Chapter 13 Summary

Even before defeating the "anti-Party group," Khrushchev takes control of foreign policy through barnstorm trips abroad, both under- and overwhelming those he meets. Marxist-Leninist ideology heightens enmity towards adversaries; and the USSR is both accustomed to bullying satellites and finds it difficult to deal with non-socialist statesmen. Khrushchev comes to foreign policy ignorant and ill-equipped - and he knows it.

Khrushchev crosses paths with foreigners from childhood and forms images of their traits. He first steps foot on foreign soil when the Red Army invades Poland in 1939. After the war, Stalin cannot be bothered with Polish matters and Khrushchev negotiates with the Poles to set up a provisional government, oversees the rebuilding of Warsaw's major utilities. By 1951, he has met many leading foreign communists at Stalin's dacha in Yalta. In 1945, he is impressed by glimpses of the powerful, inscrutable Charles de Gaulle, and...