During the 902nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, held in New York on October 12, 1960, an extraordinary event occurred.
Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and one of the most powerful men in the world, began to slam his hands first on the table he was sitting on, and then one of his shoes. He was reacting to a speech by Lorenzo Sumulong, the head of the Philippine delegation, who launched a series of scathing attacks on the USSR, saying that “the peoples of Eastern Europe and elsewhere have been deprived of their civil and political rights, which have been swallowed up by the Soviet Union.”
In response, Khrushchev pounded his desk with his fists, and demanded to speak. Pushing Sumulong aside, Khrushchev took a seat on the podium facing the assembly, and began his speech by unleashing a series of insults on Sumulong, labeling him, among other things, as a tool of “American imperialism.”
He demanded that the session leaders expel Sumulong from the assembly, and when this was refused, Khrushchev took off one of his shoes and began to pound the podium with it. As the plenary session threatened to descend into chaos, including the interventions of Romanian Deputy Foreign Minister Eduard Mezincescu, the head of the Assembly, Frederic Boland, suspended the meeting.
The incident would have long-lasting consequences, and Khrushchev's image on the international stage was irreparably damaged. In 1964, after he was dismissed as leader of the Soviet Union, propaganda publications criticized him for "the shameful episode, which he still presents as an act of bravery."
Khrushchev is said to have said afterwards: "It was a great pleasure! The UN is a kind of parliament, as you know, where the minority has to attract attention, one way or another. We are in the minority at the moment, but not for long."
The incident became so famous that tourists who come to visit the UN building in New York ask: "Where was Khrushchev sitting when he hit the table with his shoe?"
There is no photographic or video evidence of this incident. A photograph circulating on the Internet, in which the Soviet leader is seen with a shoe in his hand ready to slam it on a table, is thought to be doctored. /LAPSI.al
