This essay deals with one of the most iconic moments of the Cold War, in which the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, and the Prime Minister of Canada, John G. Diefenbaker, clashed at the Fifteenth General Assembly of the United Nations over the question of imperialism and colonialism. This clash of ideas and politics began with Khrushchev attacking the West, and ended with him banging on his desk, shouting, gesticulating, and waving his shoe threateningly before the representatives of the assembled nations, and then abruptly declaring victory. In doing this, he managed to deflect attention away from internal USSR nationality policies, especially in Soviet Ukraine, which Diefenbaker had labelled colonialism/imperialism. So, the Soviet leader covered up one of the USSR’s most serious political and ideological weaknesses. Khrushchev was aided in this by the simultaneously broadcast Nixon-Kennedy television debate, which took American attention almost completely away from Diefenbaker’s otherwise well-received speech. The essay also clarifies the course of events at this session of the General Assembly, which have been often muddled in general histories of those times, and ignore or underplay the explosive question of Ukrainian independence.