Poetry and politics are rare companions in the competitive world of practical affairs today. In Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev, with peasant shrewdness, is addicted to Russian proverbs to enliven his rhetoric; but there are few indications that he is sympathetic with the creative writer and none that he himself will rank with Pushkin in the annals of his nation's literature. In Washington, the appearance of Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in January 1961 was an event at once exceptional and gratifying to admirers of Frost's artistic integrity; the elderly poet's advice to the young president of the United States to stress the Irish and underplay the Harvard hi his background may yet have enduring significance. Only in Peking, however, do we find a world leader who combines distinctive political abilities and literary talents. Indeed the juxtaposition of strategic and artistic instincts hi Mao Tse-tung is so unusual in the post-Churchillian world that the case merits more than passing note.