Prestige & Money

At times last week it looked as if Nikita Khrushchev might be running for the presidency of Indonesia. When Sukarno, the President, proudly showed him a model of an Olympic village for the 1962 Asian Games, Nikita said contemptuously, "Oldfashioned and inefficient," and intimated that, if he were running things, he would build instead "a big hotel with modern conveniences." Like a candidate ambitious for office, Khrushchev commented repeatedly in public on Indonesia's chaotic economy, with the implication that it is due to inefficiency and lack of organization at the top.

Bulkily Silent. At Gadjah Mada University, Khrushchev seemed to be saying it was time for a change as he invited the cheering students to "try Communism." Waving his fists for emphasis, Nikita cried: "Each thinking person must wonder how it is that the working class of the Soviet Union--the peasants, the uneducated--took power, and in 42 years brought their country to second place in economic development and first place in the development of science."

This was infuriating to Sukarno, since the Indonesian Communist Party is the nation's largest, and he has for years teetered between a Red takeover and a coup d'etat by the anti-Communist army. Besides, it was no way for a guest to act. In the heavily pro-Red port city of Surabaya, Sukarno struck back. While Khrushchev sat bulkily silent on the platform. Sukarno told a crowd of 40,000 that Indonesia must maintain "its own personality,'' and promised eventual success for his own vague "guided democracy," or, as he put it: "Socialism a la Indonesia."

Hibiscus Ear. The tour went on through stifling, overcrowded Java, and then to Bali, where the debate between the two leaders degenerated to badinage. Sukarno needled Khrushchev by saying that he could not take a swim in the sea because "you're too corpulent--the sharks will get you." But not even critical Nikita could long stay censorious in lovely Bali. Soon he was wearing a lavender hibiscus over his right ear and casting an appreciative eye on lissome Balinese girls who showered him with rose petals.

At week's end, as Nikita departed for home, via India and Afghanistan, both leaders could feel satisfied. Sukarno had won new prestige and more money--another $250 million added to the $118 million already offered Indonesia.

For Nikita Khrushchev, the Southeast Asian tour may not have been a match for Eisenhower's enthusiastic reception in India, but it did spread the notion--in a region worried by Red China's militancy--that one Communist nation is as peace-loving as can be. Red China seemed to be a subject that host and guest were anxious to avoid. When Sukarno wondered aloud why Asians would not be present at the summit. Khrushchev, obviously uneasy that his curmudgeon ally, Red China, might be the one to demand a seat most loudly, remarked: "Maybe the time is not yet ripe to arrange a more representative summit conference."

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