Starman_ The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin - Jamie Doran [79]
The doctors who had treated Gagarin were awarded commendations and promotions. Nikita Khrushchev was annoyed that his favourite cosmonaut could not give a proper performance at the Party Congress, but more than that, he was concerned for his young friend’s safety. The moral aspects of the drama at Foros did not seem to concern him particularly. Khrushchev’s advisor, Fyodor Burlatsky, says, ‘In spite of the Party morality, which was supposed to be very strong, everybody thought it was a funny story. Khrushchev laughed. Maybe his wife didn’t . . . But I think there were some Generals, high-level military people, who didn’t have such easy relations with Gagarin. I think they were jealous because he was so close to Khrushchev.’ These resentful rivals did not find the story quite so amusing, Burlatsky suggests. They noted Gagarin’s behaviour with distaste, and remembered it.
Of course Nikolai Kamanin was severely criticized for his failure of supervision at Foros. At a special meeting in Star City on November 14 he had to explain Titov’s and Gagarin’s behaviour in the best possible light:
Gagarin and Titov described their behaviour in the health resort adequately on the whole. They acknowledged their alcohol abuse, thoughtless attitude to women and other faults. However, probably for Valya’s peace of mind, Gagarin maintained that he did not know the girl was in the room from which he jumped.
Kamanin persuaded the meeting to judge that his adulterous First Cosmonaut had merely been teasing his wife in a childish hide-and-seek game, while his drunken understudy Titov had been led astray by non-cosmonaut companions. Everyone knew that these were white lies, but tidy official versions were agreed, with the help of hand-written notes of apology from the cosmonauts themselves. Kamanin noted, ‘I’m sure Gagarin had a different motive for visiting that room, but I won’t press the matter, in case it causes discord in his family.’
Kamanin was lenient, but during the December resumption of Gagarin’s world tour, he found to his great frustration that the First Cosmonaut’s behaviour still was not improving. On December 14 he wrote in his diary:
He hasn’t given up drinking, even after the Crimean incident. I don’t fancy being a prophet of doom, but it seems to me he’s drinking a good deal. He’s at the top of his glory, bearing a great moral burden, knowing that his every step is being watched. One or two years will pass, the situation will change drastically, and he will become dissatisfied. It’s obvious in his family life even now. He has no respect for his wife, he humiliates her sometimes, and she doesn’t have the advantages of education or the social skills to influence him.
He also observed that ‘Titov, recently returned from his tour of Indonesia, is starting to think no small beer of himself.’ Evidently Kamanin felt that he had another wayward cosmonaut on his hands. But one has to keep in mind that his personal diaries are private expressions of annoyance, as much as accurate historical records. There is scarcely a single person within the Soviet space effort (not even the great Chief Designer) whom he does not criticize at some point – often unfairly – and just as often prior to a complete reversal of opinion a few days later. Even Khrushchev comes in for flak. Perhaps Kamanin’s administrative tensions after the Foros incident can explain an extraordinary outburst of contempt in his diary about the Party Congress – the one at which Gagarin’s muted appearance had caused so much