Word: kosygin
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...plenty of lip service. From Djakarta to Caracas, mobs led by Chinese Communist and other "students" smashed U.S. embassy windows, burned cars, ripped American flags, winged inkpots, and howled for Lyndon Johnson's blood. Back in Moscow after his eleven-day swing through Asia, So viet Premier Aleksei Kosygin at least partly echoed the Peking line; he promised "appropriate" military aid to the North Vietnamese, and his propaganda machine threatened dire consequences unless "American imperialism" withdraws from Indo-China. On the surface at least, the divided Communist giants were closing ranks...
Hastily concluding an "appropriate agreement" to send arms to Hanoi's Ho, Kosygin flew off in his official plane to Peking, where he was greeted at the airport by seven flower girls, eight antiaircraft guns, and Red Chinese Premier Chou Enlai. To top that, Party Boss Mao Tse-tung, who hadn't spoken to a Soviet leader since 1959, was waiting in the sprawling Congress Palace. During a 2½-hour secret session, Kosygin and Mao no doubt talked defense. The New China News Agency even published a photo of them that showed seriousness and mutual dislike...
...Carpet. Though Kosygin had planned to fly home directly from Peking, he suddenly changed his plans and headed for North Korea-a place no Soviet Premier had ever visited before. Despite the short notice, North Korea's Boss Kim II Sung rolled out the Red carpet for his unexpected guest: frenzied crowds waving Soviet flags roared "Mansei! [May you live 10,000 years]" as Kosygin arrived at Pyongyang airport. Kim, a Peking-lining Stalinist who only a month ago rudely rejected an invitation to Moscow, embraced Aleksei warmly. "We consider amity and unity between our two nations most valuable...
...Kosygin did not openly promise aid, but he hit the unity theme while agreeing with Kim that "imperialist provocations" had brought all Communists closer together, added pointedly that Asian Communists are "unanimous in their desire to support the heroic peoples of Viet Nam." As if to tell the West that Kosygin meant business, Moscow put out rumors that Russia was "angry and worried" over the U.S. moves in Viet Nam and even raised the possibility that Moscow might send Soviet pilots to fly the jets it was giving to Hanoi...
...Rents Remain. At week's end it appeared that Kosygin's peregrinations-impromptu as they were-had paid off with a tenuous, temporary and superficial unity within the Communist world. But they did little to serve Moscow's cause in the basic ideological feud with Peking. Neither North Viet Nam's Ho nor North Korea's Kim showed any sign of wanting to attend the March "unity" conference in Moscow, and Mao, for all his seeming cooperation, almost certainly remained opposed to the new Soviet leaders' ideology...