The fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was allowed into the United States, and was given an audience at a prestigious university, continues to shock the conscience of many of our conservative friends.
Unlike most instances of conservative apoplexy, I sincerely understand the right’s argument on this one. Ahmadinejad is a dangerous despot with radical beliefs. He has contempt for the U.S., has threatened our allies, and abuses his people. I get it.
But Rick Perlstein reminds us of how the American character shined in 1959 when Nikita Khrushchev — considered at the time the most evil and dangerous man on the planet — visited the United States.
Khrushchev disembarked from his plane at Andrews Air Force Base to a 21-gun salute and a receiving line of 63 officials and bureaucrats, ending with President Eisenhower. He rode 13 miles with Ike in an open limousine to his guest quarters across from the White House. Then he met for two hours with Ike and his foreign policy team. Then came a white-tie state dinner. (The Soviets then put one on at the embassy for Ike.) He joshed with the CIA chief about pooling their intelligence data, since it probably all came from the same people — then was ushered upstairs to the East Wing for a leisurely gander at the Eisenhowers’ family quarters. Visited the Agriculture Department’s 12,000 acre research station … spoke to the National Press Club, toured Manhattan, San Francisco … and Los Angeles (there he supped at the 20th Century Fox commissary, visited the set of the Frank Sinatra picture Can Can but to his great disappointment did not get to visit Disneyland), and sat down one more with the president, at Camp David….
It’s not like it was all hearts and flowers. He bellowed that America, as Time magazine reported, “must close down its worldwide deterrent bases and disarm.” Reporters asked him what he’d been doing during Stalin’s blood purges, and the 1956 invasion of Hungary. A banquet of 27 industrialists tried to impress upon him the merits of capitalism. Nelson Rockefeller rapped with him about the Bible.
Had America suddenly succumbed to a fever of weak-kneed appeasement? Had the general running the country — the man who had faced down Hitler! — proven himself what the John Birch Society claimed he was: a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy?
No. Nikita Khrushchev simply visited a nation that had character. That was mature, well-adjusted. A nation confident we were great.
In the post Cold War-era, it’s easy to forget the context, but the USSR was the most dangerous rival the United States had ever seen. And we welcomed Khrushchev with open arms, anxious to show him and the world our greatness.
To be sure, the comparison is inexact. Russia was a global counter-weight; Iran is a regional player. Khrushchev was an official guest of the U.S.; Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University and the U.N.
But the historical analogy holds up anyway. Khrushchev had threatened to erase the United States off the map — and had the power to make it happen. Ahmadinejad denies the reality of butchery and slaughter, but Khrushchev actually orchestrated a few. He appeared quite mad when he went to the U.N., took off his shoe, and pounded it on the podium. He was the nation’s most dangerous foe in the midst of a generational war, and yet, upon his arrival, we showed no fear. Americans had confidence that our way was the right way, and we would not flinch.
In contrast, Ahmadinejad showed up at Columbia for a well-deserved admonishment — he was literally laughed at for his absurdities — and conservatives can barely contain their anxiety. Their collective freak-out suggests insecurities and weakness, as if Ahmadinejad’s mere presence should strike fear into all of us. “Panic! Americans will see how ridiculous Ahmadinejad’s ideas really are! Run for your lives!”
Please. I wasn’t born when Eisenhower welcomed Khrushchev, but I’m old enough to remember that we used to be bigger than we are today.