THE KREMLIN: Awkward Responses

The world of Communism stirred under the wind of change. Every day the world saw some new Soviet gesture. The most dramatic last week was Russia's announcement of a sizable cutback in its armed forces. Added to that, hardly a day passed without some new witticism from Nikita Khrushchev, some new revision of history, some political prisoner rehabilitated, some old scoundrel exposed. Every gesture may yet prove a fraud, or the Kremlin's masters—finding that small concessions lead to wider demands—may try to take it all back and revert to proved severities. But it was no longer enough to mock each...