RUSSIA: Down with War!

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The vodka was flowing like the Volga at a Moscow garden party last week. Russia's goateed Defense Minister, Marshal Nikolai A. Bulganin, hopped merrily from one cluster of diplomats to another at the celebration of Indonesian Independence

Day, and tossed off toast after toast in the name of peace.

"Down with war!" cried he. "I say that as a marshal of the Soviet Union and the commanding general of all the armed forces of the Soviet Union." (Actually, though a marshal, Bulganin is a politician who commands soldiers.)

He bubbled on: "I recently had a talk with the American military attache. I asked him if the United States was prepared for war. He said, 'Yes.' I declared that we, too, are ready. I asked him if the U.S. wanted war. He said, 'No.' I said we, too, do not want war. As Minister of War, I say, let us drink to peace."

Suddenly a champagne cork popped across the room and struck Bulganin on the head. "Let's use those instead of cannons," he laughed.

State Department analysts drew a sober conclusion from his remarks: one part party line (but not entirely, since the party here never credits the U.S. with peaceful intentions), one part alcohol.