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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (July 26, 1953)
fr (Sec 1 Statesmen SedoWOrsw Suxw July 2S, 1SS3 Eddy Gilmore War Cjoinivy iripiio firoiic:Iirciel2dl;io 11- Ye'ar Sayr iini.KusJlali 'ftBtip;!tBarb? EDITORS . NOTE The bud Bets f reporters, Is to tell what happen to other people, not them selves.. Bat ccasionally the re porters themselves fet. late the hwl and ' the "story behind the story" becomes of Interest. That's the case with Eddy Gilmore, AP eorrespondeat, who. la a sense, be came aprisoaer of the cold war. He peat 11 years la Moscow, aad set all of it by choice. Ia otter articles be has writtea of some of the events k observed ia the Soviet Union, of his Jmpressloas. For this article Gilmore was asked to tea bis owb, personal story especially how he maintained his good homer through several years of ancer talaty.) By EDDY GILMORE 'PARIS (A Getting into Rus sia can sometimes be more diffi cult than getting out of Russia. Both were difficult in my case. Russia was far from my thoughts that June morning in bomb-blasted Chelsea, London, where I was living in 1941. The telephone be side the bed began that English double-ring, and it was the Rus sian voice of an emigre Russian girl that told me of the German Invasion of the Soviet Union. "Hitler's soobmorines,' she said in tha curious, melodious voice that I was to hear so many times later in the U.S.S.R., "ess drobink torpaydos all ovah leetle mudda Rooshia." Effective Red Accent (I always thought she affected this accent, but affected or not, it was effective.) This was all very hard to tune in at 6 a.m., British double daylight time. "What are you doing," I asked, "drinking vodka at this hour of the night?" After quite a few more questions I realized Hitler had. at last marched against Stalin. In no time at all the Associated Press ordered me to the Soviet Union. But how to get there? A convoy, I was told in a hushed voice, was the only way. Never Heard of Me I taxied to the Soviet embassy confident they would be delighted to hand me a visa to go help report the Russian war effort to the out side world. How extremely wrong I was. They never heard of me. They said the visa would lake time, lit did, too. but early in October we were sailing the Arctic Ocean, above the Arctic Circle, in a British convoy for Archangel. What witch ing words those were for me . . . Arctic Circle, Archangel. Every day Gorman planes would come out ana jook at us ana we would look back and pray they would do no mora than look. -That's all they did do. We were loaded with tanks and hurricane planes. The Russian front was falling apart and military experts all over the world were predicting the Germans, would occupy Moscow in weeks. The Soviet capital, we learned, was already being evacuated. A grim outlook, and made dim mer by events in Archangel. The Russian authorities there had nev er heard of us (five correspondents, three American, one English and one Australian, with two RAP officers-.) They wouldn't even let us off the boat. Then one morning I saw a smartly dressed RAF offic er walking along the quay, look ing up at the ship, "Good morning," he said brightly, and those words never sounded nicer. j Allowed Off Ship 'The officer turned out to be group captain, later Air Commo dore Ivoe Bird, and later to die in Moscow. We told him our plight and he "iegan to "deal with it," as the British j say. , In a few hours we were at least allowed off the ship, a doughty little mer chantman on which, we'd been con fined 27 days. We crossed the Dvina, already freezing, in a. small boat and spent the day trying to find a Russian with authority to let us go to Mos cow. Disillusioned, we started back across the Dvina to our ship. We used an Archangel ferry for this ride through the ice and it brought me in close contact with Russians In mass for the first time. Disregard for Ice Floes : The pilot of the wood-burning ferry showed utter disregard for the big ice blocks.! When the ferry would get halted by them, he would throw her into reverse, and then charge the blocks,! the entire craft quivering. Again and again. After an hour of this we reached solid ice, 75 yards from the river bank. Tha ferry could go no farther. , The 20C Russians on the ferry be gan to pour over the sides, down a sort of ladder. I noticed that the lirst one was a cripple. He reached Jhe . ice and. started , out v on his crutches! : t - ; .- ' ! He took three paces and then, buops! His crutches shot out from Oder him and .he fell on the ice. I Roar after roar of laughter swept the 200 Russians. , The cripple got in and. grinned. - iSo Beautifully Cruel "That's very Oriental, said one !tf the RAF officers, "and sever forget this. The Russians are cruel people. But so beautifully cruel. - After six days ia Archangel word got through from Moscow to let us come to Moscow. Off we went to the railway station in a snowstorm. Never mind. We were on our way. We thought everything was fine, but at the railway' station we hs QTtred that xtZ &ellorccnr frajn Reports: was standing by, we had no tickets and no permission to buy them (the first, but not the last time I was to hear that). , . - But there was a. helpful British colonel, also, bound for Moscow. CoL Hulls, of v the Gordon High landers. He " got' us aboard. The fact he spoke Russian helped.' .The trip 'took -21 days. We went into Siberia, and back out again. We were on theJrain and off. There -was the shabby hotel in the J ancient -city of Yaroslavl. Weighted With Books "Where is it? "I asked the Rus sian expert among us, a man who weighted himself down with books on Russia, and weighted us down with his opinions. "Where is what?" he countered. "The men's room," I told him. He looked at me with heavy dis dain, and spoke slowly: "Gilmore, you are in a country of Communism. There is full equal ity of the sexes. These people "are not filled with false modesty as are we of the Western, World. There's one such room, shared by men and women alike, and why shouldn't it be this way?" "All right," I said, "but where is it?" ' - He told me. I discovered I was the only person there. Then I heard the voices of several women. I list ened hard for a male voice. More -Women Came I stayed there for quite a while just listening. Not only did these women not go away, more came. I felt I'd better go. So, gathering my courage, I put my hand against a door and ' resolutely shoved it open. It hit something and from the angered wail that went up I knew I'd hit a baby. But it was too late to stop now. I found myself m a huddle of shouting women and one scream ing child. I beat a hasty retreat COKITflKIIUES IMS Colorss New, Smart Scroll Design .-; BR0ADL00M "lli,. yd. Colors: i Grey, Beige Rose or Green 1 v up. the corridor to. the. room .where Hulls, his face grave, summoned me into the corridor. , J .if-i ."Gilmore,' he said, "what have you been doing in the ladies room? The' management has had a strong complaint.' ' "From that day on Tve never placed much faith in experts on Russia. Bitterly Cold Trip : Full of self pity, we thought this trip was the worst in the world. It was bitterly cold. Several windows in our car. had been blown out by German - bombs. They were re placed by cardboard. We left Arch angel with food for six days and that had gone. We had a little money, but the peasants at the way side weren't interested in money the.-wanted soap, salt and clothes. Everything except my razor, a bar .of soap, some money and the clothes I stood in had been stolen, on the train. The same thing bad happened to Larry LeSueur, of the Columbia Broadcasting System. Col. Hulls had slipped on the ice while foraging for food at a , way side station and broken his arm! I'd lost about 14 pounds. We looked and felt a collective mess in this land of collectivity. Chunk of Paradise 0 Kuibyshev, on the high east bank of the frozen Volga, seemed a love ly chunk of paradise as we arrived in a snowstorm. We had expected a great welcome. A single Greek made up the welcoming committee. But pretty soon, John Russell, sec retary the British embassy showed up and helped us find our wa to the Grand Hotel which, until this day, has made me wary of hotels by that name. A few days later, sitting in a room of the building to which the Amer ican i embassy had been evacua ted from Moscow, we heard about Pearl Harbor, and then we listened 0r J 1 . $9 J to. Hitler over -the shortwave radio. oeciare waron me unnea states. 600 Mil$F6m TStoryi - -. . i . " - S . ... ' We were, 600 miles : from i one of th greatest; stories in J the .world. And couldn't set there and couldn't get anyone interested in'our getting here. .Telegrams took two days to set .to 'New!1 York from Kmby sbev.The world looked dark in deed . It - :. '. - . And then the Russians put .up mat -aeiense at moscow s- gauss. German patrols were "actually 14 miles 'from . the . city at one point. Marshal Georgi Zhukov flung, the Germans back4 from Moscow, and our. 'luck, changed ' too. ' We .were hurried' up to Moscow.' I say hur ried: it took six 'days i by train: " Red - Square 5 had always meant Moscow to me; and, arriving -there in the- blackout, I . deposited my belongings (American Embassy friends' in Kuibyshev had given me some clothes): and set out from the Metropole Hotel to walk i' Red Square. .' There it was just as big as Td imagined") and 'just as mysterious looking. It was full moonlight and I truly felt - in ; another world I looked up at the onion-shaped and many colored domes of St. Baisl's Cathedral. At that block of marble that was; Lenin's tomb, and where I was later to see them lay the body of. Joseph Stalin. . And the Kremlin, the ancient .Kremlin of Ivan the Terrible, -Peter the Great the Alexanders and Lenin and Stal in. ( Mother Metropole In due course, I was able to take up residence at the Metropole Ho tel. Ah, Mother Metropole. And Mother. Metropole's great dining room now used for an occasional dance where I first met Tamara, the brown-eyed Russian girl wh was to become my. wife. And, if youll pardon me a little sentiment. WEKU TO I - f or Jus ii o ncudes -. . . Carpet Motion o?lndtt0-.,7 :or-oniY train , you cotiW ; .vr aream J; iittl EASY TEPJ.1S I Friday Evenings itiiiVpiri i i " " - the person - who his-made me feel j that if life. ended, tomorrow, we wouldn't owejmer a thing. She was a .dancer in the Mos cow Ballet, and -we were-married in 1943 with the late 'Wendell WSk ie playing the role of intermediary and benefactor; y ' W Just after the' war, in the sum me of 1946, Tamara and I visited the-United State's.4 We took along our; elder' daughter Vicki, then 2, and. returned to Moscow after a 3-monthTacation, fairly sure that if we got out once 'we'd get out again. .The: office -said I was the man for the job and Russia war a fascin ating place. ', i ,. .J. y: Back to Russia Again r It was 'in i September, 1948. that I went back to resume , the Job of reporting Russia. - Then .the j roof, began to fall in. It was ' about the time of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. When the Krem lin and this means Stalin began to . realize .that there was a -growing number of people in the world whr didn't look on him exactly as benign old Uncle Joe.. . The Russian government 'ruled that Russian girls who had married foreigners-and -there. were many others could not leave .the country. As an. American " citizen, ' I ' could leave any time,but .-not with my wife . and two girls, ' -. It was a case Of sticking with them' in 'Moscow, or' abandoning them.- The latter was too monstrous to even think about, il stuck : with them. And Tamara stucfwith me in times when it was anything but pleasant to be the Russian wife of an American in Moscow. , " The censorship -became-rigid. I once tried -to write a story about Russian dishes. Half of it was killed. In a museum I found a copy of one of Stalin's schoolboy report cards. Like many other youths he wasn't too hot In Greek and arithmetic. I -wrote ? about that. - The censor killed.it Stalin had to be perfect, even as a 10-year-old.- . I began to write almost exclus ively for one of the smallest cir cles of readers in the world those4 censors. But- occasionally I'd get something out, or a piece of visual reporting would come along that I could let go on. But every month held a hundred heartbreaks. The Gilmore family became a casualty of the cold war. . Everything Uncertain ' ' The worst thing for me was the 9 i uncertainty of everyting.! had no diplomatic passport. No diplomatic irnmunity. I could be slapped into jail on any accusation and I knew there . was probably 'nothing any one could - do about it -h". y .Tt the credit of the', organization for which I work, they stuck , by me. I was in a pickle, but: I knew the AP knew, that as long as rigid censorship prevailed in Russia the most high-powered , correspondent ahve couldn t get much high-power ed stuff out ot Russia., , . I found a formula for not going crazyt'.' j --j I became a drummer in a jazz bahd, the best ' American drummer in all Russia, and Russia occupies one-sixth of the - earth's surface. Ycu see, I was the only American drummer. In. Russia. . " . We called thei band the "Krem lin Krows,' until the chief of pro tocol o the Soviet Ministry of For eign Affairs saw it painted on my bass drum ; one night at , the Egyptian , legation. ; j ' . He said it showed disrespect for the Kremlin. . Purged Pigeons" We had to wash the name off the bass drumThen we called our selves, "The Purged Pigeons.But it took too much time explaining that. The last and filial, name we played under was "Joe . Commode and his Four Flushers." Foreigners 'never could figure that one out. And they didn't want to ask. It saved an awful lot of trouble.- The band's personnel changed from year to ; year. But not, the drummer boy. He just got balder anu fatter.-And it looked-as if he were not only the best American drummer in all Russia,, but a per manent one. . - r ; I' believe ' that band saved me. That and Tamara. And the sure knowledge that in Russia anything can happen and frequently does. Permittee!, to Leave Then one day the lightning struck. With Stalin dead, 'the new Soviet regime decided to let us go. along with some others similarly situated. ' I know now what it means when the warden comes in and says: "Get your things ready, son." To let us go was no great and original act of charity. It was some thing that should have been done a long time ago. But we are thank o, 0 EASIEST CREDIT TERMS f I lflSi CARPPT "-r 1 Save on Room Shtd ful anyway; And pinching ourselves. I've wanted a camera for years, but it would; have . been father dangervQs for an American corres pondent to have one in Moscow. This month I was in Sweden watch ing peopje snap cameras all round me.f", V,',r r , '"My. God," I said ia nayself.one V i i X EN m 9 INCHER e Thrift is an admirable virtre. Bat where family health is concerned, pinch ing pennies is poor econ ooiy: Call on your Doctor 'at. the first suggestion of illness. Timely aid may prevent 'needless-suffering save money, too! Be sure to bring as prescrip--tions for compounding. We Give SiH " Green. Stamps v CAPITAL DRUG STORE 405 State St. at Liberty 0 m HU IU WAU v 2 ; ' v . -; " Rugs Tailored to Fit Ycur Floors . . . Many - other numerous to for this great aro always SV Crfcg Ycur morning.- wny don't 1 go out anS : It simply hadn't occurred to fne that I could. . 4 How truly superb it Is to gt where you want U.tay what yt want to, live the way you want tor and in my business to write with out censorship! NY m TOWN ! vur-riiE For Just h IUHO i ' " '; - , ' ' " fine broacBooni carpers too picture have bn saU prkeel event. - . - - . 4 i - ' An opportunity like this ; doesn't como eren, so plan to come early when selections best. Rccm iMes:urcn::n::