The Compulsive Reader

By Marya Zanders

If you haven’t taken a vacation this summer, you still have a chance to attend an exciting event coming up the last weekend of August. It’s taking place right here in Iowa. Coon Rapids is hosting a “Khrushchev in Iowa” celebration. Aug. 27 to 29 will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s 1959 visit to Iowa.



Many are expected to participate including national, state, and Russian dignitaries plus, of course, the news media. Amongst the dignitaries expected to attend is Khrushchev’s younger son, Sergei. This is the son who emigrated to the U.S. and became an American citizen. Sergei Khrushchev is a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island and often speaks on the Cold war as it was seen from the “other” side.



Days of family fun, food and sales of Iowa products are planned. The event is being coordinated in part by the Coon Rapids Development Group, which can be reached at (712) 999-2734 and www.coonrapidsiowa.com.



Amongst the activities planned is the dedication of the Garst Farmhouse which is to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.



Roswell Garst hosted Nikita Khrushchev on his farm. Garst developed hybrid seed corn in 1930. He sold seed to the Soviet Union from 1955 onwards and played an important role in improving U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations, helping to thaw the Cold War in the process. Roswell Garst died in 1977, his son David continued his work, promoting open trade with Communist countries until his death in 2006.



It may not seem quite as important now, but Khrushchev’s visit was the first ever by a sitting Communist leader. Pictures of Khrushchev holding aloft an ear of Garst’s corn appeared in every newspaper and magazine including on the cover of Life magazine. Roswell Garst was a groundbreaker. His philosophy was a simple but effective one. Garst maintained, “Hungry people are dangerous people.”



Khrushchev also visited other Iowa locations during his famous 1959 visit including John Deere, Iowa State University, and some meat packing plants.



The 50th anniversary commemoration is meant to showcase “the progressive commitment of the common people of the United States to international trade, dialogue, and peace” according to the Whiterock Conservancy, one of the organizations sponsoring this event. There are more events scheduled at Drake University and the Hotel Fort Des Moines. The Whiterock Conservancy can be contacted at (712) 684-2964 for more information.



Since The Compulsive Reader is all about books, you won’t be surprised to learn that Peter Carlson’s book about Khrushchev’s 1959 American tour, K BLOWS TOP: A COLD WAR COMIC INTERLUDE STARRING NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, AMERICA’S MOST UNLIKLEY TOURIST was published by Public Affairs in June of this year. Surprisingly this is the first full length book on Khrushchev’s first U.S. visit. Yet, as the title implies, K BLOWS TOP is no dry restating of itinerary and facts. Carlson looked for, and found, the humor in Khrushchev’s visit from his desire to see Disneyland to some of the over-the-top American reactions to the Soviet entourage including gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen’s snide remarks on Nina Khrushchev’s wardrobe and a variety of guest appearances by Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor (who climbed up on a table during dinner to get a better look at Khrushchev) and Vice President Richard Nixon amongst others.



Carlson begins K BLOWS TOP with Nixon’s 1959 trip to the U.S.S.R. in preparation for Khrushchev’s American tour. Nixon stockpiled “an arsenal of American aphorisms, proverbs, and bits of folk wisdom” in preparation for his meeting with Khrushchev, who was known to favor aphorisms such as “spit in his eye and he’ll say it’s dew from heaven.” In typical savvy politician style Nixon leaked the story of his “proverb collection” to the press. The press then had a field day urging Nixon to “pummel the premier with ‘authentic’ Russian proverbs.” One suggestion was: “Soviet promises are written with a pitchfork on water.”



Iowans certainly did their share to entertain the Khrushchevs and the media as well. The Greater Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, headed by the patriotically named John Adams, provided “a big, powder-blue Cadillac convertible” because Khrushchev had complained about the heat in an enclosed limousine whilst in Los Angeles. A Grinnell drugstore and the Val-Air Ballroom in Des Moines encouraged the Khrushchevs to drop by for a visit. The American Trampoline Company in Jefferson offered the premier a free trampoline asking only for a 10 minute visit to the plant. But Khrushchev wanted to visit Roswell Garst, a man known for bursting into song at unexpected moments, often belting out “Old Man River.”



A side note here, Carlson maintains that one of the trip’s highlights for Khrushchev was watching the movie version of the musical “Oklahoma.” He’d also been shown one of Marilyn Monroe’s films but “Oklahoma” won out.



Garst was an old friend. He had visited the Soviet Union in 1955 and prior to Khrushchev’s American sojourn in 1959.



Despite Garst’s best efforts and as friendly as we Iowans like to consider ourselves, U.S.-Soviet relations took a steep slide downwards after Khrushchev’s American holidays. His second stopover in 1960 involved the famous shoe pounding on the podium episode at the United Nations. The events that followed included the U-2 spy plane incident in 1960, the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, just to name a few. The Cuban Missile Crisis is generally accepted as the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a nuclear war.

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