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THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
PART 1-7
,.0
CONSULTATION WITH
Mr. Eugene Lyons
SEPTEMBER 4, 1959
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
EIGHTY-SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
(INCLUDING INDEX)
Printed for the use of the Committee on Un-American Activities
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
46147° WASHINGTON : 1959
PUBLIC-
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
United States House of Representatives
FRANCIS E. WALTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
MORGAN M. MOULDER, Missouri DONALD L. JACKSON, California
CLYDE DOYLE, California GORDON H. SCHERER, Ohio
EDWIN E. WILLIS, Louisiana WILLIAM E. MILLER, New York
WILLIAM M. TUCK, Virginia AUGUST E. JOHANSEN, Michigan
Richard Arens, Staff Director
U
CONTENTS
Page
Synopsis 1
March 26, 1959: Testimony of Mr. Eugene Lyons 5
Index.. i.
Ill
'ot.
y Vj /J Cj
Public Law 601, 79th Congress
The legislation under which the House Committee on Un-American
Activities operates is PubHc Law 601, 79th Congress [1946], chapter
753, 2d session, which provides:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled, * * *
PART 2— RULES OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Rule X
SEC. 121. STANDING COMMITTEES
♦ ♦***♦♦
18, Committee on Un-Am.erican Activities, to consist of nine Members.
Rule XI
POWERS AND DUTIES OF COMMITTEES
m ***** *
(q) (1) Committee on Un-American Activities.
(A) Un-American activities.
(2) The Committee on Un-American Activities, as a whole or by subcommit-
tee, is authorized to make from time to time investigations of (i) the extent,
character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States,
(ii) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propa-
ganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and attacks
the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution, and
(iii) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any necessary
remedial legislation.
The Committee on Un-American Activities shall report to the House (or to the
Clerk of the House if the House is not in session) the results of any such investi-
gation, together with such recommendations as it deems advisable.
For the purpose of any such investigation, the Committee on Un-American
Activities, or any subcommittee thereof, is authorized to sit and act at such
times and places within the United States, whether or not the House is sitting,
has recessed, or has adjourned, to bold such hearings, to require the attendance
of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, and
to take such testimony, as it deems necessary. Subpenas may be issued under
the signature of the chairman of the committee or any subcommittee, or by any
member designated by any such chairman, and may be served by any person
designated by any such chairman or member.
*******
Rule XII
LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT BY STANDING COMMITTEES
Sec. 136. To assist the Congress in appraising the administration of the laws
and in developing such amendments or related legislation as it may deem neces-
sary, each standing committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives
shall exercise continuous watchfulness of the execution by the administrative
agencies concerned of any laws, the subject matter of which is within the jurisdic-
tion of such committee; and, for that purpose, shall study all pertinent reports
and data submitted to the Congress by the agencies in the executive branch of
the Government.
RULES ADOPTED BY THE 86TH CONGRESS
House Resolution 7, January 7, 1959
• **«*••
Rule X
STANDING COMMITTEES
1. There shall be elected by the House, at the commencement of each Con-
gress,
f ***** *
(q) Committee on Un-American Activities, to consist of nine Members.
*•****•
Rule XI
POWERS AND DUTIES OF COMMITTEES
*******
18. Committee on Un-American Activities.
(a) Un-American activities.
(b) The Committee on Un-American Activities, as a whole or by subcommittee,
is authorized to make from time to time investigations of (1) the extent, char-
acter, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States,
(2) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American prop-
aganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and
attacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitu-
tion, and (3) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress
in any necessary remedial legislation.
The Committee on Un-American Activities shall report to the House (or to the
Clerk of the House if the House is not in session) the results of any such investi-
gation, together with such recommendations as it deems advisable.
For the purpose of any such investigation, the Committee o-n Un-American
Activities, or any subcommittee thereof, is authorized to sit and act at such times
and places within the United States, whether or not the House is sitting, has
recessed, or has adjourned, to hold such hearings, to require the attendance
of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, and
to take such testimony, as it deems necessary, Subpenas may be issued under
the signature of the chairman of the committee or any subcommittee, or by any
member designated by any such chairman, and may be served by any person
designated by any such chairman or member.
*>(<*****
26. To assist the House in appraising the administration of the laws and in
developing such amendments or related legislation as it may deem necessary,
each standing committee of the House shall exercise continuous watchfulness
of the execution by the administrative agencies concerned of any laws, the subject
matter of which is within the jurisdiction of such committee; and, for that
purpose, shall study all pertinent reports and data submitted to the House by
the agencies in the executive branch of the Government.
VI
We must realize that we cannot coexist eternally, for a
long time. One of us must go to his grave. We do not want
to go to the grave. They [meaning Americans and the
westerners] do not want to go to their grave, either. So
what can be done? We must push them to their grave.
Statement by Nikita S. Kln-ushchev
in Warsaw, Poland, April 1955.
(See p. 12.)
VII
THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
SYNOPSIS
Khrushchev —
as the No. 1 Communist official in the Moscow area * * *
sent thousands to their death, scores of thousands to hideous
slave-labor camps;
was sent in 1937 as Stalin's trusted killer [to the Ukraine].
His first move was to summon a conference of the entire
Ukrainian Government, staged as a social occasion. The
gathering was surrounded by the secret pohce, arrested en
masse, and most of his "guests" died in the cellars of the
Kiev and Moscow secret pohce. When his two-year Ukrain-
ian purge was over, an estimated 400,000 had been killed
and terror gripped the whole population;
assumed [in 1943] the task of punishing the Ukrainian people
for their welcome to the Germans. This second or post-war
purge, again under Khrushchev's command, was if anything
more bloody and more horrifying than the first. Those
liquidated, by exile or death, ran into hundreds of thousands;
[made] the final decision [as No. 1 in the Kremlin in 1956] to
unleash the Red tanks that crushed Hungary's freedom and
Hungary's freedom fighters. Our ambassador in Moscow at
the time asked Khrushchev what he would do to stop the
blood flowing in Hungary. To which the master of the
Kremlin replied: "We will put in more troops and more
troops and more troops until we have finished them.";
[issued the] order that trapped the top freedom fighter.
General Maleter, who was summoned to a fake conference
under a flag of truce, then arrested, and in due time killed;
[issued the] order that lured Nagy, head of the short-lived
anti-Communist government, out of the Yugoslav Embassy
where he had found asylum. Though he had been assured
immunity, Nagy was arrested and eventually executed.
So testified Mr. Eugene Lyons, a senior editor of The Reader's
Digest, former press correspondent stationed in Soviet Russia, student
of international communism and biographer of Khrushchev, in the
accompanying consultation with the Committee on Un-American
Activities.
Commenting on the "peaceful intentions" which Khrushchev
professes toward the free world, Mr. Lyons stated :
They are worth no more than those of Hitler or Stalin.
All tlu-ee talked peace while making war. For a man like
Khrushchev, made in the image of Leninist cynicism,
"peace" does not mean what it does to normal people. It
1
46147*— 59— pt. It— 2
2 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
means at most the absence of major military operations,
while he uses all other methods of offensive short of shoot-
ing—blackmail, subversion, infiltration, civil disorder, guer-
rilla operations — to conquer "the enemy," meaning us.
Of com'se he doesn't want a nuclear showdown. He's
not mad. He is supremely confident of achieving his purposes
by other means. But he continually rattles his missiles,
exploiting our pacifism, our fears, our loss of nerve. The
Kremlin, let us never forget, won its greatest victories with-
out war, at a time when the free nations had overwhelming
military superiority and a monopoly of nuclear power. Their
real advantages are not military but political and psycho-
logical.
Mr. Lyons emphasized the duality of the Kremlin's role as follows:
* * * the Kremlin and Khrushchev, as its current leader,
at the same time represent a conventional government and a
world revolutionary movement. Wliat the.y do as a govern-
ment is not binding on world communism. Every agreement
with them, even if it were kept, is consequently a snare and a
delusion.
World communism, in fact, often uses such an agreement
as a cover for stepped-up activity. Wlien Khrushchev visits
a foreign country or meets with our statesmen at summit
meetings, he plays the role of a head of government. But he
ignores — and we naively allow him to ignore — his more im-
portant role as the head of a global revolutionary organiza-
tion.
He couldn't call off that organization even if he wished to
do so, which he decidedly doesn't. World communism, with
its open and underground Commimist Parties, its network of
false-front organizations, its infiltrated unions and govern-
ments, its para-military formations in many countries — the
whole colossal machine of power — is too vast and too dy-
namic to be stopped in mid-course.
If ever we recognize the meaning of this duality, we will
also recognize the futility of trying "to call off" the cold war
and will begin to fight it in earnest, on a scale and with the
resom'ces for victory.
The invitation to Khrushchev to come to the United States "amounts
to a terrific victory for communism," Mr. Lyons stated:
It amounts to an acknowledgment by the world's leading
democracy of the Kremlin's power and permanence. There-
fore it adds dimensions of prestige to every Communist group
in every country.
Being master propagandists, the Communists understand
the value of symbols. That invitation will be taken by Com-
munists, theu' fellow-travelers, theu* victims, as a symbol of
cm- weakness. More, of our capitulation to Moscow
threats.
For years Khrushchev has maneuvered for Just such an
invitation. There were times when he would have paid a
high price for it. Now we have given it to him gratis, be-
THE CRI^^.IES OF KHRUSHCHEV 3
cause he has an ultimatum-gun pointed at our heads in
Berlin. Even for that 1955 summit meeting, Moscow paid
a price: the withdi-awal from Austria. This time it is so
cocky that, far from restraining its hordes, it allowed them
to undertake aggressions even while the invitation was being
negotiated and before Khrushchev came to our country.
I am referring to the aggressions against Laos and India;
to the stepped-up Communist activities in our own back-
yard, in the Caribbean; to the enlarged terror m Tibet; to
the continuing pressures in the Middle East and in Berlin.
While we kid ourselves with wishful thinkmg about "thaws"
and "relaxed tensions", the Communists everywhere are
intensifying their activities.
* * * * *
It amounts to a body blow to the morale of the resistance
in the Communist world. It's a betrayal of the hopes of the
enemies of communism within that world, and their numbers
can be counted by the hundi'ed million.
The announcement of the invitation was a day of gloom
and despair for nearly the whole population of every satellite
country and for tens of millions mside Russia itself. What
has been under way in the Red orbit, ever since 1917, is a
permanent civU war between the rulers and the ruled. Our
duty and our opportunity — in both of which we have failed — ■
is to take the side of the people against their oppressors. We
have not merely been neutral in that civil war, but we have
constantly by om- policies sided with the Kremlin agamst its
victims.
In response to the contention that Khrushchev's visit to the United
States might cause him to slow down or abandon his designs for world
conquest, Mr. Lyons observed:
It's a childish fairy tale. The Communists in high places
are perfectly well mformed about our material prosperity and
political freedom. Khrushchev is not coming here to confirm
his knowledge of our strengths, but to feel out our weak-
nesses. The notion that he will be impressed by our wealth
and liberty to the point of curbing Communist ambitions is
political innocence carried to extremes.
What disturbs me, and many other students of the Com-
munist realities, is that such fauy tales reflect a dangerous
ignorance of the natm'e of communism and its objectives.
The premise of such nonsense is that the struggle between
the two worlds is not really serious — just a misunderstanding
that can be cleared up if we get the right people to meet in
the right place and say the right words. It assumes that the
cancer can be treated with mustard-plasters of good will.
Mr. Lyons summarizes his conclusions as follows:
In the first place, the new Soviet boss, despite his home-
spun exterior, is one of the bloodiest tyrants extant. He has
come to power over mountains of corpses. Those of us who
roll out red carpets for him will soon have red faces.
THE CRIMES OP KHRUSHCHEV
In the second place, the exchange of visits between the
heads of the two governments, even if it brings a few seem-
ingly positive results on the margins of the struggle, must
prove deeply harmful to the core of that struggle. It comes
close to an acknowledgment of the permanence of the Com-
munist grabs and undermines the spirit of resistance inside
the Communist world.
In the third place, and perhaps most importantly, the
great expectations aroused by the exchange reveal the tragic
failure of Western statesmen to recognize the character and
the magnitude of the Communist challenge
THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
(Part 1)
feiday, september 4, 1959
United States House of Representatives,
Committee on Un-American Activities,
Washington, D.C.
consultation
The following consultation with Mr. Eugene Lyons, of Pleasantville,
New York, a senior editor of The Reader's Digest, was held at 1 :30
p.m. in Room 226, Old House Office Building, Washington, D.C,
Hon. Francis E. Walter of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the Committee
on Un-American Activities, presiding.
Staff member present: Richard Arens, staff director.
The Chairman. Do you, Mr. Lyons, solemnly swear that the testi-
mony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. Lyons. I do.
STATEMENT OF EUGENE LYONS
Mr. Arens. Kindly identify yourself by name, residence, and
occupation.
Mr. Lyons. My name is Eugene Lyons. I live at 71 Bedford
Road, Pleasantville, New York. I am a senior editor of The Reader's
Digest.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Lyons, would you kindly give us a brief sketch of
your personal background, perhaps a word of your education and some
highlights of your career?
Mr. Lyons. I was brought up in New York City, went to City
College and then to Columbia University for one year each. Like so
many youngsters at the time, just after World War I, I was caught
up in the radical movement. While- I never joined the Communist
Party, I got pretty close to it. By the middle of the 1920's I was
working for the New York bureau of Tass, the official Soviet news
agency.
At the end of 1927 I went to Moscow as United Press correspondent,
arriving there early in 1928. I remained for six years. That Soviet
sojoiu-n cured me very thoroughly of my imported pro-Soviet senti-
ments. I subsequently told the story of my Soviet years in a book,
Assignment in Utopia, published at the end of 1937.
Back home, I did various types of journalistic work, and ended
up by editing the American Mercury during the war years. After
that I launched and edited a magazine, which is still going, Pageant.
Then, around 1946, 1 joined the editorial staff of The Reader's Digest,
with which I am still connected.
6 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
That, more or less, is the outhne of my professional career.
Mr, Arens. Now may I inquire respecting the study which you
have made of Soviet Russia and international communism?
Mr. Lyons. I had, of course, been deeply interested in communism
and Russia before I went to Moscow. There I learned enough Russian
to help me in continuing study of the subject when I returned to the
United States.
I have written a number of books on Soviet Russia and communism.
Before Assignment in Utopia, I had published Moscow Carrousel.
Subsequently I wrote a biography of Stalin under the title, Stalin:
Czar of all the Enssias; then a history of the American Communist
movement, The Red Decade, which carried that story to the time of
publication in mid-1941. My most recent book was Our Secret
Allies: The Peoples of Russia.
In addition, of course, I have written literally hundreds of articles
in this subject area and made a great many speeches and lectures
on the subject. Insofar as one can do it while working for a living,
I have tried to keep myself abreast of developments in this field.
Mr. Arens. May I inquire now, have you made a study of the life
and activities of Nikita Khrushchev?
Mr. Lyons. Yes. About the time when he was emerging as a
possible successor to Stalin, I began to gather information about his
personality and career, against my background of general knowledge
of the Soviet scene.
One of the products of this fairly intensive study was a biographical
article about the man which appeared in the September 1957 issue
of The Reader's Digest. The title, which was intended to be literal,
not just rhetoric, was: Khrushchev, The Killer in the Ki'emlin.
Last month I published another in The Digest, of an interpretive
nature: The Many Faces of Nikita Khrushchev.
Mr. Arens. As a point of departure in our consultation today,
would you kindly give us briefly an outline of Khi'ushchev's personal
and political career?
Mr. Lyons. Khrushchev was born into a peasant-worker family
65 years ago, in the provmce of Kursk, in the village of Kalinovka,
close to the Ukraine. He had virtually no schoolmg as a child, and
began very early to shift for himself, as a shepherd and, when he got a
little older, in various jobs in the mines and factories of the Donbas
region.
There is no indication that he was in any sense a revolutionary.
But in 1918, the first year of the Soviet regime, he joined the Com-
munist Party and took part in the civil war then under way. He was
24 years old.
Lilve so many half-literate yoimg workers in that period, he was
caught up in a movement he did not and could not as yet understand.
He did not become a Commimist through study or soul-searching.
It was an overnight, emotional conversion. His communism has
remained primitive and unsophisticated ever since.
When the civil war was over, he went back to factory work but
joined the classes of a Rab-Fak, or workers' school, where he got
his first real schooling. TMicn he graduated, around 1925, he had the
equivalent of an elementary education.
But from the beginning he showed a talent for getting ahead in the
new ruling group. He became the party secretary in the school and
THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 7
before long he was holding similar posts in several districts, finally in
a district in the capital of the Ukraine, Kiev. Here he caught the
eye of the old Bolshevilc who was then Moscow's proconsul in the
Ukraine, Lazar Kaganovich, It was, in fact, through the patronage
of Kaganovich that he began to move ahead fast as an "apparatchik,"
a job-holder in the party apparatus.
Mr. Arens. When did he get to the center of power, that is,
Moscow?
Mr. Lyons. That was in 1929. For a couple of years he attended
a technical school. IMeanwhile Kaganovich had returned to Moscow
as secretary of the Moscow provmce. By 1932 Khrushchev was his
second secretary or chief assistant; and in 1934, Kaganovich havmg
become Commissar of Raih'oads, Khrushchev succeeded him as head
of the Moscow city and soon thereafter the Moscow Province Party.
That meant he was really on the high-road to power — from a
nobody m a technical school to boss of the most important provmce
in the country in about three years! Stalin himself was watching
Khrushchev with interest and approval. In 1934 Khrushchev be-
came a member of the central committee of the party, which is to
say one of the 70 most unportant Communists in the country; and
four years later he was made an alternate member of the all-powerful
Politburo.
Mr. Arens. Were those the years which came to be known as the
blood pm'ges?
Mr. Lyons. They were, mdeed. And we should never forget that
as the No. 1 Communist ofhcial in the Moscow area Khrushchev of
necessity was neck-deep in the blood-letting. He was responsible
for the political "pmity" of some 400,000 Communists and in direct
charge of their purging. His was the task of liquidating the un-
worthy, which meant that he sent thousands to their death, scores of
thousands to hideous slave-labor camps.
Moreover, his voice was among the loudest in justifying the blood-
letting and in glorifying Stalin. In a speech after one of the major
pm-ge trials, he exclaimed, referring to the slaughtered victims:
By lifting their hand against Comrade Stalin, theylifted
it against the best humanity possesses. For Stalin is our
hope. He is the beacon which guides all progressive man-
kind. Stalin is om- banner! Stalin is our will! Stalin is
our victory!
It was as reward for his murderous zeal as a purger that in 1939
he was made a full member of the Politburo.
The bloodiest and cruelest of all the blood purges took place in the
Ukraine, and here the "credit" goes to Khrushchev personally. He
was sent there in 1937 as Stalin's trusted killer. His first move was
to summon a conference of the enthe Ukrainian Government, staged
as a social occasion. The gathering was surrounded by the secret
pohce, arrested en masse, and most of his "guests" died in the cellars
of the Kiev and Moscow secret police.
Wlien his two-year Uki-ainian purge was over, an estimated 400,000
had been Idlled and terror gripped the whole population. Khrushchev
had been made secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, but in
the popular mind he won a more enduring title, the Hangman of the
Ukraine.
8 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
Then, in 1941, came the war. The Soviet peoples, as is by now
generally knowai, for the most part welcomed the German invaders
as liberators. But nowhere was their reception more universal and
more joyous than in the Ukraine, as a reaction to the horrors its
people had suffered at Khrushchev's hands.
When the Germans retreated, in 1943, Khrushchev returned to Kiev.
He now assumed the task of punishing the Ukrainian people for their
welcome to the Germans. This second or post-war purge, again
under Klirushchev's command, was if anything more bloody and
more horrif^^ing than the first. Those liquidated, by exile or death,
ran into hundreds of thousands.
In 1949 he was recalled to AIoscow and resumed his old job as
secretary or party-boss of the province. However, as a member of the
Politburo he had a hand in all phases of government and policy.
He was b}^ this time one of the men closest to, and most trusted by,
Stalin. It should be remembered, whatever Khrushchev may say
now, that only the true-and-tried Stalinists, those who had no trace
of squeamishness about mass murder, could have survived in a place
of power. Khrushchev remained alive and prospered when nearly all
others around him were being mowed down by terror.
In 1953, when Stalin died — or was murdered by his comrades —
Khrushchev was in the small group that made up the so-called "col-
lective leadership," Under that beguiling phrase, of course, there
immediately developed a fratricidal struggle for power.
The older men in the group, like Molotov and Kaganovich, could
be discounted. The real contenders were Beria, the head of the secret
police, Malenkov and Khrushchev. The entire collective leadership
ganged up on the man they feared most, Beria. They killed him, and
several dozen of his henchmen, within months after Stalin died.
With Beria eliminated, Khrushchev assumed the post of first secre-
tar}^, which had been held by Stalin. In 1957, at one fell swoop, he
succeeded in expelling Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, and others
from all positions of influence. To do this he needed, and got, the
help of Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the head of the armed forces. A
year later he rid himself of Zhukov as well. To all intents and pur-
poses Soviet Russia was again under a one-man dictatorship.
It might be appropriate to note, now that we're about to receive
this dictator as an honored guest of our President, that in his hunger
for power Khrushchev did not spare the older man who had been his
patron and protector for some 20 years, that is to say, Lazar Kagano-
vich. Gratitude has no place in the Communist code of conduct.
Nor did the fact that his long-time patron had been a Jew curb
Khrushchev's notorious anti-Semitism. A German socialist who a
year or two ago interviewed Khrushchev — Karl Schmid, vice-president
of the AVest German Reichstag — has told how the Soviet boss ridiculed
Kaganovich in shocking anti-Semitic language.
]\Ir. Arens. How docs Khrushchev compare as a person and as a
leader with Stalin?
Mr. Lyons. Probably history has never seen two successive despots
so different in their outward personalities. Stalin was wholly the
introvert: reticent, inaccessible, shy with strangers, a man who worked
unseen and ruled from the dark fastnesses of the Kremlin.
Khrushchev is a lusty extrovert, gregarious and garrulous, a mixer
and a fixer. He likes crowds and basks in the spotlight. He is a
THE CRIMES OF lOIRUSHCHEV 9
consummate actor and sometimes plan's the buffoon. He travels a
lot. In the last two years he has received more foreign politicians,
journalists, and just important tourists than Stalin had received in
his whole lifetime.
But that contrast is entirely external and should not mislead us as
to the Khrushchev under the surface. That basic Khrushchev has a
genius for intrigue, betrayal, and mass homicide as large as Stalin's.
He is a fanatic Communist, with a tightly closed mind on anything
affecting Communist doctrine.
Mr. Arens. How, then, do you account for his so-called secret
speech in February 1956, in which he exposed Stalin's crimes and
blunders?
Mr. Lyons. That speech, which incidentally is still secret inside
the Soviet Union, is an extraordinary episode in Soviet history.
Personally, I am convinced that it was forced upon the new bosses
by the knowledge that Stalin and his deeds were deeply hated by the
population. It was an attempt to divest themselves, so far as they
could, of responsibility for the major crimes of the man they had long
served and deified.
Even more, it was an attempt to reassure their own followers that
their lives, at least, were safe — that murder would not be used as a
political tool against top-echelon Communists.
Whatever the motivations, it had an unfortunate effect abroad,
including our own country, in that it threw a false aura of modera-
tion, almost of liberalism, around Khrushchev.
Mr. Arens. You say "a false am^a," but isn't Khrushchev more
moderate than Stalin was?
Mr. Lyons. Only outwardly. Under the ebulHent surface he is
every bit as blood-thirsty and dictatorial as his dead master. Stalin,
too, didn't begin to kill his closest associates until he had been in
absolute power for seven or eight years. Should the need to kill arise,
Khrushchev's hand, to use his own phrase in the matter, "will not
tremble."
In that celebrated speech, bear in mind, he did not denounce terror
as such, but only what he considered an unwise use of terror by
Stalin — its use, that is, against "good" Communists. Khrushchev
never mentioned, and thus condoned by silence, Stalin's larger crimes
against the entire people, the horrors of enforced collectivization, the
genocide visited upon captive peoples. He actually approved the
slaughter of Trotskyites and other devjationists from the party-line.
Far from ruling out terror, Khrushchev in that speech reaffirmed
its use — quoting Lenin to that effect — "when necessary." In the
process of exposing Stalin he thus accepted the essence of Stalinism,
which is inhumanity, deception, the readiness to kill and kiU "when
necessary."
Mr. Arens. What is your judgment of Khrushchev's intellectual
capacity and political ability?
Mr. Lyons. Khrushchev is only half-educated. Aside from party
literature, he probably has never read a serious book. He has made
no secret of his contempt for intellectuals. He rates the doer above
the thinker, the practitioner above the theorist.
But that should not mislead us into underrating his intelligence.
Khrushchev has a peasant-like shrewdness, a quick and sharp wit and
is, in my opinion, more than a match for om- Western statesmen in the
10 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
give-and-take of argument or negotiation. In a way he enjoys the
advantage of ignorance, in that he can make the most outrageous
statements without being self-conscious about it.
As for his pohtical abihties, his career provides the obvious answer.
He survived, and in the StaUn era that took consummate skill. Then
he eliminated all competitors, though most of them had believed him
lacking in the stature for the dictator's role.
Mr. Arens. Is Khrushchev a dedicated Communist or an oppor-
tunist?
Mr. Lyons. It is hard to tell in any successful politician where
self-interest ends and dedication begins, or vice versa. Obviously he
is a great careerist and opportunist. From the day he joined the
ruling party he labored resolutely to advance his own power, until
finally he reached the top.
At the same time, however, he is a dedicated, know-nothing, fanatic
Communist. He has no doubt that he and his cause are riding the
wave of the future, that capitalism and all other non-Soviet ways of
life are doomed to defeat and extinction. Though flexible enough on
other things, his mind closes completely when these fundamentals of
his ideology are involved.
Mr. Arens. You have recounted Khrushchev's role in the Stalin
purges, before and after the war. What part did he play in the crush-
ing of the Hungarian revolution?
Mr. Lyons. By the fall of 1956, when the people of Hungary over-
threw their hated puppet regime, Khrushchev was already No. 1 in
the Kremlin. What happened must therefore be blamed on him.
His was the final decision to unleash the Red tanks that crushed
Hungary's freedom and Hungary's freedom fighters.
Our ambassador in Moscow at the time asked Khrushchev what he
would do to stop the blood flowing in Hungary. To which the master
of the Kremlin replied: "We wUl put in more troops and more troops
and more troops imtil we have finished them."
A key figure in the Hungarian horrors was the Russian who carried
out the punitive, secret-police phase. That was General Ivan Serov,
a 100 percent Khrushchev man. For nearly two decades he had been
Klirushchev's instrument of terror, the sadist who carried out the
Ukrainian slaughters, then succeeded Beria as number one execu-
tioner. Serov it was who kidnapped thousands of Hungarian freedom
fighters who, if they are still alive, are even now in Russian slave
colonies.
It was Khrushchev's order that trapped the top freedom fighter.
General Maleter, who was summoned to a fake conference under a
flag of truce, then arrested, and in due time killed. It was Khru-
shchev's order that lured Nagy, head of the short-lived anti-Communist
government, out of the Yugoslav Embassy where he had found asylum.
Though he had been assured immunity, Nagy was arrested and
eventually executed.
So let's have it clear for ourselves and for history: Major guilt for
the Hungarian horrors must unquestionably be placed on Khru-
shchev's shoulders.
Mr, Arexs. Wliat is your appraisal of the "peaceful intentions"
which Khrushchev professes toward the free world?
Mr. Lyons. They are worth no more than those of Hitler or Stalin.
AU thi'ee talked peace while maldng war. For a man like Khrushchev,
THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 11
made in the image of Leninist cynicism, "peace" does not mean what
it does to normal people. It means at most the absence of major
military operations, while he uses all other methods of offensive short
of shooting — blackmail, subversion, infiltration, civil disorder, guer-
rilla operations — to conquer "the enemy," meaning us.
Of course he doesn't want a nuclear showdown. He's not mad.
He is supremely confident of achieving his purposes by other means.
But he continually rattles his missiles, exploiting our pacifism, our
fears, our loss of nerve. The Kremlin, let us never forget, won its
greatest victories without war, at a time when the free nations had
overwhelming military superiority and a monopoly of nuclear power.
Their real advantages are not military but political and psychological.
Mr. Arens. How was it possible for them to win so consistently
despite our vastly greater strength?
Mr. Lyons. It was possible — and remains possible — because the
non-Soviet world refuses to understand the nature of communism and
its long-term strategy. The Communists are engaged in what Dr.
Robert Strausz-Hupe of Pennsylvania University, who borrowed the
phrase from Mao Tse-tung, has called "protracted conflict." It's
the title of his new book on the Red master-plan.
Protracted conflict— what Lenin and Trotsky called "permanent
revolution"^ — ^means relentless struggle, by any and all means, year
after year. The weapons used may change, the tactics may change,
but the objective, total victory for communism throughout the world,
remains unchanging.
Under this concept there is no difference, except in the matter of
weapons, between hot and cold wars. They are part of the same
master-plan. The concept rules out genuine truce or genuine coex-
istence. Every so-called crisis and every episode of negotiation is a
battle in the over-all war. Every beguiling slogan and promise is a
tactic of deception or deployment.
Once we understand this, we will cease to delude ourselves with
hopes of some magic formula or agreement that will, as we say,
"end the cold w^ar." We will realize that the cold war can't be
"ended" — it can only be won or lost. The self-delusion reflected in
double-talk about relaxing tensions, breaking the ice, and so forth, has
enabled the Communists, even in times of their greatest weakness, to
gain vast victories. Today that self-delusion is infinitely more danger-
ous than ever before. It gives Moscow the initiative and amounts to
a guarantee of om* defeat by default.
Mr. Arens. Can the free world deal with Klu-ushchev as it might
deal with the leader of a free society?
Mr. Lyons. Of com-se not. In dealing with Khrushchev we face
a "firm Bolshevik," who by definition despises truth and morals, who
rejects our code of ethics. He does not consider himself bound by
his word to non-Soviet nations, because they are "the enemy," and
it is merely good tactics to mislead, confuse, and lie to an enemy,
Mr. Arens. That helps explain why Moscow has violated vu'tually
every treaty or agreement it has ever entered into.
Mr. Lyons. We have before us the pertinent example of the
summit conference in Geneva four years ago. The several important
agreements reached there and solemnl}^ announced to the world were
repudiated by Moscow within months.
12 THE CRIMES OF IvHRUSHCHEV
More than tliat. Even while Khruslichev and President Eisen-
hower were being photographed in chummy poses at Geneva, Com-
munist agents were cooking up an arms deal with Egypt's Nasser
that has been calamitous for mankind.
Mr. Arens. Is peaceful coexistence with the Ki-emlin a realistic
idea?
Mr. Lyoxs. Mr. Arens and gentlemen of the committee, no more
cynical phrase has ever been coined. To us it means a true cessation
of hostilities. To them it means a convenient method of disarming us
psychologically, the better to pursue the protracted conflict.
Seweryn Bialer, a Polish Communist leader who defected to the
West, testified before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee ^ to
having heard Khrushchev say, in Warsaw in April 1955: "* * * vve
must realize that we cannot coexist eternally, for a long time. One of
us must go to his grave. We do not want to go to the grave. They
[meaning Americans and the westerners] do not want to go to their
grave, either. So what can be done? We must push them to their
grave."
If we allow ourselves to be trapped by the poison-bait of coexistence,
they can "push us" more easily. We will drop our guard, while they
intensify their depredations. Our memories are unhappily too short.
We have forgotten that Stalin in the middle '30s gave us a period of
peaceful existence, under the flag of united fronts and peoples fronts.
But it was in those very years that Moscow industriously deployed
its forces against our world,
Mr. Arexs. In something of yours that I've read you describe
what 3'ou call the duality of the Kremlin's role. Would you care to
explain it?
Mr. Lyons. I meant that the Kremlin and Khrushchev, as its
current leader, at the same time represent a conventional government
and a world revolutionary movement. What they do as a govern-
ment is not binding on world communism. Every agreement with
them, even if it were kept, is consequently a snare and a delusion.
World communism, in fact, often uses such an agreement as a cover
for stepped-up activity. When Khrushchev visits a foreign country or
meets with our statesmen at summit meetings, he plays the role of a
head of government. But he ignores — and we naively allow him to
ignore — his more important role as the head of a global revolutionary
organization.
He couldn't call off that organization even if he wished to do so,
which he decidedly doesn't. World communism, with its open and
underground Communist Parties, its network of false-front organiza-
tions, its infiltrated unions and governments, its para-military forma-
tions in many countries — the whole colossal machine of power — is too
vast and too dynamic to be stopped in mid-com'se.
If ever we recognize the meanuig of this duality, we will also recog-
nize the futility of trying "to call oft'" the cold war and will begin to
fight it in earnest, on a scale and with the resources for victory.
Mr. Arexs. In the com-se of the next weeks Khrushchev will be on
American soil at the invitation of our President. Based on your
background and experience as a student of communism, please
express yourself with respect to the impact that visit will have on
the Communist drive for world domination.
» See hearings entitled "Scope of Soviet Activity in tlie United States— Part 29", June 8, 1958.
THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 13
Mr. Lyons. The mere invitation, Air. Arens, amounts to a terrific
victory for communism. It amounts to an aclmowledgment by the
world's leading democracy of the Kremlin's power and permanence.
Therefore it adds dimensions of prestige to every Communist group in
every country.
Being master propagandists, the Communists understand the value
of symbols. That invitation will be taken by Communists, their
fellow-travelers, their victims, as a symbol of om" weakness. More,
of our capitulation to Moscow threats.
For years Khrushchev has maneuvered for just such an invitation.
There were times when he would have paid a high price for it. Now
we have given it to him gratis, because he has an ultimatum-gun
pointed at our heads in Berlin. Even for that 1955 summit meeting,
Moscow paid a price: the withdrawal from Austria. This time it is
so cocky that, far from restraining its hordes, it allowed them to
undertake aggressions even while the invitation was being negotiated
and before Khrushchev came to our country,
I am referring to the aggressions against Laos and India; to the
stepped-up Communist activities in our own backyard, in the Carib-
bean; to the enlarged terror in Tibet; to the continuing pressures in
the Middle East and in Berlin. WhUe we kid ourselves with wishful
thinking about "thaws" and "relaxed tensions," the Communists
everywhere are intensifying their activities.
Mr. Arens. What wiU be the effect of Khrushchev's visit on the
subjugated peoples behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains?
Mr. Lyons. It amounts to a body blow to the morale of the resist-
ance in the Communist world. It's a betrayal of the hopes of the
enemies of communism within that world, and their numbers can be
counted by the hundred million.
The announcement of the invitation was a day of gloom and despair
for nearly the whole population of every satellite country and for tens
of millions inside Russia itself. What has been under way in the Red
orbit, ever since 1917, is a permanent civil war between the rulers and
the ruled. Our duty and om* opportunity — in both of which we have
failed — is to take the side of the people against their oppressors. We
have not merely been neutral in that civil war, but we have constantly
by our policies sided with the Kremlin against its victims.
A future historian will face a strange paradox when he comes to the
year 1959: in July, he will note, om* Congress and President called
upon the American people to pray for the captive nations; in Septem-
ber those people vv^ere called upon to do honor to the head of the mob
that holds those nations in captivity!
Try to see the Khrushchev visit through the eyes of Hungarians
or Poles or East Germans or through the eyes of our secret allies inside
Russia proper. To them, I repeat, it must look like a bewildering
betrayal by the country to which their hopes are tied.
Mr. Arens. Well now, Mr. Lyons, it is contended that when
Khrushchev, after being dined and wined in the White House and
elsewhere, sees our material wealth and industrial plants, he wUl
change his mind and abandon designs for world conquest, or at least
slow them down. What is your reaction to that contention?
Mr. Lyons. It's a childish fairy tale. The Communists in high
places are perfectly well informed about our material prosperity and
14 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
political freedom. Khrushchev is not coming here to confirm his
knowledge of our strengths, but to feel out our weaknesses. The notion
that he will be impressed by our wealth and liberty to the pomt of
curbing Communist ambitions is political innocence carried to
extremes.
What disturbs me, and many other students of the Communist
realities, is that such fairy tales reflect a dangerous ignorance of the
nature of communism and its objectives. The premise of such non-
sense is that the struggle between the two worlds is not really serious —
just a misunderstanding that can be cleared up if we get the right
people to meet in the right place and say the right words. It assumes
that the cancer can be treated with mustard-plasters of good will.
But it happens, Mr. Arens and gentlemen of the committee, that the
struggle is real, the issues too profound to yield to pleasant talk.
Should some trifling Soviet gesture come from the visit, the kind of
thing we will eagerly label as a concession, the results can be even more
disastrous. In our great joy and relief, we will drop vigilance and
open all roads to easy Communist conquests.
Mr. Arens. I gather that you consider the invitation a mistake?
Mr. Lyons. It begins as a mistake. But if the American people
turn Klu'ushchev's visit into a triumphal march across our continent,
the mistake will become a catastrophe. For one thing, it would be a
signal for all the neutralists so-called, for all the fence-sitters and
doubters, to join the Communist side. For them and for millions of
others, it will confirm the wave-of-the-future view of communism.
Moreover, even for our friends in the free world, it will seem to be
proof of our political immaturity. They will see in it our failure to
grasp the historical process of our times, our pathetic anxiety to find
an easy answer and an alibi for inaction.
The Soviet empire — 900 million strong, subjugated and led by some
33 million Communists — is totally and irrevocably committed to one
Communist world. They are engaged in a war, whether there is
shooting and bombing or not, which they could not abandon without
ceasing to be Communists. A momentary retreat for purely tactical
reasons is conceivable. But it would be utterly meaningless, since it
w^ould leave the larger struggle unresolved. In the final analysis it
would boomerang against us by lulling us into a false sense of safety.
Mr. Arens. What is your estimate of the phrase we hear so much
these days, "reducing tensions"?
Mr. Lyons. The Communists don't want to reduce them. Since
every one of those tensions is of their own manufacture, they could
reduce or eliminate them at will. On the contrary, they need those
tensions — that's why they create them in the first place.
And from our own angle, the illusion of reduced tensions could be
fatal. What we need is a greater awareness of those tensions and
their implications, to the point where we will have no alternative but
to acknowledge them and to deal with them courageously. One can
lessen pain by taking a sedative, but it leaves the disease itself un-
touched. Our present eagerness to find sedatives condemns us to
suffering the unchecked ravages of the disease of world communism,
Mr, Arens. Would you care to express yourself with respect to
the other side of the coin, namely, the visits of free-world leaders to
the Ki'cmliu?
THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 15
Mr. Lyons. !My view is implicit in what I have said about the
permanent civil war between the rulers and the ruled in the Com-
munist world. The fact that a President of the United States or a
Prime Minister of Great Britain makes the journey to Moscow can
bring only heartbreak and despair to those who dream of freedom.
The spectacle of top leaders of the free world in the role of guests of
despots and killers must shake the faith of our secret friends and
allies in our professions of freedom and justice. In the present case,
the very fact that the President has so long avoided this type of ex-
change, despite Moscow's m-ging, has placed a higher value on it.
The fact that he has finally consented, despite the arrogance and
intransigeance of Khrushchev, gives it every appearance of an act
of despPwir, of a capitulation.
Mr. Aeens. Based on your background and experience as a student
of international communism, tell this committee, Mr. Lyons, how
late it is now on the Communist timetable for world domination.
Mr. Lyons. Later, much later, than most people think. I recall
talldng to audiences before the last war. When I said that the Com-
munists are aiming to dominate the world, I am sm-e my listeners
thought I was exaggerating, indulging in rhetoric. Yet here we are,
so soon after as history runs, with one-thu'd of the human race already
in the Communist straitjacket! With extensions of Communist
power, through its parties and false-fronts and imdergrounds, deep
in the flesh of every other nation, whether free or neutral or un-
committed!
Only the blind can fail to see how fast Asia and Africa are being
subverted, where they cannot be taken by frontal assault. Only the
deluded can fail to see the contagion spreading in Latin America, in
the Near East, in Indonesia, and nearly everywhere else.
Timetable? I doubt that the Ivi-emlin has one in any literal sense.
All that it is doing, however, was clearly planned and publicly an-
nounced in Communist documents these 40 years and more. They
dared to make their plans public because they counted on our refusal
to believe them. Even yet we kid om'selves with fantasies about
live-and-let-live agreements, though our doom is clearly spelled out
in Communist resolutions.
The Communists do not need physically to take over the world in
order to control and exploit it. They merely need to isolate then-
main opponent, the United States, to the point where we have to take
orders from Moscow — or else. They prefer to take over the industrial
complex developed in freedom by fre'e men intact, rather than in a
heap of nuclear rubble.
Mr. Aeens. Mr. Lyons, you have, in my humble judgment,
diagnosed the disease and revealed our fallacies in our attempts to
treat the disease. What remedy do you suggest?
Mr. Lyons. I wish I had an easy remedy to prescribe. Those I see
are the opposite of easy. They call for a complete revision of our
thinking on the subject and, then, a readiness for sacrifice and risk.
There can, as I view it, be no hope of saving our world until we have
a clear-headed understanding of the character and the permanence of
the Communist challenge. Then we will gi-asp that the struggle is
not subject to compromise — that the Communists are right when they
insist that one or the other of the contending worlds must be totally
16 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
defeated and, as Khrushchev put it, "buried." Only on the basis of
such understanding can we begin to develop a strategy for protracted
conflict of our own.
We will then cease to regard every new crisis as a separate challenge,
but will deal with it as a part of the all-embracing struggle. What's
more, we will confront the enemy with crises instead of waiting inertly
until the next threat comes. We will carry the cold war to the
Communist orbit and not, as now, limit it always to our side of the
curtains.
Above all, we will then renounce the consolations of wishful thinking
and patent-medicine cures. We will know at last that the contest
between freedom and slavery is too big to be resolved with a little
good will, some exchanges of visits, settlements that settle nothing
because they leave the underlying struggle unafi'ected.
Mr. Arens. Perhaps some other leader, coming after Khrushchev,
will find what has been called a modus vivendi?
Mr. Lyons. I have never joined in the journalistic parlor game of
musical chairs in the Kremlin, or "who will succeed whom?" The
differences between Comrade X or Comrade Y may affect the trim-
mings of the permanent conflict but not its historical essence.
I believe that we would be essentially in the same position if
Malenkov, Bcria, or Molotov were dictator instead of Khrushchev.
The Communist machine is by this time too strong to depend on the
personality of its operator.
Our strange preoccupation with personalities has tended to obscure
the reality of the continuing menace. It reflects a desperate hope of
some miracle that will relieve us of the unpleasant necessity of facing
up to the challenge. That soporific hope, indeed, explains our re-
peated orgies of illogical optunism.
We indulged in such an orgy in the middle 1930's. It takes an effort
of memory to recall that nearly everyone then believed that Stalin
was a moderate man, concerned only with industrializing his own
country. He was through, we said, with the nonsense of world revo-
lution. We gave that as our excuse for providing the machines and
the know-how and the trained manpower without which the first
Five- Year Plans would never have taken off the ground.
Mr. Arens. And we had another such orgy, didn't we, in the war
years, when Soviet Russia was listed among the freedom-loving and
peace-loving nations?
Mr. Lyons. Quite so. It was on that assumption that, having
saved the Soviets from defeat at Hitler's hands, we proceeded to turn
over to Stalin all of Eastern Europe and large slices of Asia. Hadn't
he joined the United Nations? Hadn't he gone along with our
rhetoric of Four Freedoms? As compensation to Russia for remain-
ing a good member of the family of nations, we handed over to Com-
munist slavery more than a hundred million East Europeans, including
some who had been our gallant allies.
After the death of Stalin there was another major orgy of optimism.
Who can recall without blushing our excitement and joy over the
supposed New Look and Smiling Diplomacy?
Today, alas, we are once more riding a tide of self-induced optimism.
And now, as then, the only certainties arc disappointment, frustration,
defeat by default.
Mr. Arens. You, I take it, are not among the optimists?
THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV 17
Mr, Lyons. I have said nothing today that I have not, in one form
or another, said before or written in books and articles. In the nature
of the case I have been branded a pessimist, lacking faith in our
country and civilization. I suppose that the doctor who diagnoses
cancer instead of calling it a pimple is likewise regarded as a pessimist.
! But consider the facts. When I began, in my humble way, to try
to alert my countrymen to the menace of communism about a quarter
of a century ago, there were 170 million people under the iron heel of
communism. Today there are close to a billion. I would say, in all
conscience, that my pessimism has not been entirely unjustified.
Mr. Arens. Are there not, Mr. Lyons, any encouraging elements
in the otherwise gloomy picture?
Mr. Lyons. I believe there are.
Mr. Arens. What, for instance?
Mr. Lyons. One, in my judgment, is that the American people do
instinctively recognize the natm-e of the Communist threat. I have
had occasion in the past year to address audiences in several parts of
the country, people fau'ly close to the grassroots of their communi-
ties. They seemed to understand the Communist challenge more
dearly, with less self-delusion, than those in positions of power in our
own country and other free nations.
I believe, therefore, that if we are fortunate enough to find leaders
with the courage and clear-headedness necessary to deal with the
Communist challenge, the people will follow them.
Mr, Arens. I, too, have met such audiences and agi-ee with your
judgment. What other element of hope do you see?
Mr. Lyons. The primary fact, if only we acknowledged it and used
it, is that after 40 years of absolute power, during which the Soviet
regime applied unlimited physical and mental terror, it has failed to
achieve what the political scientists call "legitimacy." The regime,
that is to say, cannot, like normal governments, count on the auto-
matic allegiance and obedience of its subjects.
Those of om* countrymen who announce, after a two- or four-week
tour of Russia, that its people are firmly behind its dictatorship, have
yet to explain why the Kremlin continues to depend on force and
incessant propaganda, rather than on the free consent of the people.
Why, if the people support the regime, is there need for maintaining
history's largest and most ruthless secret-police establishment? Wliy
does the Kremlin continue to make it a capital crime for its supposedly
loyal citizens to try to leave the country without permission? Why,
if the people are already sold on it, does the regime continue to train
and support literally hundreds of thousands of full-time "agitators"
to sell the system?
Even a totalitarian government does not assign major portions of
its budget, manpower, brains, and energy to internal secm-ity unless
it feels itself seriously insecure. One can judge an ailment from the
medicine; and in Soviet Russia the medicine, in this the forty-second
year of Soviet dictatorship, is still terror, intimidation, and unlimited
thought control.
Mr. Arens. Do I detect in what you've said some skepticism about
the reports on Russia being brought home by American tom'ists to
that country?
Mr. Lyons. Skepticism is a mild word for how I feel a,bout it.
Now and then, of course, the tourist does bring back some fragments
18 THE CRIMES OF KHRUSHCHEV
of truth, especially in relation to his own field of competence. But
these morsels are few and far between. Besides, the home folks can
hardly be expected to separate the rare grains of truth from the
mountain of chaff.
In the forthcoming October issue of The Reader's Digest I have an
article entitled "One Trip to Russia Doesn't Make an Expert." I ex-
press my judgment that the new surge of tourist traffic to the U.S.S.R.
is confusing, rather than clarifying, our image of that country. Tlie
most mischievous of the findings of these quickie experts, as I see it,
is to the eft'ect that the Soviet peoples have come to love their chains.
Even if the finding were true, a few days or weeks in Russia would
hardly suffice to prove it. I venture to say that the same people,
had they visited Hungary and Poland in the year or two before the
uprisings in those countries, ^vould not have become aw\are of the
coming events. In a police state the explosive stuff of popular dis-
content is always deep under the surface. I can testify from close-up
experience that it takes years of living among the Kremlin's helpless
subjects to begin to sense how they really feel.
Mr. Arens. Would you sum up briefly your judgment of Khru-
shchev and his impending visit?
Mr. Lyons. I'll try. In the first place, the new Soviet boss,
despite his homespun exterior, is one of the bloodiest tyrants extant.
He has come to power over mountains of corpses. Those of us who
roll out red carpets for him will soon have red faces.
In the second place, the exchange of visits between the heads of
the two governments, even if it brings a few seemingly positive results
on the margins of the struggle, must prove deeply harmful to the
core of that struggle. It comes close to an acknowledgment of the
permanence of the Communist grabs and undermines the spirit of
resistance inside the Communist world.
In the third place, and perhaps most importantly, the great ex-
pectations aroused by the exchange reveal the tragic failure of West-
ern statesmen to recognize the character and the magnitude of the
Communist challenge.
Mr. Walter. Thank you very much, Mr. Lyons.
(Thereupon, at 3:05 p.m., Friday, Septe"aber 4, 1959, the consul-
tation was concluded.)
INDEX.
Individuals Page
Beria (Lavrenti) 8, 10, 16
Bialer, Sewervn 12
Eisenhower (Dwight D.)- 12, 13, 15
Hitler (Adolf) 1, 10, 16
Kaganovieh, Lazar 7, 8
Khrushchev, Nikita 1-3, 6-18
Lenin (V. I.) 9, 11
Lyons, Eugene 1-3, 5-18 (statement)
Malenkov (Georgi) 8, 16
Maleter (Pal) 1, 10
Mao Tse-tung__ 11
Molotov (V. M.) 8, 16
Nagy (Imre) 1, 10
Nasser (Gamal Abdel) 12
Schmid, Karl 8
Serov, Ivan 10.
StaUn (Josef) 1, 6-10, 12, 16
Strausz-Hup6, Robert 11
Trotsky (Leon) _ 11
Zhuko V, Georgi - 8
Organizations
Communist Party, Soviet Union:
Central Committee 7
Moscow Province Pa'ty 7
Politburo. 7
Communist Party, Ukraine 7
Header's Digest, The (magazine) 1, 5
o ^
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