Table Of ContentNUNC COGNOSCO EX PARTE
THOMAS J. BATA LI BRARY
TRENT UNIVERSITY
KHRUSHCHEV
REMEMBERS
The Last Testament
KHRUSHCHEV
REMEMBERS
The Last Testament
Translated and Edited by
Strobe Talbott
With a Foreword by
Edward Cranks haw
and an Introduction by
Jerrold L. Schecter
Illustrated with Photographs
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY • BOSTON • TORONTO
Thomas J. Bala Library
TRENT UNIVERSITY
PETERBOROUGH, ONTARIO
JVC 2 75 ./<5/93 2.6
COPYRIGHT © 1974 bv Little, Brown and Company (Inc.)
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED
IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS IN¬
CLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT
PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER
WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.
SECOND PRINTING
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 74-4095
T 06/74
PICTURE CREDITS
Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs
are from the Life Picture Collection.
Published simultaneously in Canada
by Little, Brown d~ Company (Canada) Limited
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Foreword
by EDWARD CRANKS HAW
I
N my introduction to the first volume of the Khrushchev memoirs I
described how my initial skepticism about their authenticity was
quickly overcome, even though I had nothing to go on but a Russian
typescript. It was clear enough that this typescript must have been
transcribed from a series of tape recordings made by Khrushchev in
retirement at different times and in different moods. Later this sup¬
position was confirmed, and I was assured that at some future time
these tapes would be made accessible to Western scholars.
Now this time has arrived, sooner than I expected; and the original
batch of tapes has been augmented by enough new material to make
a second volume. What is more, all the tapes have been subjected to
the ingenious process known as voiceprinting, analagous to finger¬
printing, and have passed the test. (Mr. Schecter describes the pro¬
cess in his introduction to this volume.) My own conviction of the
genuineness of these memoirs needed no support from scientific de¬
vices, though it is gratifying to have it. The manner is Khrushchev s
manner and the content is perfectly in character.
When the first volume appeared, there was a good deal of con¬
troversy but less downright rejection of it as a forgery than I had ex¬
pected. I was interested and pleased to find in the ensuing weeks
and months that in spite of Khrushchev’s own formal disavowal
(which, in the circumstances, was inevitable) the genuineness of the
material was immediately accepted by diplomats and politi¬
cians — not just in Western Europe and America but also in Eastern
Europe — who had had direct dealings with Khrushchev and knew
Foreword
VI
him best. There were a few serious dissenters among professional
sovietologists, though some of these later changed their minds. But
most of the objections came from those caught up by such strong
preconceptions that they rejected the memoirs, as it were, on princi¬
ple. Apart from one well-known journalist who argued passionately
and at length that the whole narrative had been fabricated by a spe¬
cial team of fakers operating within the American CIA, the general
line of the objectors was that it had been produced to confuse and
mislead by the department of the Soviet KGB responsible for what is
known as disinformation. As one who has spent over a quarter of a
century surrounded, indeed positively bombarded, by Soviet misin¬
formation of every conceivable kind, I am the last to underrate the
talents of the KBG. The trouble is that there is nothing in these
memoirs calculated to serve any purpose other than the obvious
ones. They offer a reminder of Stalin’s crimes (or some of them) at a
time when these are being played down by the new leadership; and,
above all, they form an apologia for Khrushchev himself.
They are, that is to say, the apologia of a man taken from a very
high plane, deposed, placed under house arrest, cut off from the
world, consigned to oblivion. For ten years this man had dominated
the Soviet Union and held the attention of the world. But so strange,
so alien, are the ways of Soviet Russia that from the moment of his
fall from power in 1964 he was transformed by his former colleagues
(some of whom owed everything to him) into an un-person. He might
never have existed.
Very soon after the publication of Khrushchev Remembers he died.
His death was unpublicized. There was no state funeral. No single
member of the government followed his body to its obscure grave in
Novodevichy Cemetery. He knew this was going to happen. Is it to
be wondered at that he should have sought to salvage his place in
history, to put on record his own version of his forgotten career, to
save what he could of himself from oblivion?
Those who insisted that the memoirs were forged made much of
the inaccuracies and contradictions. I should have been skeptical
indeed had these not proliferated. Khrushchev was a compulsive
chatterbox. In the days of his supremacy his speech was filled with
evasions, distortions, deliberate omissions, contradictions, downright
lies. How could he be expected to change in old age? The present
volume is also full of the same, as the most casual reader will see for
