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"I hope," he mused more seriously, "that Cuba will become a beacon of socialism in Latin America. Castro offers that hope, and the Americans are helping us." He said that instead of establishing normal relations with Cuba, the U.S. was doing all it could to drive Castro to the wall by organizing a campaign against him, stirring up the Latin American countries and imposing an economic blockade on Cuba. "That's stupid," he exclaimed, "and it's a result of the howls of zealous anti-Communists in the U.S. who see red everywhere, though possibly something is only rose-colored or even white."
Then, having smacked his lips with gusto as if anticipating a tasty meal, he predicted, "Castro will have to gravitate to us like an iron filing to a magnet."
While Cuba was a subject that gave him pleasure, the Congo was an annoyance to him. Throughout the voyage he was obsessed with the U.N.'s involvement in the Congo, especially the performance of the U.N. peace-keeping troops there and the activities of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. "I spit on the U.N.," he raged. "It's not our organization. That good-for-nothing Ham (the Russian word for boor applied as a nickname to the U.N. chief) is sticking his nose in important affairs which are none of his business. He has seized authority that doesn't belong to him. He must pay for that. We have to get rid of him by any means. We'll really make it hot for him," he growled.
Khrushchev's personal threat against Hammarskjold returned to my memory in September 1961, when the Secretary-General died in a mysterious plane crash in the Congo. Friends working on African affairs once told me they had seen a top-secret KGB report indicating that the aircraft had been shot down by pro- Soviet Congolese forces penetrated and guided by operatives from the U.S.S.R.
After our arrival in New York, during a session at the U.N., Spain's Foreign Minister Fernando Castiella took the floor to respond to an attack by Khrushchev on General Franco. Khrushchev blew up. He began to shout insults at the Spaniard, punctuating them by pounding his fists on the desk and then, having removed his shoe, banging it resoundingly on the desk too. Then he leaped from his chair and brandished his fists at the frail, undersized Castiella, who assumed a comical defensive pose. Security guards rushed up and separated them. We were stunned at Khrushchev's behavior. At the mission afterward, everyone was embarrassed and upset. Gromyko, noted for his strict, impeccable behavior, was white-lipped with agitation. But Khrushchev acted as if nothing at all had happened. He was laughing loudly and joking. It had been necessary, he said, to "inject a little life into the stuffy atmosphere of the U.N."
KENNEDY AND THE MISSILE CRISIS