The Rover Boys in Belgrade

It was the most astonishing international show in years. Emerging from the protection of the Kremlin's wall and the shelter of the Kremlin's controlled press, Russia's top men seemed inept, uncertain, boorish. Yugoslavs watched the antics of Nikita Khrushchev with amazement. Western diplomats, remembering the remote, inscrutable, implacable Joseph Stalin, had to keep reminding themselves that this garrulous little man was his successor.

The blunders began, but did not end, with Khrushchev's airport speech (TIME, June 6). At a diplomatic banquet in Belgrade's White Palace, Khrushchev insultingly asked the Belgian ambassador whether his country was free, and when assured that it was, remarked that the Belgian could only say that because the U.S. ambassador had just left. Goateed Premier Nikolai Bulganin undiplomatically proposed a toast to neutrality, only to have Tito announce bluntly that Yugoslavia was neither neutral nor neutralist, but fiercely independent. Bulganin said lamely he had meant Switzerland.

Oranges & Scuffles. After feting them for two days at his modern villa in Brioni, Tito sent the top Russians off on a tour of Croatia and Slovenia. Khrushchev flabbergasted his hosts by cracking bad jokes, swilling quarts of lemonade from a pitcher-sized glass, gnawing on an orange as voraciously as a dog with a bone. When a flat tire halted his car, he playfully challenged 59-year-old Anastas Mikoyan to a wrestling match. Yugoslavs looked on incredulously while Russia's 61-year-old Communist Party boss scuffled with his First Deputy Premier by the roadside. Mikoyan was often the butt of Khrushchev's pleasantries: "Some time ago, every Russian was complaining: no butter, no bread, no meat, and always Mikoyan."

At a shipyard, Khrushchev spotted a riveter, demanded: "Why are you using such old-fashioned methods? In Russia we use welding." At Ljubljana he rushed through a turbine factory, stopping neither to look at turbines nor to talk to workers, until he came upon a room supported by concrete buttresses. He was a real expert on concrete, he informed his guides. At home he had been fighting engineers who wanted to use steel, which was heavier and more expensive. ''Of course, you people use concrete out of necessity,'' he added. Signing guest books, Khrushchev grabbed the pen first, then turned to Bulganin. saying: "Here, Nikolai Alexandrovich, sign your name."

Life Is Short. A newsman asked Khrushchev wearily: "Aren't you getting tired?" "Tired!" said Khrushchev in an amazed tone. "Of course not. I'm a strong man." He added with a grin: "Let me tell you something. Life is short. See all you can. Hear all you can and go all you can."

Back in Belgrade. Russians and Yugoslavs met again in the Hall of Guards to sign the communique threshed out by their underlings. While the 1,500-word document was read aloud, Khrushchev made little faces at a couple of Russian cameramen he spotted in the crowd. When the reading finished, Tito signed for Yugoslavia, and Premier Bulganin, for the first time accorded the leading role, signed for Russia. The instant the signing was over. Khrushchev took over, leaping up to shake every hand within reach.

The visit ended in a burst of belated camaraderie at a party given by the Russians. Watching some ballerinas flown in specially from Moscow, Marshal Tito remarked to Bulganin: "A dancer is perhaps better looking than a negotiator." Said Bulganin amiably: "Well, Khrushchev never had legs like these." Later, the notables retired to a private dining room. After 3 1/2 hours and a flood of wine, slivovitz. champagne and vodka, the doors opened. Tito and his handsome wife emerged. Then, as Tito stood chatting with newsmen, there was an interruption. Reported TIME'S James Bell:

"The door flew open and there stood Nikita Khrushchev. His face was fiery red and his jaw was slack. He was, to put it mildly, slobbering drunk. He stumbled over the doorsill and blinked happily at the assembled crowd. He waved at everyone and teetered uncertainly. Embarrassed but game. Tito gestured toward the newsmen on the stairs and said: 'These are journalists.' This delighted Nikita, who whooped: 'Oh. they are very dangerous men!'

"The most powerful man in Russia staggered over to the head of the staircase and came to rest against my chest. Suddenly he saw a hand sticking out in front of him and he grabbed it. 'Who are you?' he asked the owner, the New York Herald Tribune's Frank Kelley. Kelley said he was an American. 'Oh, you Americans do not know Russia,' Khrushchev burbled. I tried to withdraw but he had me pinned. Nikita clung to Kelley's hand like some cherished thing. Kelley said it wasn't our fault if we didn't know Russia, we could not get visas. Khrushchev said we sure could. 'You can come tomorrow,' he said magnanimously, waving at half a dozen reporters around him.

"Mikoyan grabbed him by the elbow and said, 'Come on. Let's go home. We have to get up early.' Khrushchev shook him off. Tito stood near by. an amused smile on his face as he waited for Stalin's successor to cope with the Western world. 'You can all come tomorrow!' Nikita repeated. A German reporter said. Tm German. Can I come too?' 'Oh. sure.' said Khrushchev. 'We are not afraid of the devil and you are not devils.'

"Mikoyan tried again, but Khrushchev decided he wanted to make a speech. 'Our agreement with Yugoslavia.' he shouted, 'contributes to peace and lessens international tensions.' 'What did he say?' someone asked Tito. Tito shook his head and said dryly: 'He said peace.' 'Yes, yes.' repeated Khrushchev happily, 'peace, peace.'

"At this point, Tito took a firm hand. He grabbed the tottering little man by the arm and said: 'Come on, Khrushchev. These journalists will take you prisoner.' He started him downstairs. 'Peace, peace,' said Khrushchev with upstretched hand, and staggered down the stairs.

"There he started kissing every woman in sight. Two solidly built goons, obviously with experience in this sort of thing, surrounded Nikita. Each grabbed an elbow, literally lifted him off his feet and carried him to his car."

So ended the great Belgrade conference.

Success & Failure. What had the Russians achieved on their pilgrimage of penance? They laid before the world, hard on the heels of the Austrian settlement and at no basic expense to themselves, a continuing impression of panting for "peaceful coexistence." Before long they will doubtless be demanding that the West match this with concessions of its own.

But the Russians failed miserably in their biggest objective--the hope of luring the Yugoslav Communists back under Kremlin discipline. The Yugoslavs were insulted to be treated like erring Marxists instead of as a sovereign nation. In the final communique, the Russians meekly accepted a clause stating: "Questions of internal organization, or difference in social systems, and of different forms of socialist development, are solely the concern of the individual countries," while the Yugoslavs promised only to "facilitate the exchange of socialist experience."

Tito got a Russian promise to "normalize" trade, repatriate Yugoslav nationals, and to negotiate some settlement for goods not paid for when relations were broken off in 1948. In return, Tito endorsed a U.N. seat for Red China and its "legitimate rights . . . with regard to Formosa"; the "prohibition" of atomic weapons, without mention of controls; a vague endorsement of "a system of collective security in Europe based on a treaty."

But Tito had flatly refused either to make ideological peace with Moscow or to align himself with the Soviet bloc against the West. Instead, he insisted on a clause, a favorite of his ever since his visit to Nehru last winter, deploring the "policy of military blocs" in general. For the Russians, this had the negative value of ensuring that Tito, who a year ago was flirting with the idea of a link with NATO, would at least remain outside the Western defenses.

Two Roads. The Kremlin's admission that there could be two kinds of Communists might be regarded as a simple recognition of a new fact of life: the rise of Communist China has already posed for the Kremlin the problem of a Communist country too strong to be forced into the status of a satellite. But in Communism's hothouse ideology, such simple adjustments can have shattering effects. Concluded Le Figaro's Raymond Aron, the Walter Lippmann of France: "By giving his blessing to the heretical thesis of Titoism--equal rights among Communist nations, plurality of roads toward socialism --perhaps Khrushchev has set in motion the mechanism of a time bomb, which one day will destroy the unity between the Mother Church of Communism and its empire."

For the West, Belgrade had provided the best opportunity yet to gauge the caliber of the men who now run Russia. It was a surprising sight. Only Mikoyan, quiet, confident and competent, looks the part of the doctrinaire Communist intellectual--the kind who might be good at chess. After looking the visiting delegation over, some observers concluded that there really must be a collective leadership in Russia, carefully balanced among men anxious to hang on to a good thing: the top leadership could not be as bad as Khrushchev and Bulganin made it look.

The bigwigs seemed to be on a far more relaxed personal basis with each other than anyone ever was with Stalin. Khrushchev, for all his cloddish buffoonery, was clearly in charge in Belgrade; yet the impression remained that a Bulganin could equally well represent the committee's views in a meeting at the summit.

The West might even be foolish to underestimate Khrushchev, just because he cannot pass up a drink. Said one expert: "Khrushchev is a rube. But he is a shrewd rube. One at least gets the feeling that he's open to ideas, and is willing to listen. You never had that feeling with Stalin."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.