* *

Paul flew into Moscow in an Aeroflot jet, landing at Vnukovo airport on
the outskirts of the city. He entered as an American businessman, a
camera importer who was also interested in doing a bit of tourist
sightseeing. He was traveling deluxe category which entitled him to a
Zil complete with chauffeur and an interpreter-guide when he had need of
one. He was quartered in the Ukrayna, on Dorogomilovskaya Quai, a
twenty-eight floor skyscraper with a thousand rooms.

It was Paul's first visit to Moscow but he wasn't particularly thrown
off. He kept up with developments and was aware of the fact that as
early as the late 1950s, the Russians had begun to lick the problems of
ample food, clothing and finally shelter. Even those products once
considered sheer luxuries were now in abundant supply. If material
things alone had been all that counted, the Soviet man in the street
wasn't doing so badly.

He spent the first several days getting the feel of the city and also
making his preliminary business calls. He was interested in a new
"automated" camera currently being touted by the Russians as the world's
best. Fastest lens, foolproof operation, guaranteed for the life of the
owner, and retailing for exactly twenty-five dollars.

He was told, as expected, that the factory and distribution point was in
Leningrad and given instructions and letters of introduction.

On the fifth day he took the Red Arrow Express to Leningrad and
established himself at the Astoria Hotel, 39 Hertzen Street. It was one
of the many of the Intourist hotels going back to before the revolution.

He spent the next day allowing his guide to show him the standard
tourist sights. The Winter Palace, where the Bolshevik revolution was
won when the mutinied cruiser _Aurora_ steamed up the river and shelled
it. The Hermitage Museum, rivaled only by the Vatican and Louvre. The
Alexandrovskaya Column, the world's tallest monolithic stone monument.
The modest personal palace of Peter the Great. The Peter and Paul
Cathedral. The king-size Kirov Stadium. The Leningrad subway, as much a
museum as a system of transportation.

He saw it all, tourist fashion, and wondered inwardly what the Intourist
guide would have thought had he known that this was Mr. John Smith's
home town.

The day following, he turned his business problem over to the guide. He
wanted to meet, let's see now, oh yes, here it is, Leonid Shvernik, of
the Mikoyan Camera works. Coul