Chapter 18: Disneyland, 1979

My phantasmagoric hellscape.

In September 1959, in one of the more surreal moments of the Cold War, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had a snit when he found out he wasn’t going to Disneyland. He’d arrived in the United States four days earlier for a summit with Dwight Eisenhower, and his itinerary continued on to California for a visit to Twentieth Century Fox Studios. Later that evening, at a dinner stacked with celebrities, Frank Sinatra served as master of ceremonies while Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe sat near the star-struck prime minister.