MOSCOW -- Throughout the past 60 years or so, the problem-ridden relations between the White House and the Kremlin have been burdened with one more factor: the rivalry of the first ladies.
For Franklin D. Roosevelt's White House, Joseph Stalin's wife was not a problem, as Stalin had skillfully driven her to suicide a decade earlier.
Shy, elderly and quiet Nina Petrovna, the spouse of burly and loud Nikita Khrushchev, looked scared every time she had to say "hello" to the sparkling and shining Jackie Kennedy.