249. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State0
973. Policy. Khrushchev-Kohler Part I—Introductory remarks: I opened conversation by saying I was glad to be back and had been struck by changes I had seen. I intended listen very well, report accurately, and also set forth as clearly as possible policies of President and desire people of US to preserve peace.
Khrushchev said this was good platform.
I replied it is Presidentʼs platform.
Khrushchev said glad to hear you have this kind platform and weʼll do our best to help you fulfill it. You were last here with Nixon. We have succeeded in doing great deal in time that has passed since. You havenʼt been here long enough to see all the changes that have been made and even when you were here earlier you didnʼt see everything because you were flying. I am personally very glad to tell you my feelings about those changes. I worked very close to Stalin here in Moscow and in Ukraine. Stalinʼs sickness was that he didnʼt believe anyone and always thought they had secrets from him, so he had secrets from those who were close to him, even from me. He never shared his plans. He regarded his task as leader of party and people as that of prophet. He thought he was only one who could see what was happening and would happen. One day he fell violently upon Mikoyan. I donʼt remember what the occasion was. He said, “When I die youʼll all perish. Imperialists will strangle you.” He underestimated people who worked around him. We had nothing to do with foreign policy. Only he and Molotov handled that. I didnʼt even see the documents. So when Stalin died it was a very hard time for us. For example, I had never met any foreigners, because this was treason, but contacts are very necessary. When Stalin died it was difficult for us to establish contacts. And we had acute questions before us: Austrian Treaty, Trieste, Japanese Treaty. Most difficult one was Korean war, which had been imposed on us by US. It was very difficult period for us inexperienced people. But we took an initiative to stop Korean war. We established contact with US and Americans understood our purpose and we settled war. True, problem of Korea still remains because foreign troops are still there, but nevertheless there is no shooting.
He continued, we decided question of Indo-China. Americans didnʼt keep their word, and supported Diem. Americans know when to [Page 525] support nation-wide election and when not to. We liquidated Trieste question. We liquidated our base at Port Arthur, Finnish bases, and Iranian border problem. We thought Americans would follow our good example but they were not so kind as to do so. We’ve cut our armed forces twofold, but Americans continue increase theirs. We’ve done much work in agriculture, industry, and housing.
After war, Stalin said if we could produce 60 million tons oil and same amount of steel we would have one foot in communism. We will have 185 million tons of oil this year and we have 56 and half million tons steel for first nine months this year and will have 67 million tons for all 1962. Your economist Harry Schwartz points out that for one period this year we will have produced same amount of steel as you. In 1961, we built 3.9 million square meters housing. Before revolution Moscow had 11 million square meters, result of 800 years capitalist-feudal structure. And those were wooden houses with poor sewer system. But now we build very solid houses and in one year construct one-third the number of houses as there were in all pre-1917 Moscow. Main thing, however, is that imperialists didnʼt strangle us.
I said we hadnʼt tried and didnʼt want to try to strangle USSR.
Khrushchev replied he couldnʼt say there was no desire to do so. He produced the Presidentʼs speech in Buffalo1 and said that, according to President, USSR is oppressing Poland but “Poland has still not perished”. Khrushchev added that this is old Polish nationalist slogan. This, then, was prelude to his meeting with Mr. Kohler. This was obviously campaign speech in which President making election promises to get Polish votes. President says US will free Polish people, but Poles freed selves long ago with America. We regret Americans are aggravating tensions between our countries. Such is nature of imperialism.