Excerpts

The full realization of where I was going came when a firm hand grabbed my wrist and I heard a thickly accented woman saying, “You cannot take pictures when we are flying over Russian territory.”

I was in a Russian airliner flying to Russia with four other Americans. Russia and the United States had been in a Cold War since 1945—basically two countries hostile to the point of being on the verge of open warfare.

I was a 27 year old construction project manager going to build a house in a park in Moscow, Russia in the summer of 1959. I grew up during WWII when Russia was our ally. Now they were pointing missiles at the United States and I was going to spend almost a month with my own country’s missiles pointing at me.

Despite that anxiety, I looked forward to experiencing some of the things I knew about Russia: eating cabbage and boiled potatoes, and meeting babushka-wearing Russian women. I had just left New York City where Fifth Avenue models were always in view and even the street food was considered fine cuisine.

What follows are some stories from that trip that radically changed my perception of Russia. But that’s not the whole story. I accidentally became part of a globally historic event that may have moved fingers closer to the Red Button.

Our lead carpenter, Odd Siqueland, could have cared less that he was in the Soviet Union working on an historic project. As far as he was concerned, he could have been banging nails in the Bronx. Mid-morning of our first day at the site, Odd approached me and wanted to know when the coffee wagon would arrive. “Are you kidding me?” was my response. “This is Russia. They don’t do coffee. This is tea-in-a-glass country, and they have no idea what a coffee wagon is. You’ll have to wait for lunch. Take a water break instead.”

He wasn’t happy, and I didn’t want our relationship to get off to a bad start. I thought that I would visit some of the other exhibit sites to see what they were doing about break time. Apparently a snack bar was to have opened to provide American-style food, but it wasn’t ready.

Odd wasn’t satisfied with my pushing him off. I was intent on maintaining my alpha dog status, and he was nipping at my heels. He took a little red book out of his pocket and showed me a union rule clearly stating that “management must provide a 15-minute coffee break at mid-morning and afternoon.” He was not open to my explanation that “coffee break” didn’t necessarily mean coffee and that he could take a break, but there just wasn’t any coffee available. He insisted and threatened “We are going to strike!”

I was stunned. If we were in New York, I would have put Odd on the next subway home and filed a report with his union rep. But I took his threat seriously enough to gather the remaining three men on our crew to work out a solution.

In 1959 in an urban park in the middle of Moscow, what were our resources?

Louie!

Louie, our Russian-speaking painter, was thrust into the dilemma. I gave him handful of rubles and told him to find a cab and come back with coffee. Period.

“Louie,” I said. “You are going to make history by establishing the first coffee break in Russia, so don’t come back without coffee.” He fully understood the challenge and was visibly excited to accomplish this important mission.

“Don’t verrrry boss, I’ll be rrrright beck.”

I remember holding Elliott Erwitt’s Rolleiflex and thinking that this may have been the very camera that made him famous. Billy himself took the photo that appeared on the front page of the next day’s New York Times, but credit was given to Erwitt and various agencies. We passed in many cameras, shouting to Billy the name of each photographer. One photo was of my boss, who was standing a few feet behind Khrushchev pointing at the camera and directing Billy where to take the shot.

The debate lasted for over 45 minutes. During this time, Billy was somehow able to arrange for Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times to climb over the railing and sit at the kitchen table taking down the commentary. This was a brilliant move. Billy knew that Salisbury didn’t need translation, that he was proficient in the Russian language.

It was a scoop. My boss’s demand and McCrary’s Safire had pulled it off. Front page of the New York Times!

The Kitchen Debate was now history. As the crowd moved out, Khrushchev stopped and indicated that he wanted to greet the builders of the house. I was summoned and stood behind my boss and introduced as the “foreman of construction.” Nikita shook my hand. He applied a great deal of pressure and to this day I don’t know if it was a friendly gesture or a reaction to Nixon’s debating skills. Sadly, all the photographers were moving to the next exhibit, and I don’t know if any photos were taken of Khrushchev and me.