US Presidency
1988

For example, whatever the Khrushchev era may or may not have represented in Soviet internal politics, we know how aspirations for greater freedom were crushed in Poland and Germany and, even more bloodily, in Hungary. We also saw the construction of the Berlin Wall. We saw Cuba become an active client state, a client state spreading subversion throughout Latin America and bringing the entire world to the brink of war with the missiles of October. And let me assure you, Mr. Khrushchev gave no speeches at the U.N. like that recently given by Mr. Gorbachev. As one British U.N. official said about Khrushchev appearances there: We were never quite sure whether it was, indeed, Mr. Khrushchev's shoe being used to pound the Soviet desk or whether Mr. Gromyko's shoe had been borrowed or whether there was an extra shoe kept under the Soviet podium especially for banging purposes. Now, all of this was hardly encouraging for the growth of freedom and the path to peace.