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Hurray for Holocaust. And then there is massive Red China glowering in the wings. According to knowledgeable Russians and Eastern Europeans, Moscow's Stalinists are in good communication with Mao Tse-tung. Peking plainly wants no relaxation of tensions between the West and the Communist world. Khrushchev's economy may now be at the point where it can provide Russians with a few more of the amenities of life, but sprawling, primitive China can only hope to complete its revolution and its all-important industrialization through vast suffering—suffering that can most easily be justified to the Chinese people by keeping them in terror of an "imperialist attack." And where Russia, with its vast industrial complexes, is highly vulnerable to nuclear war, Red China's leaders profess to believe that "after the next war, there will be 20 million Americans, 5,000,000 Englishmen, 50 million Russians, and 300 million Chinese."
The Turn. As the summit approached, Nikita Khrushchev must have found it harder and harder to brush off the complaint that his "soft" policy toward the West was not producing results. In fact, he undoubtedly agreed, being the agile fellow he is.
The turning point in Khrushchev's thinking apparently came in late April, when Under Secretary of State Douglas Dillon, in a speech to an A.F.L.-C.I.O. meeting, echoed Secretary Herter's warning that there was little prospect for significant agreements being reached at the summit, and implied that any progress at all depended on Soviet willingness to abandon its demands on West Berlin. Only a month before, sauntering through the Rambouillet gardens with the visiting Khrushchev, Charles de Gaulle had concluded that Nikita was not going to press too hard at the summit. But five days after Dillon's speech, Khrushchev made a speech at the oil town of Baku, rattling his rockets, reviving his threats on Berlin.
"Some people," said he grimly, "apparently hope to reduce this meeting to an ineffectual exchange of opinions and pleasant—it may be—talks, and to evade the working-out of concrete decisions . . . I should like to tell Mr. Dillon and those who may share his views that such methods are least of all suited for dealing with the Soviet Union."
Down over Sverdlovsk. Khrushchev was plainly deciding to talk tough at the summit. Then came May Day. During the May Day parade in Moscow, Khrushchev and Malinovsky, up in the Red Square reviewing stand, were observed excitedly poring over a military map, and at one point, a messenger was sent dashing off carrying a note scribbled by Khrushchev. The U-2 had been downed over Sverdlovsk.