Khrushchev sent wine to Irish diplomat after shoe incident at UN

It was the most famous shoe-banging in history, and a moment that seemed to symbolise Moscow’s cold war aggression and flouting of diplomatic norms.

Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the Soviet Union’s Communist party, stood at a lectern of the UN general assembly in 1960 and reputedly banged his shoe in fury to hammer home a point.

There was, however, a behind-the-scenes follow-up to the incident that shows the Soviet leader in another light.

Khrushchev bore no grudge against the Irish diplomat who had chaired the session, one of the most contentious in the annals of diplomacy, and in an apparent gesture of conciliation sent him a bottle of Russian wine.

Frederick Boland, Ireland’s first ambassador to the UK and the UN, disclosed the gesture in a note to his chiefs in Dublin, which is due to be published this week in a release of official archives.

After leaving the UN gathering in New York, the Soviet leader dispatched a Russian diplomat called Zorin to the Irish diplomatic mission to “express his regret” for not being able to call and say goodbye, Boland said in his note, according to the Irish Times.

Zorin said Khrushchev was “well satisfied” with Boland’s objectivity as chair of the plenary session and hoped he would continue. “That evening a case of Russian wine was delivered at 1 East End Avenue with his compliments!”

Boland had broken his gavel during the session in a vain effort to impose order after the leader of the Philippine delegation, Lorenzo Sumulong, earned Khrushchev’s ire by denouncing Soviet oppression in eastern Europe.

Accounts differ over whether Khrushchev banged his desk or the rostrum with his shoe, or merely brandished the shoe, while calling Sumulong a lackey of American imperialism. The outburst mortified some colleagues.

His granddaughter Nina said he had removed his shoes earlier because they were new and tight. He was banging his fist on the table when his watch fell off and the “good performer” spotted an opportunity. “He bent down to pick up the watch and saw his empty shoes. How lucky!”

Boland’s anecdote suggests the Soviet leader, shoeless or not, did not want to step on his hosts.

In his note the diplomat called the Soviet leader an enigma. “He is the personification of elemental violence. Moreover, like Hitler, he is power-drunk and a doctrinaire. These dangerous qualities are tempered in his case, however, by an extraordinarily sharp intelligence, a keen sense of humour and, I would say, a good deal of plain humanity. He doesn’t carry his official resentments into his personal relations.”