Post #286188 by PremEx on Fri, Feb 16, 2007 10:03 PM

My boss tells me that Nikita Krushchev went there [Trader Vic's] after watching the filming of Can Can

I just spent some time trying to help out in this regards by doing various internet searches. Couldn't come up with any direct evidence of Khrushchev visiting Trader Vic's while in Los Angeles (he was only here for the one afternoon and night).

It's clear that he had lunch at 20th Century Fox, where much of the Disneyland flap manifested itself. He then was limo'd off to the San Fernando Valley to look at some new housing developments, where he was still so pissed off that he refused to leave the car. :)

It then appears he attended an official civic dinner of some sort, where a lot more fireworks took place. From official (now declassifed) State Department reports to the President of the United States, at the time:

During the first part of his trip an accumulation of irritants (occasional recurrence of critical questions, statements made by American speakers regarding the US which he considered critical of the USSR by implication, refutation by them of critical points regarding the US that he had previously made, the cool reception he was getting from the crowds along his route, security measures which prevented him from mingling with the public and which in any event he probably considered excessive and humiliating), in combination with his own growing fatigue and certain specific incidents during his stay in Los Angeles, led to a threatening display of his anger at the Los Angeles civic dinner given him on the evening of September 19./4/

/4/See footnotes 1 and 2, Document 119.

The Los Angeles irritants included a one-line speech of greeting at the airport by Mayor Poulson (Khrushchev put aside a prepared text and gave an equally brief reply),/5/ the absence of the public from the airport ceremony, a report that the local police authorities would be unable to assure his security if he visited Disneyland, the sparsity of crowds along his routes through the city (which had not been announced), a rather undignified public polemical discussion with Spyrous Skouras at the 20th Century Fox luncheon/6/ (where Khrushchev publicly complained about the Disneyland matter), and the tasteless display put on for his benefit by the cast of "Can Can."

That evening at the civic dinner Khrushchev took violent issue with a relatively inoffensive speech made by the mayor by insulting him, threatening to go home, threatening a renewal and implied intensification of the cold war, boasting of the USSR's serial production of ICBM's, etc. Even in this angriest of his performances, Khrushchev, however, continued to praise the President, contrasting his realistic and courageous attitude with those who, he claimed, failed to understand the seriousness of the alternatives facing the world (which he variously described as war and peace and as detente and a dangerous continuation of the cold war). Mme Khrushcheva later stated privately that her husband "completely lost his temper in Los Angeles" and attributed his tactions to fatigue./7/

The above from the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian Vol. X, Part 1, FRUS, 1958-60: E. Europe Region; Soviet Union; Cyprus

After this civic dinner, reports are that an upset, frustrated, and fatigued Khrushchev retreated directly to his suite at the Ambassador Hotel. The next morning he departed the hotel directly to Union Station and boarded a train to head north on the rest of his west coast tour.

These reports go into great detail about most of Mr. Khrushchev's day in Los Angeles, and there is no mention of Trader Vic's anywhere. That's not to say that he might not have gone there. But on the surface it sounds to me like he did not.

There is mention of a complete "three-page summary of arrangements, itinerary, and the general course of Khrushchev's visit to the United States"...but I have been unable to locate it online.

On a more humorous note (not that the above isn't pretty darn funny in and of itself :wink:)...I did find these two little gems elsewhere while searching. Though neither may be the kind of cultural "ammunition" you're looking for. :wink:

The first is from the infamous Eustace Tilley...the fictional top-hatted, debonair dandy and mascot of the New Yorker magazine, whose character writes of how Trader Vic's and a Scorpion Bowl there, practically saved him from being whacked by Charles Manson's followers!

I had some close calls in the sixties, which, as you may know, was a time of great upheaval and confusion. I was nearly garroted by drug mad hippies who went on a killing spree in the Hollywood Hills in 1969. Earlier that night, I had been at a wonderful gathering at Trader Vic's where I met a Polish fellow named Frykowski who invited me up to his friend and fellow Pollack Roman Polanski's place on Cielo Drive for some grass and skinny dipping.

At the time this appealing invitation was proffered, I was trying to coax Capucine and a go-go girl I'd met on Sunset into a threesome using a Scorpion Bowl slightly smaller than the Sargasso Sea and I transposed the numbers in Polanski's address. Good thing I did, or I might've been mutilated like all those poor, beautiful people. I also might not have bedded Capucine and the dancer—I think her name was Aurora—on the big circular bed in Omar Sharif's guest house.

While that's pure fiction...I think it does provide evidence of Trader Vic's Beverly Hills important place in the popular culture...all the way in New York City! :wink:

The second piece is apparently completely true...though perhaps nothing necessarily to be proud about as something historically important (well...except perhaps to us here on Tiki Central :wink:). It's an entry from a Marilyn Monroe datebook/timeline:

2 June 62 Celebrates her birthday with Frank Sinatra at Trader Vic’s and gets quite drunk

Sorry. Best I could research and come up with, sober. :)

[ Edited by: PremEx 2007-02-16 22:16 ]