The Design Bureau spent weeks preparing for Khrushchev’s visit, holding a dress rehearsal the day before to ensure that everything went according to plan. On May 4, 1962, Khrushchev arrived. To welcome the Soviet leader, Sarant dressed in a dark suit matching the color of his bushy eyebrows and
carefully trimmed mustache. Barr stood nervously to Sarant’s
side, wiry glasses perched on his balding head. With Sarant in the
lead, the two former spies showed Khrushchev the accomplishments of Soviet microelectronics. Khrushchev tested a tiny radio that fit in his ear and toyed with a simple computer that could print out his name. Semiconductor devices would soon be used in spacecraft, industry, government, aircraft—even “for the creation of a nuclear missile shield,” Sarant confidently told
Khrushchev. Then he and Barr led Khrushchev to an easel with
pictures of a futuristic city devoted exclusively to producing semiconductor devices, with a vast fifty-two-story skyscraper at its center.
Khrushchev was enamored of grand projects, especially those that he could claim credit for, so he enthusiastically endorsed the idea of building a Soviet city for semiconductors. He embraced
Barr and Sarant in a bear hug, promising his full support. Several months later, the Soviet government approved plans to build a semiconductor city in the outskirts of Moscow. “Microelectronics is a mechanical brain,” Khrushchev explained to his fellow Soviet
leaders. “It is our future.”
These paragraphs are creating a mental picture of the Central Asian presidents visiting some openings in some towns or cities. Weeks of preparation and rehearsals to make things seem perfect when in fact they are not. At a government level, even these small tactics have been inherited from the USSR and still persist, unfortunately.
carefully trimmed mustache. Barr stood nervously to Sarant’s
side, wiry glasses perched on his balding head. With Sarant in the
lead, the two former spies showed Khrushchev the accomplishments of Soviet microelectronics. Khrushchev tested a tiny radio that fit in his ear and toyed with a simple computer that could print out his name. Semiconductor devices would soon be used in spacecraft, industry, government, aircraft—even “for the creation of a nuclear missile shield,” Sarant confidently told
Khrushchev. Then he and Barr led Khrushchev to an easel with
pictures of a futuristic city devoted exclusively to producing semiconductor devices, with a vast fifty-two-story skyscraper at its center.
Khrushchev was enamored of grand projects, especially those that he could claim credit for, so he enthusiastically endorsed the idea of building a Soviet city for semiconductors. He embraced
Barr and Sarant in a bear hug, promising his full support. Several months later, the Soviet government approved plans to build a semiconductor city in the outskirts of Moscow. “Microelectronics is a mechanical brain,” Khrushchev explained to his fellow Soviet
leaders. “It is our future.”
These paragraphs are creating a mental picture of the Central Asian presidents visiting some openings in some towns or cities. Weeks of preparation and rehearsals to make things seem perfect when in fact they are not. At a government level, even these small tactics have been inherited from the USSR and still persist, unfortunately.