Maniacal Dictator Funnies

This isn't the time to laugh at things like this. I know. Still…this, from a review essay about Khrushchev and Beria by Stephen Kotkin in the March 31 New Republic: "When Hubert Humphrey was dispatched to Moscow to divine the Soviet leader's intentions–good luck!–Khrushchev inquired about the senator's hometown and, hearing the answer, approached a wall-sized map, circled Minneapolis, and said he would spare that city when the rockets started flying."