THE WIDE-OPEN HORSE'S MOUTH

TIME was when the Kremlin was as inscrutable as Joseph Stalin's stony face, when analysts, trying to divine just what the latest Soviet pronouncement meant, rummaged back through 30 years of dusty files to find the significant quotation from Lenin. Now all is changed. Nikita Khrushchev, at the drop of a vodka glass, delivers himself of earthy opinions on anything from foreign affairs to women's clothes. Recent blurts:

P: On Russian women: "I have heard a lot of opinions about the life of Russian women and the way they are dressed," he told a French woman legislator. "But the worst work for a woman is prostitution ... In Paris you cannot walk down the street without having a woman accost you in order to subsist. Here in Russia, if a woman works like a man, she is at least not in a degrading situation but honestly earns her living."

P: On religion: "We [Communists] remain atheist, and we do everything we can to liberate a certain part of the people from the opium attraction of religion which still exists. But every person can practice the religion that pleases him, and care is taken never to annoy priests. Now that Soviet power has become so great, most priests have stopped their opposition to the Soviet government." P: On German kirschwasser: "This stuff is for oxen. I never in my life drank anything that burned my throat so much."

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