Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story-How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War (79 page)

326
  
“CEMETERY CLOSED FOR CLEANING”:
Fyodorov, “Khrushchev the Liberator.” Fyodorov, an archaeologist and writer, talked his way through several rings of security to get to the graveside.

327
  
“There were those . . . called a man”:
Gwertzman, “Son Lauds Khrushchev.”

327
  
“We remember . . . defense of the party line”:
Ibid.

327
  
“You must disperse now”:
Fyodorov, “Khrushchev the Liberator.”

327
  
“All the rulers” . . . “acted as they did”:
Ibid.

327
  
“Nikita Sergeyevich . . . Russia to his funeral”:
Chelminski, “Quiet Passing of Nikita Khrushchev.”

328
  
“merit pensioner”:
“Friends, Admirers Attend Funeral of Khrushchev.”

328
  
“Mr. Khrushchev opened the doors”:
Harry Schwartz, “Khrushchev: We Know Now That He Was a Giant Among Men,”
NYT
, September 12, 1971.

20: GREAT EXPECTATIONS

329
  
Henry Kissinger sat down opposite . . . Ye Jianying:
Memorandum of Conversation, February 23, 1972, 9:35 a.m., Box 92, HAK Office Files, National Security Council Files, Nixon Presidential Materials Project, NACP.

330
  
Sol Hurok planned:
Roberta Peters, interview with Peter Rosen. Hurok, quoted in “U.S. Stars Due in Soviet at Same Time as Nixon,”
NYT
, May 15, 1972, maintained that the two events had nothing to do with each other. To believe that Van’s first visit to Moscow in seven years just happened to coincide with Nixon’s is to underestimate Hurok’s talent for public relations.

330
  
Nixon’s aide Ron Walker:
Anne Collins Walker recalled the events in “Remembering Van Cliburn,” on
GramAnne
, March 6, 2013, http://gramanne.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/remembering-van-cliburn.html, and in e-mails with the author.

330
  
Nixon’s personal request:
Nixon first discussed the invitation with Bob Haldeman. He gave three reasons: he would get the visit off to a “great start” by doing a “huge favor to the Russians”; since Van was already there, it would save money; and he wanted to back Van after the audience at Carnegie Hall hissed at his rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” OVAL 726–1, May 19, 1972, White House Tapes, RNPL.

331
  
“What happened to you”:
Aschen Mikoyan, interview with the author.

331
  
Roberta Peters was amazed:
Roberta Peters, interview by Peter Rosen.

331
  
“Why did he have to do it so early”:
“Soviet Agent Wakes Cliburn” (AP),
Des Moines Register
, May 25, 1972.

331
  
“It’s hard to recall . . . ‘provincial sentimentality’”:
E. Romadinova, “Define Standards,”
Sovetskaya Muzyka
10 (1972): 77–87. The same pages, though, featured an extremely long and largely glowing appreciation by M. Sokolsky entitled “Van Cliburn and Russian Music.”

332
  
“Cultural exchanges . . . from Washington”:
Max Frankel, “A Reporter’s Notebook: Comparing the Journeys,”
NYT
, May 25, 1972.

333
  
All four . . . had gone home:
Appendix C, President’s Daily Diary, May 26, 1972, RNPL, http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/documents/dailydiary.php. When Brezhnev visited the United States, Nixon made a point of inviting Van and Rildia Bee to the White House dinner and introducing the two men: see “Appendix B” to President’s Daily Diary, June 18, 1973.

334
  
Liu Shikun:
Interview with the author.

334
  
staggering sum of money:
Liu received eight thousand renminbi in compensation for lost salary; the average monthly salary was ten or twenty renminbi. The blame for his imprisonment was pinned on senior leader Lin Bao, who had conveniently died in a plane crash.

335
  
shaking hands:
They still shake today, though it has not affected his piano playing.

335
  
Philadelphia Orchestra:
Francis B. Tenny, “The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 1973 China Tour: A Case Study of Cultural Diplomacy During the Cultural Revolution,”
American Diplomacy
(September 2012), http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2012/0712/fsl/tenny_orchestra.html.

336
  
played a duet:
On March 7, 1974. “You don’t play as well as I sing,” joked Bailey, “but I don’t sing as well as you govern.” When he started on “Home on the Range,” she interrupted: “Mr. President, I wanted to sing a song, not ride a horse.”

336
  
listened to his recordings:
Jerrold Schecter, “The Private World of Richard Nixon,”
Time
, January 3, 1972.

336
  
his favorite piece:
Frank Gannon interview with Richard Nixon, February 9, 1983, part 1; Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, http://www.libs.uga.edu/media/collections/nixon/ohms/index.html.

336
  
“He’s so colorful”:
Conversation with Julie Nixon Eisenhower, WH Telephone 43–142, February 21, 1973, White House Tapes, RNPL.

336
  
“He is our friend . . . for us”:
OVAL 867–16, March 2, 1973, White House Tapes, RNPL.

336
  
upbraided his staff:
OVAL 867–8, March 2, 1973, White House Tapes, RNPL.

337
  
Van virtually adopted him:
John Giordano, interview with the author.

337
  
visited her in the hospital:
Pablo A. Tariman, “Van Cliburn of Imelda’s Splendorous Days,” September 14, 2012, http://verafiles.org/van-cliburn-of-imeldas-splen dorous-days/. Van was also friendly with the Marcos entourage: when he played at the White House for the Golda Meir visit on March 1, 1973, he invited as his guest Romeo Amansec, a Marcos bodyguard. President’s Daily Diary, March 1, 1973, Appendix C, RNPL.

337
  
“the Cliburn line . . . mortals of our time”:
“Minicult Blooming Over Van Cliburn” (AP),
The Capital
(Annapolis, MD), June 15, 1973.

337
  
“Deep in the Heart of Texas”:
Davidson, “Every Good Boy Does Fine.”

338
  
“Only a person” . . . “above his shoes”:
“Clothes Don’t Make the Pianist” (AP),
Kansas City Times
, June 23, 1973.

338
  
“Sonny Boy, I love you”:
Greta Beigel, “Finally, a Return Engagement,”
LA Times
, July 3, 1994.

338
  
lonely figure:
Davidson, “Every Good Boy Does Fine.”

338
  
“To tell you the truth”:
Gary and Naomi Graffman, interview with the author.

338
  
Iris Kones:
Gal Beckerman,
When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), 238–39. The bomb exploded on January 26, 1972; another did so at the CAMI offices, but no one was hurt.

339
  
accompanying Soviet astronauts:
Caption to photo stand-alone,
Guardian
, September 21, 1974.

339
  
“legendary talent”:
“10/2/75—Introduction of Van Cliburn, State Dinner,” Box 17, President’s Speeches and Statements: Reading Copies, GFPL.

339
  
“There are so many” . . . “everyone’s autograph, too”:
Bob Colacello, “The White House’s Dinner Theater,”
Vanity Fair
, June 2010.

340
  
two Soviet entrants:
One, Georgian pianist Alexander Toradze, came second.

340
  
whispered in unguarded moments:
VCG.

341
  
“I’m late”:
Reader’s comment appended to Tim Page, “Van Cliburn, Celebrated Classical Pianist, Dies at 78,”
WP
, February 27, 2013.

341
  
“Don’t worry, honey”:
Mary Lou Falcone, interview with the author, August 22, 2014.

341
  
André Chenier
:
Untitled clipping, VCJA.

341
  
Tom Zaremba:
Davidson, “Every Good Boy Does Fine”; “Palimony suit filed against Van Cliburn” (AP),
Bangor Daily News
, May 1, 1996.

342
  
Van’s stage makeup:
Page, “Van Cliburn Dies at 78.”

342
  
refused to sanction:
Peter Rosen, interview with the author, August 23, 2014.

342
  
“most famous dropout”:
Donal Henahan, “What Makes a Gifted Artist Drop Out in Mid-Career?”
NYT
, August 17, 1986.

342
  
“not terribly good years”:
Arlene Dahl, interview by Peter Rosen.

342
  
“junk”:
Rogers, “Midnight Conversation.” Many of Van’s choicest objects were auctioned at Christie’s on May 17, 2012, and March 4–5, 2014. See James Barron, “For Sale: The Practice Piano That Made Van Cliburn Perfect,”
NYT
, May 16, 2012; Marilyn Bailey, “Items from Van Cliburn’s Estate to Be Auctioned at Christie’s,”
FWS-T
, February 20, 2014; Madigan, “Mementos of the Musician”; “The Van Cliburn Collection,” video recording, http://www.christies.com/features/the-van-cliburn-collection-2283–3.aspx.

342
  
never taking a lease:
Davidson, “Every Good Boy Does Fine.”

343
  
Scotch tape:
Richard Rodzinksi, interview with the author; Michael Kimmelman, “Playing When He Wants, and Remembering,”
NYT
, July 30, 2000.

343
  
“I enjoy flowers as much”:
Davidson, “Every Good Boy Does Fine”; and see Joyce Saenz Harris, “Van Cliburn: Myth and Reality on a Legendary Scale,”
DMN
, May 23, 1993.

344
  
tiny plastic boxes:
Perlmutter, “Long Road Home.”

344
  
Random Harvest
:
Rogers, “Midnight Conversation.”

344
  
sniffing the cantaloupes:
Susan Tilley, interview by Peter Rosen, Reel no. 60,
Van Cliburn—Concert Pianist
elements, VCA.