Kitchen debate

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The kitchen debate: Soviet head of state and party leader Nikita Khrushchev and US Vice President Richard Nixon discuss the advantages of communism and capitalism next to an American model kitchen at a US exhibition in Moscow
Nikita Khrushchev (right) with Richard Nixon (1959)

A kitchen debate is an unusual debate between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev in front of an exhibition kitchen .

During the visit to the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959 , which took place as part of a cultural exchange program, the then US Vice President Nixon and the Soviet Prime Minister Khrushchev held an impromptu debate in front of television cameras on July 24th on the advantages and disadvantages of communism and capitalism . Nixon promised Khrushchev that every word he said here would be broadcast uncensored on American television. At the same time, Khrushchev exuberantly held Nixon's hand so tight that he could not free himself from his grip.

The kitchen debate exaggeratedly reflected the Cold War on a personal level.

literature

  • Andreas Möller: The “kitchen debate”. Nixon and Khrushchev in the competition of ideologies. 2003 (Journal article in "Learn History" No. 94)

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