The parage of foreign policy usually skipped rural Iowa, but on September 23, 1959, the eyes of the nation focused on Coon Rapids. Invited guests, curious onlookers, anxious reporters and photographers surrounded Roswell and Elizabeth Garst's white, wooden farmhouse. More than 700 National Guardsmen lined the highway between Des Moines and Garst's farm awaiting the official motorcade. Soviet Premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was touring the heart of the Midwest cornbelt to see for himself why "agriculture, America's biggest success, [was] communism's biggest failure." Khrushchev explored capitalist agricultural practices hoping to adapt them to Russian "kolkhozes". This article describes Khrushchev's rise to power and his encounters with Iowa farmer Roswell Garst that opened a dialog between the world's superpowers. Khrushchev believed that "an exchange of opinions would help the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. come to understand each other better and show greater pliancy in settling controversial matters." A Timeline is appended. (Contains 46 notes and an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources.)