COLD WAR: An Assist from Moscow

In the four years since Nikita Khrushchev, that gregarious, loquacious and energetic fellow, took command in Russia, the world has never ceased to marvel at the difference in temperament between him and the grim, patient, secretive Joseph Stalin. To some nervous Western leaders, Nikita's engaging expansiveness even seemed to make him the more dangerous foe. Yet last week impulsive Nikita Khrushchev made precisely the same kind of crucial error in judgment that dogged the career of Stalin.

In a raring, tearing two-hour speech ostensibly addressed to the electorate of Moscow's Kalinin Constituency,...