Khrushchev Goes to Hollywood

Wanted to pass along a rich historical account of Nikita Khruschev's visit to Hollywood in 1959. The article does a great job setting the scene in 1950s America, but I find it entertaining mostly because the situation is so ridiculous. It is surprising to me that Khrushchev toured the US at all, so banter between Khrushchev and Dean Martin or Marilyn Monroe reads like really creative historical fiction.

Twentieth Century Fox had invited Khrushchev to watch the filming of Can-Can, a risqué Broadway musical set among the dance hall girls of fin de siècle Paris, and he had accepted. It was an astounding feat: a Hollywood studio had persuaded the communist dictator of the world's largest nation to appear in a shameless publicity stunt for a second-rate musical. The studio sweetened the deal by arranging for a luncheon at its elegant commissary, the Café de Paris, where the great dictator could break bread with the biggest stars in Hollywood. But there was a problem: only 400 people could fit into the room, and nearly everybody in Hollywood wanted to be there.

"One of the angriest social free-for-alls in the uninhibited and colorful history of Hollywood is in the making about who is to be at the luncheon," Murray Schumach wrote in the New York Times.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Nikita-in-Hollywood.html