't always agree with your father on everything, do you?" Brown demanded. Young Khrushchev replied that he did. "I have a daughter about your age in the university," bellowed Brown. "She disagrees with me all the time. That's the difference between your country and ours."
Khrushchev noticed something going on, asked the interpreter to tell him what Brown had said to his son. When he understood, Khrushchev flushed and said: "Interference in family affairs is even worse than interference in another country's internal affairs." Abruptly, the pleasant little dinner became taut with strain.
Menacing Pause. Bulganin tried to retrieve the situation with an urbane, jolly-fellow speech regretting that they had not seen all they wanted because he and Khrushchev were "slaves of protocol." But when Bulganin sat down, Khrushchev lumbered to his feet and, flushed with anger and alcohol, launched into an hour's tirade.
He accused Britain and France of turning Hitler eastward against Russia, of betraying Russia at Munich—leaving the Soviet Union no choice but to conclude the Hitler-Stalin pact in self-defense. As he blustered on into a discussion of World War II which depicted Russia as beating Germany singlehanded, the irrepressible Brown muttered: "God forgive you!" Khrushchev stopped abruptly.
"What did you say?" he demanded. There was a menacing pause. Khrushchev roared: "Don't be afraid. Say it again!" Brown blurted: "God forgive you." Khrushchev and Brown broke into an angry exchange. Khrushchev reiterated his story of how the war was won; Brown retorted as angrily that thousands of British men were killed in the period when Russia and Hitler were allies.
Khrushchev plunged on, ignoring the traditional cry from a policeman in the corridors ("Who goes home?") announcing that the House of Commons had adjourned for the night. Khrushchev sneered at NATO; he threatened to deal with West Germany alone if the West persisted in rearming it; he brushed aside Eisenhower's proposed aerial inspection plan as "a fantasy," and added: "We don't want people walking into our bedroom."