They had hidden their political liability from strangers, but were still stalked by their history in files and records. At some point, a reasonable- looking official had approached them unexpectedly with a lifetime choice: to terminate their education and get employment in a coal mine far from a major city (or other unpalatable opportunity), or to attend a highly selective national university in a major city, receive a stipend, master foreign languages, sciences, or other fields, and look forward to a promising professional career. The price of choosing the university path was to report back regularly the activities, relationships, character flaws, and vulnerabilities of foreign students whom they must befriend.
We never knew how many people turned down this offer, of course; and we did believe we had friends who were not living a blackmailed life. We also did not know which of our friends had parents on the persecuting side, people in authority who wrote and enforced laws that imprisoned political dissenters, ran brutal Gulags, or signed orders for executions. But we did know several students who accepted the deal, and were assigned to us and to our British and Canadian friends. Some of these students became the middle-aged or retired professors, engineers, teachers, computer scientists, doctors, government bureaucrats, linguists and librarians who staffed the nation for years, and who may or may not remember the original terms of their education. Some are probably no longer alive, with early death blotting today’s Russia.
Our stay in Moscow ended abruptly, unexpectedly, and dramatically before we ever witnessed the warmth of spring. We left Russia suddenly on Thursday, April 21, 1966. Well advised or ill advised, framed or fooled, we’ll never know. On April 20, Mr. C. at the American Embassy, Moscow, summoned us to tell us that a Russian who jumped ship and defected to the Philippines had given Jim’s name as a reference. The facts no longer mattered: whether we knew him or not was inconsequential. What mattered was that we might be subject to arrest (we did not have diplomatic immunity), vulnerable for supposedly aiding his defection.
We also knew this was not fanciful thinking. In 1963, Frederick Barghoorn, an exchange professor from Yale University, was arrested and held for a period in a Russian jail. Whatever reasons were provided, we assumed that his research topic transgressed the Soviet’s comfort zone. The thought of jail transgressed mine: totally chilling.
“That’s not something any of us would want to risk,” Mr. C. indicated.
Truth was, we did not know the man. This stranger had knocked on our door unexpectedly some months before, announced his startling plan to defect, and then left. Innocently or deliberately, he had made us party to his intentions. A few months later he executed his scheme, naming Jim in the process.
We felt defenseless against incarceration or expulsion. We already believed that the Soviets had for some time wanted to rid themselves of Jim’s presence. This event provided an opportunity. Or created one. Russian intelligence apparently assumed (we later extrapolated) that Jim was an agent. His Russian was too good. Somehow, he was the designated “leader” (starosta) of the student group, which they took to mean that he had been anointed by the U.S. government. We knew he had been elected to that post spontaneously in a raggedy discussion on the train into Russia with our fellow students, partly because of his proficiency in Russian. (“Sure, sure…” we could imagine their saying.) Perhaps seeing they could not frame him through the usual weapons of choice— women, drink, or drugs—they scared us into leaving.
Or, perhaps this stranger truly was a free spirit, defecting to defy the regime, and planning mindfully to cover his attempt with the name of a genuine student. But a real defection likely made us even more vulnerable than a set-up might have done.
We spent our last night in terror and fear. With imaginations fueled by films, we had bolted and blocked our door, wedging the back of a tilted chair under the doorknob. We lay awake all night listening for footsteps, but making no noise that our eavesdropping equipment might pick up. It was the longest night of my life. Exhausted by morning we left empty-handed as advised, avoiding suspicion, acting normal. I knew at the time that our futures hinged on how convincingly nonchalant we appeared walking from our rooms, through the enormous building, out the guarded gates, and into the car the Embassy had sent. The less time exposed to taxis, metros, or streets, the more likely we would escape expeditiously. After a silent ride to the airport, with nothing but our coats and a few dollars in our pockets, Mr. C. deposited us on an airplane bound for Warsaw, Paris, and London. Once we were gone, our fellow American students packed our personal belongings - including Jim’s research notes - into the footlocker that had accompanied us to Moscow, and the American Embassy shipped it to the London docks.
Our hearts flipped on landing in Warsaw to learn we had to leave the plane. We feared the reach of the KGB. Our hope was to huddle in the midst of a cluster of tourists, not allowing ourselves to be isolated. We figured that the police would want to avoid a scene or any public display. So we continued our high-stakes acting gig, clinging close to a large clump of French tourists inspecting the Polish folk arts for sale in the airport shop, feigning our own interest in these assorted wares. (“How colorful!” “How cute!”…)
Relieved but numb when we arrived very late in London on the last plane from Paris, we were dismayed to be prevented by immigration officials from entering easily. Only after questioning us individually and together did they allow us temporary entrance, with the provision that we check in shortly with the police and immigration authorities. Which we did. If in Moscow we had learned to feel like foreigners, that night we learned how it feels to be an alien, without money, luggage, or even a convincing story. The true story of how we came to be standing there at that time of night began sounding a little suspicious even to me.
None of the mystery or drama surrounding our escape shows in the two Western Union telegrams we sent my parents, that they saved from 1966 until their deaths.
In the first, from Moscow, on April 21, 1966, we said: “LEAVING MOSCOW FOR WESTERN EUROPE ON ADVICE OF AMERICAN DOCTOR…. DO NOT WORRY. WILL WRITE WHEN WE ARRIVE IN EUROPE.” Now, with my own children, I’d know better than to exhort parents not to worry, since that is the sure trigger to set off the worry alarm. But for grounds to leave unexpectedly, illness provided a good, as well as true, rationale. For months I had been suffering a sore throat and fevers, which—it turned out—signified strep throat. Now I had a name and treatment for that, too.
Then from London on April 23: “ARRIVED LONDON THURSDAY WILL WRITE.” The bold finality of the telegram seemed comforting, with its block letters appliqued across the yellowed paper.
Big relief, being in London. Although the world we had escaped seemed partly the “Wonderland” into which Alice had fallen, another fictional model completely at home in this world would have been Joseph K. Alice had been upset by inexplicable behaviors (“curioser and curioser”) and taxing confusion over words and meanings (“I can’t quite follow it as you say it”), but it was Joseph K, in Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial, who found himself thrown into an arbitrary and secretive universe in which uncertainty and fear were cultivated and exploited. Subject to inexplicable forces, accused of being guilty (but of what?), he begged in desperation for an explanation, and feared execution. Not a benign setting, this, in fiction or in real life. On our long, last night in Russia I dreaded our end might be the same as his, imprisoned and unfree. I was desperate to leave Russia immediately.
Suddenly it was springtime in London. How much lighter I felt. I had been sprung from a sea of surveillance and could breathe on land. The range of colors, the variety and aesthetics of public places, beyond strict utilitarianism; the tidiness and good repair; people’s courtesy, cheerful service, and healthy appearance buoyed us.
As I reflected on our time in Russia, I realized that daily life had not been easy, making our departure something of a relief. The hypocrisy of the official voice on radio, TV, and newspapers, mouthing untruths, boasting successes that belied reality, while avoiding mention of catastrophes people actually witnessed, increasingly grated. As foreigners, we had the additional
