Good manners, refined taste, high style

She knew Nikita Khrushchev and was one of few women in the Soviet Union allowed to enter Leonid Brezhnev’s study; she was greeted by Konrad Adenauer and presented pieces of jewelry by Indira Ghandi. She worked under Volodymyr Shcherbytsky. She was witness to the way some of the most powerful people in the world lived. This was because she had a very rare profession; Halyna Naumenko is an expert on protocol, perhaps the only woman in the CIS versed in this rare skill. She knows everything there is to know about etiquette; she is a diplomat and art critic. She is one of the best-educated women in Ukraine, de facto the only real expert in her very special field.

Q: Mrs. Naumenko, are the notions of the twenty-first century, Ukraine, and etiquette really compatible under our present conditions?

H. N.: Things that are truly beautiful are always in demand. Good manners, refined taste, high style will be as much required in the twenty- first century as they have been throughout the past. Socrates called them the luxury of human communication. This also means that people, who are experts capable of teaching these qualities will be also needed. In other words, our profession is by no means an anachronism. It is another issue that Ukraine now retains little aesthetic sense and thus etiquette. But this overall moral decline will halt at some point. As for me, I am still needed, although I don’t have much left by way of energy and health. I have to work in the parliament, the Presidential Administration, and Cabinet of Ministers. Quite honestly, I do not feel what used to be described (by Brezhnev especially - Ed.) as profound gratification. There is a paradox I just can’t bring myself to accept. We are a young independent state, we dream of joining the world community of nations, so we are supposed to do everything to improve our diplomatic culture. But no; what we do can only be described as elbowing our way through, wearing an old straw hat, keeping a slab of fatback wrapped in a handkerchief in a side pocket of a wrinkled jacket. We’ll never get there this way. There is something, a code of rules, formalities, and traditions set forth in the Vienna Convention (on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 - Ed.). It is state protocol and it is in decay in Ukraine. At present, they consider it most important to know how to hold a wineglass and fork correctly. Our politicians and bureaucrats have grown shallower, staying at the level of village gossips.

Q: You mean they were different before, in terms of intellect, training, even charisma?

H. N.: You were right to mention charisma. Absolutely. This notion is widely encompassing, including education, spirituality, and individual inner energy. I have seen many of the great, in a variety of real-life situations. Nikita Khrushchev was one hundred percent charismatic. You will agree that he accomplished few others could. I have in mind the way he exposed Stalin’s cult of personality. This took not just courage and a risk-taking nature — one had to be almost insane to do so. Khrushchev was anything but simple. Consider how he got rid of his rivals — Bulganin, Kaganovich, and Molotov in the 1950s, and later even retired Zhukov. In the late fifties he was relieved of all posts, yet in less than 24 hours he succeeded in gathering oblast party committee secretaries for a plenary meeting and crushed the internal opposition. Yet, he didn’t impress me: I saw him dressed in just long underwear. To understand how I felt, you have to understand the times. There I was facing the leader of a superpower, standing almost as high as God, and in such guise! I was shocked beyond description. But Khrushchev could afford to be eccentric.

Q: But maybe the situation was informal, maybe you met him by chance.

H. N.: What do you mean by chance? It was in the morning, during a scheduled meeting with the king of Morocco, at the dacha in Mukholatka, in the Crimea. Khrushchev had invited the king to a swim in the pool. He knew perfectly well what protocol was all about, although he loathed formalities. He could appear at an official reception wearing a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt under his jacket. He did not have that inherent cultured touch to him and there was nothing the protocol service could do. Moreover, we often risked provoking him to let off a string of obscenities. A trait that would not seldom place him in embarrassing situations. Of course, you know about the shoe banging on the [UN] rostrum, when he used strong words which, translated into literary English, meant a promise to teach America a lesson it would never forget. The incident had everything to do with protocol and it went down in history, winning Khrushchev the reputation of a coarse peasant. In actuality, it was a scenario of the [Soviet] protocol department inadequately played out. Khrushchev banged his shoe on the rostrum not because he was overwhelmed by emotion. It was a gesture our protocol service had figured out. The thing is that in Britain tapping a shoe on the rostrum in parliament indicates the highest degree of obstruction.

Khrushchev’s protocol people believed it would be an elegant, refined way to show the world his knowledge of tradition and etiquette. Somehow, the British shoe came out complimented by Russian expletives. So much for etiquette. US propaganda skillfully ridiculed the whole thing, while Soviet propaganda remain silent, letting Nikita Khrushchev go down in history like that. Now this is what etiquette means and what La Rochefoucauld had in mind when he said that it is possible to give advice but impossible to give the ability to use it.

Q: Perhaps we should have started with just that, what etiquette and state protocol mean, what place protocol has in the life of an individual and society. How did you take up your profession?

H. N.: Protocol is — well, good manners, to put it briefly. It is the outer form of man’s moral and professional essence. Etiquette is a privilege of a free and educated society. Protocol is a derivative of that general notion. It is a set of ceremonial procedures of the ruling elite.

I’m a graduate of the International Relations Department, Kyiv University, but that was a very long time ago. My destiny was decided by a chance occurrence which was very special for me. I was one of few girls, well, frankly the only one to be enrolled at the time. After the third year I was summoned to the USSR Foreign Ministry for an “audition.” The party had passed a resolution ordering women trained in protocol. We were received by the celebrated FСdor Molochkov, the trendsetter in Soviet diplomacy, the best expert on etiquette and state protocol. He was descended from the Princes Dolgoruky. Actually, he had founded the Soviet protocol service and his textbooks were used by generations of diplomats. And there we were, three girls from Ukraine. Of course, I was very nervous, I thought I’d faint right there and then. And then Molochkov stepped into the room. You should see him. Now, after so many years, I can say that we were charged by the energy of his personality. He didn’t say anything special, he made no impressive gestures, yet we felt like standing at attention. Molochkov walked over to me and asked something, which I thought was totally irrelevant under the circumstances: “What color is your purse?” I knew it was dark green, but at the moment something clicked in my head and I said it was blue. Molochkov didn’t bat an eyelash, he knew only too well how I felt, and he could see the purse. Perhaps he wanted to see how I would get out of the trap, for he asked, “Are you sure?” And then I realized that my purse was actually dark green. I had to find a way out of the situation. I was going to be a diplomat. So I just took a plunge. Staring Molochkov in the eyes, I said that my purse was blue, that I saw it that way in the sunlight from the window. My answer decided my destiny. After the university I was enrolled in the protocol service of the Soviet Foreign Ministry.

Q: I must point out that during the years of your active service Soviet protocol somehow remained inconspicuous.

H. N.: Absolutely, and that’s what we call top performance in the field. Leonid Brezhnev is remembered in the last years of his life as an old, weak, and inarticulate man. Yet no one can remember a single breach of etiquette during top-level meetings. Nothing like Khrushchev with his shoe. People often laughed at his fondness for kisses, yet the habit developed only toward the end of his career. From what I remember, he first demonstrated at the highest level when meeting with Todor Zhivkov after what happened in Czechoslovakia. By the way, Brezhnev was carefully told on more than one occasion that kissing wasn’t necessary, but he merely laughed... And then it started going from bad to worse. Still, no one seems to have ever realized that this purely Slavic trait was skillfully used in high politics. Moreover, it was imposed not only on the leaders of countries that were friendly to the USSR, but also on practically all visiting heads of Western European states. As for Brezhnev, he never kissed indiscriminately, a fact noticed by few. He always kissed Helmut Schmidt, seldom Georges Pompidou, and never Kim Il Sung.

Q: How did you tell the Soviet leader that he was doing something wrong, contrary to protocol?

H. N.: It wasn’t easy, but we were protocol people and it was our duty to correct any deviation. In this sense, we were right on the line of fire. It took great skill to make a correction so no one would understand what had happened, whether it was part of the scenario or a glitch. With Leonid Brezhnev one had always to be on the lookout in his last years. I remember Tito’s visit. Soviet-Yugoslav relationships were rather “specific” at the time — strained. Under protocol, the official part was followed by two toasts, by the guest and the host. In Brezhnev’s condition it was hard to endure even a brief ceremony. Also, his medications must have had their effect. Anyway, the Party general secretary greeted his Yugoslav counterpart and immediately raised a toast and invited Tito to join him at the table. Not a word about talks. Both delegations were shocked. What was to be done? I heard Gromyko whisper, “ Halyna, do something.” I stepped forward and announced in an emcee’s voice that today was a Russian treat in honor of the beloved guest, and would all please proceed to the tables. Tito understood, he was a clever man, but the Yugoslav protocol man would pester me at the stand- up buffet: was it something unexpected? Our protocol services had agreed on everything beforehand.

Q: It was in Moscow and the guest was from a friendly country, after all. What about visits abroad and how did you manage there?

H. N.: Here is one classic example: Podgorny’s visit to the Vatican. After Gagarin’s space flight, the Pope let it be known through diplomatic channels that he would like to maintain contact with the USSR. Previously such contact had been practically nonexistent. For the Soviet Union it was a tremendous foreign policy breakthrough. The delegation was led by Nikolai Podgorny. Lots of journalists covered the trip. Podgorny had never been on a visit like that and there was another headache for the protocol service: he was a chain-smoker, and only Belomor [a particularly pungent variety of Russian papirosy - Ed.], lighting them only with matches. The Pope was to receive him in a hall draped with unique Chinese silk, dating back some 150 years, dusted by domestics using feather brushes. The visit was prepared by FСdor Molochkov. He made a preliminary trip to the Vatican, checking literally every inch of the route. In one of the halls to be visited by the Soviet delegation he spotted a little-known Renoir. It was there Podgorny would make a remark, boasting erudition. Then time for the visit came. There was Podgorny stopping by the canvas and saying, “Oh! What an excellent early — Repin!” We stood speechless, but the interpreter, God bless him, came to everybody’s rescue and used the name Renoir. Yet the papal protocol man rushed over to Molochkov and demanded to know why a different word had been used in translation. To which Molochkov courteously replied, “Oh, it’s a matter of pronunciation. You say it this way, we say it that. As for Podgorny, he was ready to drop dead. But that was just one of the surprises we had during the visit. The talks were underway when the Pope suddenly produced an ashtray and invited the head of the Soviet delegation to smoke. Now that was something no one had ever been allowed to do. It was a gesture of the highest respect. It sent the journalists astir, cameras started clicking. And the ashtray was passed over accompanied by a lighter, not the kind you can buy in a store, of course. Podgorny didn’t know how to use it, he fumbled with it, pretending to examine it. The pause was stretching. He already had a cigarette in his mouth. And then the papal protocol man, a cardinal by the way, gently took hold of the lighter and gracefully lit the cigarette for him. All this with cameras flashing, catching every look, every gesture. The Cold War was still at its height.

Q: One could say you protocol people work like a bomb squad. Which world leader really scared you?

H. N.: Well, it wasn’t fear, something different. A sense of tremendous responsibility. An oppressive one... I can assure you that I was never intimidated by foreigners. I met Konrad Adenauer, the man who had divided Germany, a politician as cynical as Stalin. I met the Swedish royal family and am a lady-in-waiting with the Swedish court. I also met Indira Ghandi. There was a degree of constraint when dealing with foreigners, but never fear. I was responsible only for myself. At home it was a different story... Yes, I think there was a man who inspired something akin to fear in me.

Q: Was he Yuri Andropov?

H. N.: That’s what stereotypes can do. No, he wasn’t. Andropov was an extremely cultured person. Yes, a tough politician, a statesman. He was very pleasant to deal with. He would always invite you have tea with him when he wanted to discuss something. And the tea would always be served with lemon, and the glasses would be in German silver glass-holders. This created a somewhat homey atmosphere... But the philosopher Solon said of such people: Fear not your enemy who is shouting; fear those speaking softly. Suslov spoke softly. He was number two in the Soviet hierarchy. You understand, my contacts with him were reduced to a minimum. But I had to meet with him now and then. He was a zealot, an apparatchik to the marrow, a Cardinal Richelieu. I remember being constantly under the impression that state matters were the only thing that interested him. Nothing else, although he had a “piquant” problem with his son. But again, I didn’t know him well enough and you can’t know the inside of a man’s mind, can you? Contrary to persistent allegations, it was he, not Andropov, that launched Gorbachev into high politics. To do so he had to beat the so-called Ukrainian diaspora in Moscow: especially Morhun as Gorbachev’s principal rival, then holding a party post in Poltava and cutting more ice in political quarters.

Q: Soft-speaking ones were also outside Moscow. Take Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, for example.

H. N.: Oh, yes. He was a real statesman, politician, an outstanding man. His importance for Ukraine is still to be understood. I would place him on a par with Prince Yaroslav the Wise or Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The years of his office marked Ukraine’s economic peak, a level we won’t soon reach again. And people keep recalling his conduct at the May 1 demonstration on Khreshchatyk, several days after the explosion at Chornobyl. No one bothers to remember that Ukraine had to cope with the disaster all by itself at the beginning. Moscow stepped in later. Everything had to be organized: fighting fires, dropping sand and lead on the power unit, evacuating over a hundred thousand residents, and so on and so forth. All of this was Shcherbytsky’s headache. Incidentally, he was actually haunted by severe headaches at the time and never showed it. Shcherbytsky was very polite to subordinates. He would address you in courteous, rather than an authoritarian or pedantic way. Despite his courteous attitude, particularly toward women, I must say that Double V (as he was referred to behind his back by subordinates) chose to rely on men in his daily work. He was very scrupulous morally and ethically, and the same applied to etiquette. He was always clean-shaven and neatly dressed, and demanded the same from the subordinates. He referred to one of the first secretaries, a member of the Politburo, as a “Social Democrat in baggy pants” because of the man’s — well, indifference to the way he looked.

Shcherbytsky respected state protocol. We were meeting the Swedish king and queen at Boryspil Airport. An extraordinary event. Then in charge of protocol was Mykola Tsyba, a talented man and born protocol expert. The motorcade numbered some ninety cars. The jet approached. Shcherbytsky was to arrive at any moment. As we walked out of the terminal we saw that the cars were turned the wrong way — I mean they were parked the way they were when leaving after seeing off a guest. Who was responsible? Fedorchuk, chief of the Ukrainian KGB, we were told. Now who would get into a conflict with the secret police? Tsyba and I stood there, not knowing what to do. He tried to tell Fedorchuk to order the cars turned the right way. You can shove your formalities you know where, Fedorchuk replied. I’m responsible for security. It was then I heard Tsyba let off a string of obscenities I would have never dreamed of hearing. Not from a man for whom “damn it” was taboo. The cars were turned the right way. Shcherbytsky arrived and Fedorchuk raced over to complain that he was being obstructed in the line of duty. Shcherbytsky calmly asked why address the complaint to him: there was the protocol service. In a word, the protocol people had nothing to worry about under Shcherbytsky.

Q: You have more than once used “state protocol,” emphasizing the adjective. Is it because you like the sound of it?

H. N.: I knew we would end up at this note. It’s just an adjective, except that it has a special meaning. I’m no politician. The years that have passed and meetings with interesting people I was destined to enjoy allow me, primarily as a citizen, to pass judgment on our state. There is none. Not in the sense of a state ruled the law: none, because we have no state policy with regard to the state. There can be no society where at least one half of the community members live and feel comfortable without clear organization as — if you will pardon my naturalism — social animals, for this is what man actually is, a social animal. I think that the decade of Ukraine’s recent history has been spent weakening (mildly speaking) our state. This is nonsense at a turning point in the history of any given country. The United States got out of its depression of the 1930s by enhancing the role of the state. We don’t seem to need world experience. So we have what we have: the chaos now dominant in our society.

Politics is described as a dirty business. I can assure you that is no dirtier than any other business. Talleyrand made a brilliant observation to the effect that in politics, as in love, anything is possible and accessible, yet everything must be decent and dignified. Now take our cassette scandal. I’m not one to judge who is right or wrong, but I am sure that there has been nothing decent or dignified on either side. This shortcoming — in this scandal and other things — will boomerang on us all more than once.