The ML-15 ribbon mic. Welcome to Moscow. This is the U.S.S.R. version of the RCA 44-BX. It is the Soviet Government Issue (CCCP) Model ML-15, manufactured by the Popov Institute of Radio and Acoustics, and is dated 1957. There were fewer than 500 of these manufactured, and were allowed to be used only for the highest official Soviet government functions and propaganda programming and recording. When Mr. Khrushchev agreed to do the CBS-TV broadcast in June of that year, his people insisted that CBS include these mics on the table, as you will see below.

After two years of negotiations led by CBS President Frank Stanton, Nikita Khrushchev agreed in 1957 to be filmed in the Kremlin unrehearsed, for an edition of Face the Nation. Though Mr. Khrushchev arrived late, refused makeup, and appeared testy at some of the questions, the New York Times called the show “the season’s most extraordinary hour of broadcasting.”

Read the June 10, 1957 TIME Magazine^® account of this meeting.

Read about Daniel Schorr.