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Contents PART ONE THE KREMLIN CALLED ME SPY 3 PART TWO NOT FIRST NOR LAST 47 PART THREE ROMANCE IN MOSCOW 85 PART FOUR EMILY POST INVADES RUSSIA 119 PART FIVE SOME RUSSIANS I KNEW 141 PART SIX THE WORLD OF SOVIET ARTS 185 PART SEVEN FORTY MILLION BOOKS BY AMERICANS 223 PART EIGHT ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON RUSSIA 239 APPENDIX 271 PART ONE The Kremlin Called Me Spy Chapter 1 Will you help me I need a loan, five thousand rubles. The blue-eyed, baby-faced girl said these words and added hurriedly., as if afraid that I might refuse Not just now. In a couple of weeks maybe. - My husband and my father have been looking for a house to buy outside of Moscow, and they have found something at last. Its in bad condition but my father is a good carpenter, and hell make it livable before the summer is over. That is why the price is so low, only nineteen thousand rubles. We have fourteen thousand, and there is no one I can go to for the rest. How long do you think it might take you to repay the loan I already owe you nine hundred rubles, and altogether it will make slightly over eight hundred dollars in American money. Between the three of us, I mean myself, my husband, and father, we can repay the full amount in about a year. I may not be here that long, but Ill let you have the money. My successor, I am sure, will take over the loan and you can pay him the last installments. How can I thank you, Robert The conversation took place between me and my Moscow secretary, Cecelia Nelson, on Saturday, April 10, 1948, in my office at the Metropole Hotel Later in. the day my wife, Nila, dropped in at the office. I was away and the two girls 3 IN ANGER AND PITT drifted into a conversation, in the course of which Cecelia spoke of my promise of a loan and of her gratitude. Her fam ily would be together at last, and the threat of being driven out of her room, which she rented at an exorbitant price, would disappear. She might be able to repay the loan ahead of time, if she held onto her two jobs. For about a year Don Dallas of Renters and I had shared Cecelias services. She worked mornings for him and afternoons for me. The following Monday Cecelia asked me for another favor a small one, to be sure. She had a very important appoint ment on Tuesday at five in the afternoon, and she wanted me to let her go an hour ahead of her usual time. I had no ob jections, and she left a few minutes before five that Tuesday. Noticing how excited and unusually attractive she looked, my assistant, Andrew J. Steiger, and I kidded her about run ning away from work to a rendezvous with a boy friend. She gave us a sly, smiling look, said good-by, and left. On Wednesday morning Don Dallas telephoned, inquiring anxiously whether Cecelia happened to be in my office, for she was a full hour overdue, and there were the Russian papers to read. Andy and I assured Don there was nothing hot in the press, but we were all worried since it was completely unlike Cecelia to skip a days work without warning, and, of course, without good reason. Dons English-speaking Rus sian chauffeur had called the house and been told that neither she nor her husband, Toik, had showed up that night. At my suggestion, Don sent the chauffeur to the house and he returned with a different story. Toik, it appeared, had stayed away all night, but Cecelia had come in very late, pale and exhausted, and told her land lady that she had some urgent work to do. She had not seemed worried about her husbands absence, and had not inquired about him. When her landlady got up in the morning, Cecelia had already gone
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In Anger And Pity
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