page_title: Nikita Khrushchev
section_title: Early relations and U.S. visit (1957–1960)
hierarchical_section_title: Nikita Khrushchev / Leader (1953–1964) / Foreign and defense policies / United States and allies / Early relations and U.S. visit (1957–1960)
caption_attribution_description: English: Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev pats high milk producer Impgodo Alice, national 9-year old class leader in the U. S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) prize Holstein-Friesian dairy herd. Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson and U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge (left) look on. The dairy herd was one of the exhibits shown to the Premier during his visit September 16, 1959 to the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Center in Beltsville, Maryland. During his visit to the ARS Center, Premier Khrushchev learned how USDA’s dairy breeding experiment increased the annual production of milk by 15 percent and butterfat by 34 percent in eight generations. Photo courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration.
context_page_description: Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and as chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
  Khrushchev was born in 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, in western Russia, close to the present-day border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth, and he was a political commissar during the Russian Civil War. With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalin's purges, and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern the Ukrainian SSR, and he continued the purges there.
context_section_description: Khrushchev sought to find a lasting solution to the problem of a divided Germany and of the enclave of West Berlin deep within East German territory. In November 1958, calling West Berlin a "malignant tumor", he gave the United States, United Kingdom and France six months to conclude a peace treaty with both German states and the Soviet Union. If one was not signed, Khrushchev stated, the Soviet Union would conclude a peace treaty with East Germany. This would leave East Germany, which was not a party to treaties giving the Western Powers access to Berlin, in control of the routes to the city. This ultimatum caused dissent among the Western Allies, who were reluctant to go to war over the issue. Khrushchev, however, repeatedly extended the deadline.
  Khrushchev sought to sharply reduce levels of conventional weapons, and to defend the Soviet Union with missiles. He believed that without this transition, the huge Soviet military would continue to eat up resources, making Khrushchev's goals of improving Soviet life difficult to achieve. He abandoned Stalin's plans for a large navy in 1955, believing that the new ships would be too vulnerable to either conventional or nuclear attack. In January 1960, he took advantage of improved relations with the U.S. to order a reduction of one-third in the size of Soviet armed forces, alleging that advanced weapons would make up for the lost troops. While conscription of Soviet youth remained in force, exemptions from military service became more and more common, especially for students.
  Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko argue that Khrushchev decided that Mutual assured destruction (MAD) policies that facilitated nuclear war were too dangerous to the Soviet Union. His approach did not greatly change his foreign policy or military doctrine but is apparent in his determination to choose options that minimized the risk of war. The Soviets had few operable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); in spite of this, Khrushchev publicly boasted of the Soviets' missile programs, stating that Soviet weapons were varied and numerous. The First Secretary hoped that public perception that the Soviets were ahead would put psychological pressure on the West resulting in political concessions. The Soviet space program, which Khrushchev firmly supported, appeared to confirm his claims when the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 into orbit, a launch many westerners, including U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon, were convinced was a hoax. When it became clear that the launch was real, and Sputnik 1 was in orbit, Western governments concluded that the Soviet ICBM program was further along than it actually was. Khrushchev added to this misapprehension by stating in an October 1957 interview that the USSR had all the rockets, of whatever capacity, that it needed. 
  For years, Khrushchev would make a point of preceding a major foreign trip with a rocket launch, to the discomfiture of his hosts. In January 1960 Khrushchev told the Presidium that Soviet ICBMs made an agreement with the U.S. possible because "main-street Americans have begun to shake from fear for the first times in their lives". The United States had learned of the primitive state of the Soviet missile program from overflights in the late 1950s, but only high U.S. officials knew of the deception. The general U.S. and public perception of a "missile gap" led to a considerable defense buildup on the part of the United States.
  During Vice President Nixon's visit to the Soviet Union in 1959 he and Khrushchev took part in what later became known as the Kitchen Debate. Nixon and Khrushchev had an impassioned argument in a model kitchen at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, with each defending the economic system of his country.
  Nixon invited Khrushchev to visit the United States, and he agreed. He made his first visit to the United States, arriving in Washington, DC on 15 September 1959, and spending thirteen days in the country. This first visit by a Soviet premier to the United States resulted in an extended media circus. Khrushchev brought his
caption: Khrushchev with Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson (left of Khrushchev) and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge (far left) during his visit on 16 September 1959 to the Agricultural Research Service Center
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