Once in history: how the American flag flew over the Kremlin for nine days

This incredible fact has nothing to do with military operations, but took place just during the so-called Cold War, says Russia Beyond.

Photo: Shutterstock

Only once in history has the US flag flown over the Kremlin. This was not a scene for a movie or someone's cruel joke. The flag was raised by order of the Soviet General Secretary, and for nine days it fluttered in the wind for everyone to see.

Comrade Nixon

In May 1972, the most significant event of political “détente” occurred - a temporary but long-awaited decrease in the degree of aggression between the United States and the Soviet Union. This was the first ever official visit by United States President Richard Nixon to Soviet soil.

This was preceded by a chain of events five years long. In January 1967, the United States and the USSR agreed to work together on the Soyuz-Apollo project - the so-called space handshake between the two powers on a joint manned space flight. In June of the same year, Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin came to the United States, and in December the Institute of the United States and Canada appeared at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, which was subsequently proclaimed a “breeding ground for liberalism.” In 1969, Soviet-American negotiations on strategic arms limitation began in Helsinki, and in September 1971, a hotline was opened between the Kremlin and the White House. In short, the two superpowers were convinced that the nuclear arms race must be ended as soon as possible - and they began to build bridges.

Things have finally come to the first official visit of the US President. The dates and agenda of the negotiations were agreed upon. But at the last moment it was in jeopardy: the day before, the United States had massively shelled the two largest cities in Vietnam - Hanoi and Haiphong. The Soviet reaction was alarming.

Anatoly Chernyaev, a high-ranking official of the international department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, recalled that he was in Brezhnev's office when Prime Minister Kosygin called him with the words: “Look how Nixon has become insolent! You bastard! Listen, Laziness, can we postpone his visit? The bomb will be what you need! " To this Brezhnev objected: "The bomb is a bomb, but who will it hurt more?" Nixon was expected in Moscow on May 22, 1972.

On the subject: Gift with a secret: how the special services of the USSR installed a wiretap in the office of the US ambassador

Flag over the Kremlin with the best view from the window

The distinguished guest at the Vnukovo airport was met by Brezhnev's right hand Nikolai Podgorny, Prime Minister Kosygin and Brezhnev himself.

The Soviet side thought through everything to the smallest detail, paying attention even to such details as the airport should look like. The general secretary demanded that there should be no "holo" at the airfield. As a result, in addition to the officials and the guard of honor from representatives of the three branches of the military, as required by the protocol, a crowd of young people was gathered on the airfield. They decided to refrain from posters with slogans like "Friendship" and "Not to fight, but to trade", they stood only with American and Soviet flags.

From the airport, the motorcade with Nixon headed for the Kremlin along a strictly verified route. As a well-known translator recalled this event, Viktor Sukhodrev, the voice of the USSR in official negotiations with Washington, Leninsky Prospekt and other streets leading to the Kremlin were also decorated with Soviet and American flags.

“True, there were only “enthusiastic” crowds of Muscovites, who were usually assembled according to instructions during meetings of representatives of friendly states. Moreover, even random passers-by were not allowed to the edges of the sidewalks. This was all agreed upon in advance,” wrote Sukhodrev. They settled Nixon in the Kremlin, in an apartment next to the Armory, where they raised the flag of the United States of America for the first time in history.

Nixon, however, seriously drew attention to the desolation of the streets only during a one-day visit to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg): wherever the motorcade passed, he did not even see a random passer-by in any place, and all the adjacent streets were blocked by trucks. And when he returned to Moscow again and went to the Baptist church (which had also been previously agreed upon), he found only young men among those present at the service.

As it turned out later, ordinary parishioners were forbidden to approach the church that day, and only KGB officers in civilian clothes were sent inside. And this is the “least” of the preparation measures: in Moscow, for example, for a better view from Nixon’s apartment, an entire historical residential area was demolished from the Kremlin so that it would not block the panoramic view of the classic 18th-century mansion.

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Nuclear disarmament and Pepsi

Then Richard Nixon spent nine days in Russia. Life in the Kremlin left its imprint: he had to talk to his assistants, avoiding wiretapping, inside the presidential limousine brought from the States. But the visit itself paid off.

On the final day, May 29, Brezhnev and Nixon signed eight important documents, including the ABM Treaty and the SALT-1 Treaty, an agreement on non-interference in each other's internal affairs, and bilateral agreements on cooperation in science, space, medicine and environmental protection.

One of the results of the visit was an agreement between the Soviet government and Pepsico on the construction of a Pepsi-Cola plant near Sochi in exchange for the exclusive right to sell Stolichnaya vodka in the United States. By the way, Coca-Cola also competed for a lucrative contract, but in the USSR since the late 1940s, the brand was a symbol of the "corrupted West", but few people knew about Pepsi then.

Soviet schoolchildren hoped that they would also build a factory for the production of chewing gum, but this did not happen. “Détente” ended in 1979 with the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.

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