To build off of Veena’s post the meeting definitely seemed tense and uncomfortable, especially for Nixon. He was trying to be kind and respectful and very thoughtful of what words he used and Kruschev was very blunt and said what he was thinking. One part that really stuck out to me was at 0:44 when Krushchev starts talking about the US has been around for 150 years and the Soviet Union only 42 years and will soon pass the United States.
I was wondering how the debate and that part, in particular, were interpreted by each countries people. Did the US view Krushchev as disrespectful and did it give them even more of a negative view towards the Soviet Union and did Nixon’s more relaxed passive speech make the Soviet people view the US as weak.
I love the title of this post, Joe. I think that people in the US, at least in the 1950s, expected a sort of “cordiality” from political leaders. They probably thought that Kruschev was rude and barbaric, considering he would be so blunt toward Nixon during the meeting. It definitely did not help the situation between the US and the Soviet Union.