June 16, 2009
my favorite article in the sunday post was a weird mash up of kim jong-il & khrushchev:  the article’s author suggested that we unfurl the red carpet of americana for dear leader the way that eisenhower did it for khrushchev in the late 50s.  he took a whirlwind tour of the country, mingling with hollywood elite and cranky iowa corn farmers.  my favorite part of the article was this bit: The fun began as soon as Khrushchev landed at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 15, 1959. As Ike droned through a dull welcoming speech, the premier, a shameless scene-stealer, began mugging for the crowd, waving his hat, winking at a girl and theatrically turning his head to watch a butterfly flutter by — and doing it, one reporter wrote, “with the studied nonchalance of an old vaudeville trouper.” It only got weirder from there. In Washington, Khrushchev joked with CIA director Allen Dulles at a state dinner at the White House, exploded with anger at a press conference and posed for photographers holding a squirming turkey at the Agriculture Department’s experimental farm in Beltsville. In New York, Khrushchev got stuck in an elevator at the elegant Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and his tour guide — Henry Cabot Lodge, America’s ambassador to the United Nations — helped the pudgy premier climb out by pushing on his ample Russian rump.

my favorite article in the sunday post was a weird mash up of kim jong-il & khrushchev:  the article’s author suggested that we unfurl the red carpet of americana for dear leader the way that eisenhower did it for khrushchev in the late 50s.  he took a whirlwind tour of the country, mingling with hollywood elite and cranky iowa corn farmers.  my favorite part of the article was this bit:


The fun began as soon as Khrushchev landed at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 15, 1959. As Ike droned through a dull welcoming speech, the premier, a shameless scene-stealer, began mugging for the crowd, waving his hat, winking at a girl and theatrically turning his head to watch a butterfly flutter by — and doing it, one reporter wrote, “with the studied nonchalance of an old vaudeville trouper.”

It only got weirder from there. In Washington, Khrushchev joked with CIA director Allen Dulles at a state dinner at the White House, exploded with anger at a press conference and posed for photographers holding a squirming turkey at the Agriculture Department’s experimental farm in Beltsville.


In New York, Khrushchev got stuck in an elevator at the elegant Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and his tour guide — Henry Cabot Lodge, America’s ambassador to the United Nations — helped the pudgy premier climb out by pushing on his ample Russian rump.