I was stationed in the Moscow Embassy, but had come to Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, to do some sightseeing over Thanksgiving, arriving aboard the maroon-colored overnight “Red Arrow” train, checking in at the Astoria Hotel, a former Czarist palace which had served as German army headquarters during the World War II siege of Leningrad. The Astoria was fully restored, but not one of the more expensive hotels near the Kirov Ballet used by foreign visitors.

From the hotel, I set out on foot for St. Isaac’s cathedral, passing along the way a four story apartment building with a metal historical marker attached to the outside wall denoting the site of Tchaikovsky’s final residence, in 1897, where he composed his “Pathetique” Symphony. I finally came to St. Isaacs cathedral, with its large golden dome, copper statues, and beautiful gray marble columns which Tolstoy described in War and Peace.

After lunch back at the hotel, I walked over to Nevsky Prospect, the main city boulevard, where I caught a taxi to Peter and Paul Fortress with its twin red brick spires, touring the cells where Dostoyevsky had been imprisoned and Lenin’s older brother executed. There were names carved into the walls by political prisoners from Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. Back outside, it was bitter cold, well below zero, and the afternoon sun was low on the distant horizon. There were only few people on the streets, and those were bundled up in long wool overcoats and fur hats. I could see thin trails of steam in the clear blue sky, drifting horizontally from buildings across the bay.

Keeping my head down to avoid the wind, I forced myself to make it one block to the museum ship “Aurora,” docked on the Neva River across from the Hermitage Museum, formerly the Winter Palace. The Aurora’s guns had fired the opening shots of the Bolshevik Revolution. It was warm inside the ship museum, or at least seemed warm out of the wind. There were two Russian couples besides me aboard, as I drifted around the decks examining photographs of the Revolution and street crowds gathering in 1917.

After an hour or so, as I was leaving the ship, a group of about ten young men appeared on board, milling around and then deciding to depart when I departed, each one shoving a bit as he passed me on the narrow walkway leading from the ship to the street below. They weren’t trying to push me into the icy water below, just providing some welcome to Leningrad. I assumed they were KGB or Naval recruits. Such harassment was not accidental in 1979.

As American diplomats, we knew we were not as well protected when traveling outside Moscow. Leningrad, in particular, was known as a city with an overzealous local KGB, a fact I had discovered during an earlier visit, when I arrived at the US consulate for consultations. One of the Russian security guards in front had stepped out of his guard shack and snapped a photo of me as I passed through the gates. In Moscow, they would not have been so brazen. There was still the semblance of detente.

It was “the bad old days,” before the fall of communism and the Soviet Union. I was on only my second tour, in Moscow, during a low point of the Cold War, with the Soviet military incursion into Afghanistan and US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. It looked like Russia might intervene militarily in Poland to crush the “Solidarity” movement. Reagan came in and later called Russia “the evil empire.” Things would get even worse, culminating in the shoot down of the Korean KAL 007 airliner.

We had very little contact in Moscow with Russians, other than conversations with a taxi driver or sales clerk, and we lived in diplomatic buildings isolated from the population, taking shuttle vans together to and from work. We did get to know the Russians staff working at the Embassy, but had to assume they were reporting to the KGB. We also had some social interaction with Russian intellectuals, artists, and dissidents who were friendly with foreigners, either being allowed to be so, or taking chances.

Our official contacts lived in a different world than we knew. Words like democracy and freedom had different meanings. The average Russian on the street seemingly believed what he read in the newspaper about American imperialism, class separation, and Pentagon aggression. He had little desire to travel outside Russia and touted communism. Russia, itself, in those days was poor, with few items in stores beyond a few staples, and everyone wore cheap clothing and lived in three room apartments. There were no smiles on the streets, and no foreign magazines or books.

We were followed, but could rarely spot our followers. Nor was it uncommon to have a Russian citizen approach you on the street, seeing you were an American, and ask you to take a message to the Ambassador. Occasionally, they would push a package in our hands, saying it was “samizdat,” or unauthorized writings, which they wanted you to take out of Russia. We knew the approach could be a KGB provocation, with the handover being photographed. I was approached one time near the Taganka Theater. We were not hard to spot. Our world was a narrow one: the theaters, the Bolshoi, the museums, our Embassy dacha at Zaviedovo, the diplomatic grocery store or “gastronom,” Red Square, a Georgian restaurant, and perhaps a Volga cruise.

Things could get rough. We had human rights officers and military attaches provoked or attacked by so called “hooligans.” A group of our Marine security guards, including my cousin, were jumped one night on Red Square by a dozen men, presumably KGB, as they were leaving to walk back to the Embassy. They made it back, with only one injured, after fighting their way to the Embassy, a couple of miles.

Work in the Embassy Political Section was demanding, with long hours and time pressure. Each morning, I would arrive at my desk at 8 a.m., scan the Russian newspapers, translating as I read, reading between the lines, then writing a five page cable to Washington. My portfolio was Russian relations with the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, and I was expected to do at least one cable per day. I covered visits to Moscow by PLO leader Arafat, Syrian President Assad, and Jordanian President Hussein, plus a visit by an African National Congress (ANC) delegation asking for support against South Africa, and by Raul Castro, the number two after Fidel, who spent a lot of time in Moscow.

To supplement my reading of Pravda and Izvestiya, I would do some contact work as well, visiting the Latin America Institute, and meeting with experts like Sergo Mikoyan, son of the Foreign Minister under Khrushchev. I might request a luncheon appointment with a Russian journalist, attend a public lecture downtown, take trips to the Baltic States and Russian provinces, and meet Russian analysts at the various African and Middle Eastern think tanks. The meetings we had at the Foreign Ministry were frustrating since relations were tense and formal.

I remember one cable vividly, reporting on the visit by the Algerian President to Moscow. I sent out my usual cable on the event, analyzing the arrival speeches and the joint communique at the end of the visit, proud of some nuances I had unearthed on Russia’s changing policies on the Middle East. That night the phones started ringing with calls from the State Department in Washington, saying the international media had picked up on a Russian political toast during the Algerian visit blasting the US and calling President Reagan a “cowboy.” The seventh floor Chief of Staff called on behalf of the Secretary to chew out the Embassy. How had we not spotted this? I had indeed missed the forest for the trees, reporting the long-winded Russian speeches but missing the reference to Reagan in a dinner toast, and causing the Administration to be blindsided on a major development.

The Ambassador, on instructions from Washington, summoned the entire Political Section into the conference room where he and his Deputy sat stone faced. He said any Foreign Service Officer who didn’t catch a derogatory comment on the President of the United States should consider whether he is suited for this career. I think the word “resignation” was floated. I felt bad because Washington and the Ambassador were right, and because I had caused the entire section to be criticized, whereas I bore sole responsibility. There was silence around the table. I started to apologize, but my boss, Ed Djerejian, the Political Counselor, and my mentor on Russian-Middle East relations, stopped me.

Ed stood up for me, saying he was the head of the Political Section and responsible for anything which came out of it. He, therefore, bore full responsibility, and if the Ambassador and DCM have any beef, they should take it up with him in private. That ended the meeting. That’s the kind of guy Ed Djerejian was.

A week later, things were fine again with the Ambassador, whom I highly respected, and who was helping me report on Russian-Cuban relations. Nonetheless, when I flew out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in 1981 at the end of my tour, I told myself I would not return. I didn’t want to spend my life in the Soviet Union. And, I didn’t return for ten years, until communism fell and I was called back. When you are called, you don’t say no.