Events mark Khrushchev’s 1959 Iowa visit
By NIGEL DUARA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
IOWA CITY - Iowa briefly became the warmest spot in the Cold War 50 years ago, when a farmer from Coon Rapids and the leader of the Soviet Union talked corn and farm equipment.
Iowans and Russians will mark the anniversary of that visit in 1959 with speeches at Drake University on Thursday followed by three days of events, including a conference and banquet.
Participants will look back at Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev's two-day stay in Iowa during a 13-day journey through the United States that included time in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Camp David. And they will look forward to improved relations between the U.S. and Russia.
''We think this is a good time to make a gesture of friendship and how much we value our long history of interactions and positive relations with the Russians,'' said event director Rachel Garst. ''Sometimes, person-to-person contact is a good way to get people talking.''
A conference on ''Feeding a Hungry World'' will begin Friday afternoon at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, and a public banquet will include the same menu served to Khrushchev in 1959. Among the high-profile attendees expected are U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Sen. Chuck Grassley and Khrushchev's son Sergei, now a professor at Brown University.
Garst's grandfather, Roswell Garst, is credited with helping jump start the agricultural relationship between the two countries, first by selling corn seed to the Soviets in 1955.
Khrushchev hosted Garst in 1955 at his vacation home on the coast of the Black Sea. They discussed corn production, raising livestock and increasing trade between the nations.
Khrushchev's visit to Des Moines and Garst's farm near Coon Rapids in September 1959 was prompted by the success of their early face-to-face meetings.
''(Garst) was a true evangelist for the agricultural revolution,'' Rachel Garst said. ''He passionately believed increased food production would bring world peace.''
In 1959, Cold War tensions were building. Khrushchev had already formed the Warsaw Pact among Eastern Bloc countries, and the Soviet Union violently put down an attempted rebellion in Hungary in 1956. By the time of Khrushchev's visit, Fidel Castro was in power in Cuba, only 90 miles south of the U.S.
Khrushchev's trip to the U.S. attracted huge media attention, in large part because of his unusual comments and actions - like the time in Des Moines he ran a Geiger counter over a hot dog to check for radiation
The two men's meeting in western Iowa drew hundreds of reporters and plenty of security, as National Guardsmen manned the roadways onto the Garst farm. Dozens of reporters and photographers trailed the two men as they toured the farm, prompting Garst to angrily toss a handful of cattle feed at photographers.
As part of the weekend events, a dedication will be held marking the Garst farm's entry into the National Register of Historic Places.
Stanley Johnson, a former Iowa State professor who has studied and written extensively on U.S.-Russian agricultural trade, said Garst didn't organize the trip to America - or his own visits to the Soviet Union - to encourage capitalism.
''Roswell Garst really didn't have a political agenda,'' Johnson said. ''They were trying to show the Russians better technologies, and to transfer these technologies.''
Khrushchev was enamored with the idea that corn would answer his country's hunger problems. He made waves in the U.S. when in a 1955 speech he proposed forming an Iowa corn belt in the Soviet Union.
In hindsight, Khrushchev's visit didn't yield any major policy reforms. His unwavering belief in the power of corn to feed his nation's hungry never panned out - the soil and climate in the Asian steppes weren't right for it.
