By Patricia H. Kushlis
On July 24, 1959, exactly fifty years ago this month, a dispute took place between then Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and US Vice President Richard Nixon not only in the model kitchen at the first US cultural exhibition in the Soviet Union but also in front of some 125 journalists who accompanied them – notepads open, pens scribbling away. It was truly a 1959s kitchen – or actually two halves of a standard, tract-home American kitchen cut down the middle by a path for viewers to walk along – and it was part of the US National Exhibition, a much larger display of Americana and America at the time.
There’s a transcript of the debate on the Teaching American History website which is certainly worth reading – but Hans Tuch, then American Embassy Press Attache who accompanied Nixon, Herbert Klein, the president’s press secretary, and the journalists covering that infamous exhibition walk-through recently wrote – to his knowledge no official transcript was kept, tape recording made or filed. So whatever transcripts are available on Teaching American History or elsewhere, they are likely patched together accounts of the dust-up over the dishwasher as reported by various news sources including and especially The New York Times. The best first person account of the event I’ve read thus far is in Tuch’s recent book Arias, Cabalettas and Foreign Affairs but feel free to suggest others in the comments section below.
Please get the location right
There’s another small problem with the transcript on the Teaching American History site and that is the argument did not occur at the US Embassy Moscow despite the transcript’s subtitle. Rather, the Exhibition was held across town at Sokolniki Park in Moscow’s northeast.
Yet the importance of this exhibition was neither its location nor what brought it the sensational headlines in the western media: that famous verbal clash between Nixon and Khrushchev amongst the pots and pans.
Face to Face: not Facebook to Facebook
What was significant was that it was the first of 19 exhibitions that brought America and Americans to hundreds of thousands of Soviets who for the first time had the opportunity to see the US through a humanizing prism and talk personally with the young Russian-speaking American exhibit guides who accompanied it. This at a time when the Soviets were jamming Voice of America and Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, travel abroad for Soviet citizens was barred and most foreigners from capitalist countries were not permitted to enter the then hermit country still emerging from the depths of Stalinism.
Even between 1978 and 1980 when I worked at the US Embassy in Moscow, various Soviets I met thought I was either Polish or - alternatively - Martian: Americans were so rare even twenty years after the Kitchen Debate it was inconceivable to the Soviet man or woman on the street, the train or at the coat check counter that he or she would actually ever meet one.
From 1959 to 1991, 19 US exhibitions toured 25 cities in the former Soviet Union. The one on tour when I was there, Agriculture USA, was not the most visually spectacular but it certainly displayed one of America’s strengths and the Soviets did allow it to go on display in two cities that had previously been off-limits. (Tselinograd and Dushanbe).
Moreover, AgUSA racked up impressive attendance figures and also helped hone the linguistic and cultural skills of, among others, the exhibit’s General Services Officer - the current US Ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle. So not only did those American exhibits provide Soviet citizens with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Americans but they also gave Americans a chance to improve their Russian (Beyrle gives media interviews in Russian), meet the people and learn the culture firsthand as well as see parts of the huge country they never would have been allowed to visit otherwise.
In Remembrance Plus
I understand there was a ceremony in Moscow this week to commemorate the now legendary event that transpired nearly fifty years ago and a symposium at George Washington University on July 23 – the day before the anniversary itself. If I were planning to be in DC at the time, I would attend. For more information, here’s a link to the day-long program. Registration is required and can be done online.
See Hans N. Tuch, "Remembering Sokolniki Park," Spaso House speech, the American Embassy Residence in Moscow, posted on WhirledView July 23, 2009.
