LRB

Vol. 25 No. 16 dated 21 August 2003

Oo, Oo!

Neal Ascherson: Khrushchev the Stalinist

Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman | Free Press, 876 pp,
£25.00

"His personality was horribly deformed; his crimes were unforgivable. And yet his lust for the new was disarming. I will never forget a story Taubman tells about his London visit in 1956. What, he asked his Foreign Office escort, was that odd 'oo, oo!' noise coming from the back of the crowd? The diplomat explained that people were booing, an expression of disapproval. Khrushchev grew thoughtful. In the back of the car, he said experimentally to himself: 'Boo!' And then again: 'Boo!' He liked it. For the rest of the day, he went around exclaiming 'Boo!' to all kinds of puzzled people. He had
learned something."

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n16/asch01_.html