"Khrushchev disembarked from his plane at Andrews Air Force Base to a
21-gun salute and a receiving line of 63 officials and bureaucrats, ending with
President Eisenhower. He rode 13 miles with Ike in an open limousine to his
guest quarters across from the White House. Then he met for two hours with Ike
and his foreign policy team. Then came a white-tie state dinner. (The Soviets
then put one on at the embassy for Ike.) […] Had America suddenly succumbed to a
fever of weak-kneed appeasement? Had the general running the country — the man
who had faced down Hitler! — proven himself what the John Birch Society claimed
he was: a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy? No. Nikita Khrushchev
simply visited a nation that had character. That was mature, well-adjusted. A
nation confident we were great."
Very well put.
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