Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev

This is the third and last volume of the only complete and fully reliable English-language version of the memoirs of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

In the first two volumes, published by Pennsylvania State University Press in 2005 and 2006, respectively, Khrushchev tells the story of his rise to power and his part in the fight against Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. He also discusses agriculture, the housing problem, and other issues of domestic policy, as well as defense and disarmament. This volume is devoted to international affairs. Khrushchev describes his dealings with foreign statesmen and his state visits to Britain, the United States, France, Scandinavia, India, Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, and Indonesia.

In the first part, Khrushchev talks about relations between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. Of particular interest is his perspective on the Berlin, U-2, and Cuban missile crises. The second part focuses on the Communist world—above all, the deterioration of relations with China and the tensions in Eastern Europe, including relations with Tito’s Yugoslavia, Gomulka’s Poland, and the 1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary. In the third part, Khrushchev discusses the search for allies in the Third World.

The Appendixes contain biographies, a bibliography, and a chronology, as well as the reminiscences of Khrushchev’s chief bodyguard about the visit to the United Nations in 1960 at which the famous “shoe-banging” incident occurred—or, perhaps, did not occur.

“Nikita Khrushchev was one of the most important political leaders of the twentieth century. Without his memoirs, neither the rise and fall of the Soviet Union nor the history of the Cold War can be fully understood. . . . The fact that the full text of Khrushchev’s memoirs will now be available in English is cause for rejoicing.”—William Taubman, author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era

Sergei Khrushchev is Senior Fellow at the Thomas Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies at Brown University. He is the author of Nikita Khrushchev and Creation of a Superpower (Penn State, 2000).

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations and Acronyms

The Memoirs

Relations with the West: The Cold War

Before and After the Peace Treaty with Austria

The Four-Power Summit Meeting in Geneva (July 1955)

Meeting with Adenauer (September 1955)

The Visit to Great Britain

Beginning of the Visit to the United States

From New York to Iowa

Washington and Camp David

The Visit to France

The Four-Power Summit Meeting in Paris (May 1960)

The Visit to the United Nations

John Kennedy and the Berlin Wall

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Visiting the Scandinavian Countries

The Socialist Commonwealth

On the Road to Socialism

Mao Zedong

Friendship with China After the Victory of the People's Revolution

Turn for the Worse in Relations with China

Further Worsening of Relations with China

Ho Chi Minh

Albania

Yugoslavia

Germany

Poland

Hungary

Czechoslovakia

Romania

Opening a Window Onto the Third World

India

Burma

India, Afghanistan, Iran, and Again India

Indonesia

Egypt

The Six Day War in the Middle East

From Syria to Yemen

Relations with African Countries

Appendixes

How Khrushchev Subdued America

Biographies

Chronology

Bibliography

Index

Biography & Memoir

History

           European

           Russian & East European

Political Science

           Political Theory

           International Relations

General Interest