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editorial writer in the world swore that he was going to get himself disinvited to Moscow—and throw away his chances of reelection to boot. Well, they’d been wrong, and he’d arrived here with a stronger hand than if he’d risked nothing at all.
    Looking up at the strange light, he remembered his visit to the Danilovsky Market at this time of day thirteen years ago. Jack Sherwood had been the Secret Service agent, and there’d been plenty for him to worry about, tensions being what they were and no preparations having been made for the appearance. The people in the market had turned out to be friendly, though you would never have known it from the report that ran in
Pravda
. Still, to have made the Soviets’ front page even before facing off with Khrushchev in that crappy kitchen: not bad.
    It’s the work, not the showboating, that matters. For all the good press it got back in the U.S.—that picture of him jabbing his finger toward Khrushchev’s chest had nearly made him president—the ’59 trip had actually been a frustration, because he had nothing to negotiate and no authority to be doing it.
    This time would be different: great things were afoot, and that’s why Rogers had to be kept far away and out of the loop, so he didn’t raise all the candyass niceties and scruples he’d soaked up from threeyears inside State. A few months ago, in Shanghai, they hadn’t let him know about the big communiqué until he was told to sign it. And then he’d nearly loused everything up with his chickenshit objections about Taiwan!
    “Did they feed you all right tonight?” Nixon asked Duncan.
    “Oh, yes, sir.”
    “On that first trip Khrushchev gave us Stalin’s favorite fish for lunch. Made a point of saying so, while he and Mikoyan pretended to be fighting over Mrs. Nixon.”
    Duncan laughed, discreetly, and Nixon remembered—he’d heard it from Ehrlichman—how three years ago Tricia had made this poor guy call the White House from London after Annenberg groped her at a party.
    “Mikoyan?” asked Duncan.
    “Old-timer,” replied Nixon.
    He once more walked on ahead, his mind already off to a different place. He was wishing he had Kissinger here, right now, since the two of them couldn’t really talk privately anywhere except in the limousine. He couldn’t stand, and didn’t trust, the goddamned “babbler” device that was supposed to drown out whatever the electronic eavesdroppers might pick up from conversation in the palace apartments.
    “Let’s go back in,” he told Duncan, who noted the local time—4:51 a.m.—for the log.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Good night,” said Nixon, as they mounted the stairs. It was easier to take them than wait for the elevator, which was probably wired just like the room.
    Bug or no bug, Nixon would never be able to sleep unless he made one call, and so the communications man put it through, at 5:05, after Nixon himself reluctantly turned on the babbler.
    “You’re up late,” he said, instinctively shouting the words because of the distance, the way his old man had always used the telephone. He’d had to remind himself not to do it when talking to Armstrong on the moon. As he heard himself now, he hoped he wouldn’t wake Pat in the next room, though he imagined the czars hadn’t skimped on the plaster.
    “Good morning, Mr. President,” said Colson. “There are a number of us still here at the White House.”
    “Good, good. How did things go with Haig’s backgrounder?” Kissinger’s deputy was supposed to have briefed the Washington press yesterday morning.
    “Fine, better than fine, Mr. President. He excluded the
Times
, just as we’d decided after their damned Haiphong stories, and they
still
had to write a positive page-one piece about the trip. Everybody’s coverage conveys the impression of a serious, determined, imaginative leader.”
    “You should hear Brezhnev,” Nixon responded. “Serious and determined? Yes. Imaginative? I wouldn’t say so. Had