The Cold War: The Mix Master

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Varieties of Coexistence. With the Western allies in disarray on the risks involved, Nikita Khrushchev was plainly enjoying himself. In his dispute with Peking, he had risked Communist-bloc unity by insisting on "peaceful coexistence," warned loudly of the danger inherent in "small wars." In Laos, Khrushchev was demonstrating just how unpeaceful his brand of coexistence is prepared to be—as is also proved by his brinkmanship in the Congo and Cuba. Khrushchev perhaps even welcomed the chance in Laos to show doubting Communists that he could be as militant as the Chinese when the opportunity afforded. In doing so, he was even barging in on territory which is properly the Chinese sphere of influence. And at week's end a Laos government communiqué reported that North Vietnamese troops had crossed into Northeast Laos and had attacked the town of Non-get. In all likelihood they moved with Khrushchev's approval. (They were not likely to have dared move without it.)

The contradiction between act in one place and ideology in another does not bother Nikita Khrushchev. Even as his planes dropped fresh supplies into the jungles of Laos, Khrushchev was telling a crowd at a Kremlin New Year's party that he hoped to forget entirely the U-2 incident of last spring. And Moscow commentators broadcast Khrushchev's unctuous hope that the U.S.-Soviet relations under Kennedy "would again follow the line along which they were developing in Franklin Roosevelt's time."