GREAT BRITAIN: B. & K. Go Away

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The Russians had departed, and the world was busy examining Britain to see what damage had been done.

"Ten days that failed to shake the world," the London Economist called it. The visitors had not made off with the heart of the British common man—something Khrushchev had badly wanted to take home as another trophy from his diplomatic safaris. Through most of the visit, B. & K. remained remote and formidable figures in big black cars behind a 21-motorcycle escort (a sight hitherto unknown in Britain), but they soon sensed in the public's cool reserve that they were not being officiously sealed off from the kind of hysterical triumph they had scored in India.

At this point Khrushchev lost his aplomb, and in revealing flashes of anger exposed the harsh Communist behind the beaming clown. His denunciation of Social Democrats played hob with the Communists' seductive pleas for a Popular Front (see box); his truculent assertion of Russian nuclear capacity spoiled his peace-loving professions, and stole the play from his skillful offer of profitable East-West trade. The British consensus is that Georgy Malenkov is an able fellow and Bulganin an amiable second-rater, but that Khrushchev is a crude, crafty and headlong ruler who must be watched and cannot be trusted.

Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden came out of the whole thing looking better. The original invitation might have been a mistake, but the good sense of the British public and the steadfastness of the British government in its devotion to the Western alliance rendered baseless most of the earlier fears.

Though frustrated of popular success, B. & K. had managed to leave behind an impressive demonstration of the strength and technical achievement of Russia itself. They had failed miserably at conveying the impression of likable old fellows who meant no harm and who had never killed anybody in their lives. In the testing place of a free society, the Kremlin's dictators had been subjected to a cold, revealing light of exposure.