Show I 1 A ea z fr A a FIA FA a 10 ya F rp L 7 ra 11 1 A or a ROO 0 it W LO V F 1 4 installment ONE the soviet vice consul spoke creaky schoolbook english ile he was wa an agreeable young man helping mi me fill out m my y visa application his of lice flee was pleasant and airy but I 1 was uneasy maybe because the of flee fice of the consul upstairs had dou ble dor doors the kind when you oper open one door you are left staring at a still another closed door about six sl 0 x N IV L white inches in front ot of your nose it if thi the knob of the first door is on your you right the knob of the second is on 01 the left so no one could possibly pos sibl listen through both keyholes at once I 1 was uneasy because I 1 hid had been with the finnish army in the winter war of 1939 1940 which was bad news in connection with a soviet visa of course they knew I 1 had been in finland but I 1 wanted them to know I 1 knew they knew it T the h e consul was an urba urbane tie stocky if little atle diplomat it soon became clear that he was on a fishing tri trip for r information there Is nothing s sinister in I 1 ster about this for it is the avowed business ol of all diplomats including our own to report to their home governments on the state ot of the nation to which they are accredited there was no need to withhold anything from this consul as his questions did not concern military matters but were were all in the sphere of politics just before I 1 left the consul switched the conversation from politics to literature I 1 wished to go to the soviet union as assistant to mr eric johnston but I 1 was also connected with the readers reader s digest yes I 1 said I 1 was one of its editors I 1 bowed myself out the double doors and back to where mr was waiting with the questionnaire it began with a large blank space tor for a brief autobiography into which I 1 inserted the fact that I 1 had been with the finnish army in 1939 a fact that mr Va reading at my shoulder seemed again not to notice it continued with other questions obviously designed tor for white russians about political affiliations I 1 showed some dismay at all this and mr Va smiling reassuringly said there was no need in my case for detailed answers but at the end was a most curious question I 1 had hastily written no in its blank but then I 1 hesitated had 1 I they wanted to know ever been associated with the armed forces of any government in opposition to the soviet union I 1 explained this time clearly that in 1939 1 I had been associated as a reporter with the armies of the finnish republic during its earlier war with russia so perhaps my answer should be yes smiling broadly now mr shook his head the proper answer there mr white as you have already written is no because in finland in 1939 we understand that your opposition to the soviet union was purely verbal my visa came a week later all this had come about as the result of an impulsive letter I 1 had written a few weeks before reading that joseph stalin had issued a special invitation to visit russia to eric johnston president of the united states chamber of commerce I 1 had sat down at my typewriter to tell johnston I 1 would like to go along eric johnston was to me a complete stranger except that I 1 had read a good deal of what he had written and liked most of it very much he believed in this country he had been an eloquent voice preaching optimism and courage for the postwar period saying clearly that never again must we allow american business and industry to stagnate into a depression but must continue to produce for peacetime needs a and nd luxuries at almost wartime velocity there would be tree free markets for everything it if there were tree free jobs for all and vice versa he had opened his career as president of the national chamber by calling at the white house a prece dent breaking step as american business busine ali had not hitherto 6 accorded the new deal official recognition he had even sat down across a conference table from john L lewis he has a theory that before you denounce an opponent you should first go over with him the points on which you agree you will both be surprised johnston points out at how many of these there are and often the fight can be fairly compromised in somewhat this frame of mind he was approaching the soviet union I 1 wanted to go there for the very obvious reason that russia Is clearly the biggest and most unpredictable dic table factor with which america must deal in i n the next few decades ad es A week after my impulsive letter I 1 met eric johnston across his desk in washington eric johnston Is handsome at forty seven he has a all i I 1 of his white even teeth all of h his s wavy brown hair and a clear ruddy skin and blue eyes he has a longish sensitive face and a hollywood profile together these make him unusually and conspicuously handsome he might have made a successful career as an actor were it not tor for his brain which considered as an organ is uncommonly good it starts with a phenomenal memory he never forgets anything he thinks he will ever need he Is healthily competitive he wants something like almost anything you have or if possible one just a little better but he takes disappointments well when I 1 first met him he was being mentioned for the presidency he had a small N 1 A J ah eric johnston b but u t definite chance he watched it carefully never overestimated or underestimated his boom when it faltered altered he pronounced it dead and instantly forgot it I 1 was pleased when he told me that because he wanted to feel free to write and say what he thought on our return he was insisting to the russians that we pay our expenses wherever possible he was taking along money tor for that purpose and suggested that I 1 do likewise the other member of our party was joyce ohara johnstons regular assistant in the chamber of commerce he Is a blue eyed irishman of fifty with regular features which anywhere outside the radius of johnstons dazzling profile would be considered uncommonly handsome not too man many y years ago he exchanged a successful newspaper job tor for a career in the public relations division of the chamber of commerce in washington joyce and I 1 were thrown together constantly from the beginning of the trip the protocol of our entire voyage was that if the hotel or r guesthouse boasted sn an imperial bridal suite complete with sitting room sitz bath and breakfast nook it would always be assigned to johnston in solitary grandeur in his capacity as president of the chamber of commerce while joyce and I 1 would share twin beds in the see sec ond best room for a few days we watched each other shave and listened to each other snore with considerable sid erable reserve and some suspicion slowly and after days of appraisal we got down to a solid basis of friendly jibes at each others weak spots and he gave as good as he we ended up warm friends we departed from washington and our plane stopped tor for a meal in the azores where we were met by staff officers of the amerl american can base and picked up sketchy information about these portuguese islands johnston fell victim to an infected sinus at casablanca we waited in considerable luxury ina spacious us villa once the property of jean maas who formerly owned a string of collaborationist newspapers the allied comm command and were using it as an overnight hotel tor for high officers and distinguished guests as we teem seem to be classified at cairo an american nose a and nd throat man peered into johnstons ear and instantly forbade us to fly over the toot pass between iran and the soviet union which meant a few di days delay delaby anyway we would get a good look at ancient cairo which none of us had ever seen the next morning eric joyce and I 1 continue contin e our trip and that afternoon at teheran we see our first russians their planes with the big red stars on the field as we c ircle circle r and as we get out of our plane the russian ambassador to iran and a half dozen of his staff are there to welcome johnston they are very solemn and do not smile as they shake hands these solemn russian diplomats are all in their thirties or early forties and they wear curious badly cut soviet suits somber in hue and 0 of f shoddy materials you could take an american mall order suit boll it press it lightly and get the same effect next morning averell harriman american ambassador to the soviet union who has just arrived in teheran Is taking us to mos moscow c ow in the official ambassadorial liberator most fascinating of all is a fact which I 1 knew but not until now could believe that in russia there are few connected d paved highways I 1 see wagon trails from the villages out to the fields and sometimes taint faint ones from town to town but not one strip of clean flowing concrete or blacktop black top also im trying through this pledl glass window to see the socialist revolution as it has affected the villages but I 1 cant for all this might have been here in the middle ages if new thatched roof huts have been built since czarist days from 5 feet I 1 cant tell them from the ancient ancient ones looking down on every village the biggest building Is still the white church built in czarist days in twenty five years the soviets have constructed nothing halt half as big although here and there is what might be a school or an administrative hall the copilot co pilot comes back to say we will swing low over stalingrad Stal ingrad diving we follow the bends of the city itself as it follows the river or rather as 0 once nce did the city for stalingrad Stal ingrad is gone and there remain only roofless walls like the snags of decayed molars staring up at us factories with twisted machinery mach ch ery rusting under the tangle of roo root f girders finally just out of moscow we see an electric power line running from horizon to horizon it is the first thing I 1 have seen in the past hour that I 1 am sure was built since 1917 but soon we see the first hard surfaced road and that black smudge on the horizon is moscow itself then its railway yards and the smoke from its factories tiers of workers apartments surround each factory and are in turn surrounded by a crazy quilt of potato patches A spacious outdoor theater is on the river banks the roofs of the big buildings are mottled with brown brow nand and green camouflage paint As we let our wheels down and begin to feel for the runway I 1 see rushing past great rows of american built stacked on the field I 1 in n orderly rows with the big star of the red air force painted orf off each A considerable crowd Is waiting at the airdrome first the welcoming committee a row of solemn slavs in the same boiled mall mail order r suits we saw at teheran but the minute eric johnston emerges a battery of lenses movie cameras and soviet copies of belcas and 0 1 0 1 A 3 M I 1 4 F X Y I 1 I 1 W averell harriman HarrL man Graf lexes close in on his profile this over we smilingly shake hands hand w with ith the tee unsmiling russians and work our way through to the american reporters practically all ol of Mos cows tiny foreign newspaper colony Is there they tell us the russians have given us an unusually bis big official turnout better than donald nelsons belsons Nel sons 11 A big russian in his middle thirties wanders toward me Is everything all right he wants to know 1 I arn am Kir cirilov ilov in charge of protocol for the peoples commissariat of foreign trade we did not then en know that representing this C commissariat om mis missa sarlat riat our official host he was wa to be bd our constant companion ITO TO BE CONTINUED |