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I asked Gromyko how we could explain our position when we had recently declared that the Soviet Union could not take such a step, as it would place us at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the U.S. Rather testily, he replied that he was encouraged to see that I had paid attention to our former position. Frowning, he added, "No explanation of the change is necessary. The crux of the matter is that our decision will have tremendous political effect. That's our main objective."
In 1959, Khrushchev visited the U.S. and appeared before the U.N. General Assembly with a proposal for general and complete disarmament. He achieved his predicted propaganda success. Western leaders recognized it as a ploy, but no one spoke out openly against it.
Khrushchev's next venture was to bring him trouble on the domestic front. Claiming that "the clouds of war have begun to disperse," as a result of his "historic" visit to the U.S., he initiated a cutback of 1.2 million personnel in the armed forces, and he justified the decision by saying that modern defense capabilities were determined by nuclear firepower and the quality of delivery systems: "Military aviation and the navy have lost their former significance." The military leaders and the armaments industries could not let this pass unchallenged.
The decline in morale in the armed forces reached alarming proportions. In 1960, a navy captain described to us how officers had wept as they watched nearly completed cruisers and destroyers at the docks in Leningrad being cut up for scrap on Khrushchev's orders.
More significant than the navy's chagrin, however, was the alarm felt by the Central Committee ideologists. By reducing the conventional forces, especially the navy, Khrushchev was undercutting the most efficient means of aiding pro- Moscow liberation movements and the Soviet Union's allies in the Third World. In the long run, these moves cost him dearly.
SETTING A TRAP
FOR EISENHOWER
In concentrating on his Western initiatives, Khrushchev made yet another mistake: turning his back on China. Friends in the Central Committee told me that when he met with Mao Tse-tung in Peking in 1959, the Chinese accused him of sacrificing revolutionary struggle for detente with "imperialists." This threatened to undermine Kremlin claims of leadership in revolutionary movements. The Soviets had to compete with the Chinese in leading the world revolution, and the result was a resuscitated militancy in Soviet foreign policy.
One manifestation of this reversal was the U-2 incident of 1960. American reconnaissance aircraft had been making overflights of Soviet territory for some years, and the Soviet leadership was well aware of them. Gromyko advised Khrushchev not to shoot down the planes so as to avoid excessive deterioration in Soviet-American relations. In Gromyko's judgment, a strong protest and warning could forestall further overflights. Khrushchev dismissed Gromyko's counsel, and when Soviet antiaircraft defenses shot down a U-2 and * captured the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, Khrushchev decided to set a trap to disgrace Dwight Eisenhower publicly. Powers was alive in Soviet hands, but Khrushchev, concealing this, tricked Eisenhower, luring him into denials concerning the overflights.