The late General Secretary was full of these anecdotes and insights. There are a few versions of the following story, which Khrushchev appears to have recounted on more than one occasion. This one I recall from about thirty-five years ago, in an account by Yugolslav intellectual Milovan Djilas, who was present during Khrushchev’s talks with Tito in the mid-1950s (the Soviet leader was in Belgrade to heal the rift that had developed between the two countries under Stalin).

During the Third Moscow Conference in October 1943, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (apparently a distant relation* of my late sweetheart V!) invited British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull to dinner at his dacha. Wartime privations notwithstanding, the three diplomats dined well, and over post-prandial drinks the Russian, indicating his pet cat, asked his guests whether they knew the trick of making a cat eat mustard. A friendly wager may have been involved. As the story goes, the American dabbed a bit of mustard on a slice of roast beef and placed this in front of the kitty, which gave him the stink-eye and spurned the treat. Eden concealed the mustard inside a lobe of poached sturgeon, which the creature began to eat until it encountered the vile condiment. Regarding his putative allies with genial scorn, Molotov dipped his hand into the mustard pot, grabbed his pet by the tail and slathered its little kitty rectum with mustard, thereby drawing the desired tongue action.

Ashton will be scandalized, but we already knew that Nice People were not over-represented in Stalin’s Politburo. As I recall the context, Khrushchev retailed this anecdote as illustrative of the national characters embodied by the human principals.

cordially,

*She said "I'd rather it had been the other Scriabin."

..."Molotov" adopted, and is remembered by, a nom de guerre. Let's imagine that revenge resembled something like this.

cordially,