Russians pin high hopes on Khrushchev trip

MOSCOW, Sept. 15, 1959 (UPI) Ordinary Russians acted today as if they expected wonders from Premier Nikita Khrushchev's visit to America.

Newspapers bulged with articles expressing the highest hopes for Khrushchev's talks with President Eisenhower and his cross-country look at the target for Russia's seven-year economic plan.

The government newspaper Izvestia said millions of persons in all countries backed Khrushchev in his plan to wash away "the hoar frost of the cold war." It said no ambassador had ever enjoyed such boundless support.

There were new warnings that the world's problems cannot be solved at one fell swoop, but citizens in the streets of Moscow remained hopeful the pilgrimage will be the beginning of a cold war thaw.

For them it was an intensely personal thing. A cold war thaw would let them go ahead with their plans to catch up with the United States in living standards.

Dozens of newspaper cartoons showed a Soviet pennant or flag stuck on the moon alongside pictures of Khrushchev's Washington-bound aircraft.

Much of the optimism came from Soviet correspondents in the U.S.

Two special correspondents for Izvestia said millions of Americans "are literally holding their breaths" in expectation of the visit.

They realize "the time has come for all sober-minded people in the U.S.A. to gather their forces so as to ensure a break from the cold war towards a stable peace and genuine security for the peoples of the U.S.A. and the world," the dispatch said.

Diplomats here already were calling the trip a "victory voyage" marking Khrushchev's success in getting the longed-for talks with President Eisenhower and the Russian moon strike.

Radio Moscow said it was true Khrushchev had "not infrequently" been at odds with Eisenhower but the truth is Khrushchev has the "warmest" feeling for the President.

The fourth in a series of glowing "profiles" on the Soviet leader broadcast by Radio Moscow departed from the generally sweetness-and-light tone of the others to admit that the path the two world leaders have trod has not always been strewn with roses.

This, of course, was never the fault of Khrushchev, Radio Moscow intimated.

"Nikita Khrushchev has not infrequently entered into polemics with Dwight D. Eisenhower, always speaking frankly and openly in such cases, seeking to delineate his point of view with the utmost lucidity," it said.

But Khrushchev "has retained the warmest recollections of his meetings with President Eisenhower in Geneva," it said.