Did Nikita Khrushchev bang his shoe at the UN? The Cold War mystery of 1960

A historian wrote that he had adopted the view that Khrushchev’s shoe was not only brandished but also banged.

A Soviet leader, a Philippine delegate who challenged him, and a shoe that may or may not have struck a desk. At the height of Cold War tensions, a heated United Nations debate on October 12, 1960, produced one of the organisation’s most debated episodes.

Nikita Khrushchev, then First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Nikita Khrushchev travelled to New York at the height of the Cold War. During the 902nd plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly, held on October 12, the Soviet leader indicated that he wanted to raise a point of order over the way Philippine delegation head Lorenzo Sumulong had referred to the Soviet Union.

Sumulong had criticised Moscow over its treatment of people in Eastern Europe, referring to “the peoples of Eastern Europe and elsewhere which have been deprived of the free exercise of their civil and political rights and which have been swallowed up, so to speak, by the Soviet Union”.

Khrushchev quickly came to the rostrum and, in a theatrical gesture, brushed Sumulong aside with an upward motion of his right arm, without physically touching him. He then launched into a lengthy denunciation of the Philippine delegate, calling him, among other things, “a jerk, a stooge, and a lackey”, and a “toady of American imperialism”.

He also demanded that Assembly President Frederick Boland of Ireland call Sumulong to order.

Boland cautioned Sumulong to “avoid wandering out into an argument which is certain to provoke further interventions”. However, he allowed the Philippine delegate to continue speaking and sent Khrushchev back to his seat.

The shoe that made history

Sculpture of the incident in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

According to a report by The New York Times correspondent Benjamin Welles, Khrushchev removed his right shoe, stood up and brandished it at the Philippine delegate before banging it on his desk.

But not everyone present remembered it that way.

James Feron, another New York Times correspondent who attended the meeting but did not write a report on the incident, disputed the claim that Khrushchev struck the desk with his shoe. In an interview in 2002, Feron recalled: “I actually saw Khrushchev not bang his shoe.”

According to Feron, Khrushchev “leaned over, took off a slip-on shoe, waved it pseudomenacingly, and put it on his desk, but he never banged his shoe.”

Eyewitnesses, different memories

Other recollections added to the confusion rather than settling it.

A KGB general remembered Khrushchev banging the shoe rhythmically, “like a metronome”. A UN staffer offered a different explanation for how the shoe came off: she claimed a journalist had stepped on Khrushchev’s heel, causing it to fall off. She said she later passed the shoe to the Soviet leader wrapped in a napkin, after which he did bang it, according to The New York Times.

Viktor Sukhodrev, Khrushchev’s interpreter, remembered the Soviet leader pounding the desk with his fists so hard that his watch stopped. Irritated that a “capitalist lackey” had effectively broken a good watch, Khrushchev then took off his shoe and began banging it, according to Sukhodrev’s account.

The conflicting recollections have kept the incident alive as a historical puzzle: was the shoe actually used to pound the desk, or did the story grow more dramatic with time?

A historian weighs in

In his 2003 biography of Khrushchev, American scholar William Taubman examined the episode after interviewing eyewitnesses. Acknowledging the conflicting accounts, Taubman wrote that he had adopted the view that Khrushchev’s shoe was not only brandished but also banged.

However, eyewitness testimony has never fully settled the debate. The accounts differ not only on whether the shoe hit the desk, but also on the sequence of events.

The meeting ends in chaos

Khrushchev at a meeting of the UN General Assembly on 22 September, three weeks before the incident.

The shoe was not the only dramatic episode at the meeting.

Sumulong’s speech was interrupted again when Romanian foreign vice-minister Eduard Mezincescu, a member of the Eastern Bloc, raised another point of order. He delivered his own angry denunciation of Sumulong before turning on Boland. His provocations and insults continued until his microphone was shut off, prompting shouts and jeers from Eastern Bloc delegations.

The chaotic scene ended when Boland abruptly declared the meeting adjourned and slammed his gavel, known as Thor’s gavel, so hard that it broke, sending its head flying.