FORGET THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS! America and the Soviet Union neared the brink of war—of words, at least—with a diplomatic whoopjamboreehoo over Mark Twain's legacy that left a Twain scholar pleading his case to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. What ensued was a curious case of Cold War criticism.

The contretemps was provoked in 1959 by a very negative review in Russia's Literary Gazette of Charles Neider's edition of Twain's autobiography. Neider received his share of negative comment in America, too. In a March 23, 1959, letter in the Baylor English Department's E. Hudson Long American Studies Collection, Clarence Gohdes wrote to Professor Long of concerns about the book among Twainians: “Both Henry Smith and Walter Blair have told me that Neider has played pretty freely and loosely in compiling his book, and that careful scrutiny needs to be given his texts. If these reports are true, scholars in our field should be made aware of the fact.” Long reviewed the book for American Literature, where Gohdes was serving as editor, and dealt with the book sternly, lambasting it as unfit “for the serious student or scholar” due to Neider's manipulations and excisions (494). Long looked forward to the day when “a complete scholarly edition” of Twain's last masterpiece would be available (495). But where Long saw poor scholarship, the Russians sensed a conspiracy. Yan Bereznitsky accused Neider of purposely squelching Twain's criticisms of America. In “Mark Twain on the Bed of Procrustes” (1959), Bereznitsky berated Neider for placing Twain's autobiography onto “the Procrustean bed of chronological sequence,” which led him to rearrange and cut material. Where were Twain's fiery diatribes against America's “predatory wars” and the “knights and henchmen of American expansionism” like Rockefeller and Roosevelt? (14). Bereznitsky descended to the personal, calling Neider's efforts “a supreme example of scholarly ill faith” (14–15).

Neider airmailed a letter of protest to Khrushchev, requesting space to respond in the same official literary gazette. Neider was subsequently contacted by Bereznitsky and invited to reply.