The Mrs.

Smiling but reticent during most of her strenuous tour across the U.S. with her husband, Nina Petrovna Khrushchev, 59, returned to Washington, agreed at last to hold a VIP-sized press conference ("not customary in my country") for eager newswomen. Self-possessed and pleasant, Nina Petrovna made a big hit, even got a laugh when in careful English she kidded Jinx Falkenburg (who was present as Pat Nixon's guest) about her beehive-shaped hat: "You look like a Ukrainian bride, no?" With the promise that "I will give you some bits of information you desire," Mrs. Khrushchev laid down some homey and revealing bits. Items:

¶Contrary to earlier reports, she did not marry Khrushchev in 1938, but in 1924. "You must have a bad opinion of my husband to think he would have married such an old woman." Khrushchev's first wife died "in the famine" in the early '20s, leaving him with two small children. Nina and Nikita met in the Ukraine. She was a political-science teacher, he a student of mining engineering, "but I did not teach him anything and he did not teach me." He is a "very attentive" husband.

¶The Khrushchevs lived in a Moscow apartment, "when my husband had a different position," but now divide their time between "a big house in Moscow" and "a detached house in the country. We do not own a house."

¶Ashamed because she had been badly taught in French and German, she began studying English ("a brand-new language") at night school in 1939, went on studying at home during World War II, reads U.S. books in the original.

¶She dislikes doing housework, "though I know how to do it," now has "a cook, a maid and a girl to serve the table, but they are paid by the state. I used to go out shopping myself, but now I order it and it is delivered."

Just before her news conference, Mrs. Khrushchev had been honor guest at a lunch at a private club, with Pat Nixon the official hostess. Said Nina of American women: "They're all eager to shake hands, all very kindhearted, very friendly toward us, very much like our Russian women are toward American women. Foreign ministers spend a lot of time arguing and trying to persuade each other. It could be easier for women to reach an agreement among themselves [but] after all. less depends on us."