Show Notes
It was unusual for any Americans during the Cold War to travel in the Soviet Union but Russell Sveda did just that in 1969. After serving for two years as a Peace Corps (PC) volunteer in Korea, he decided to make his way home by taking the path less traveled and riding the Trans-Siberian railroad. He talks about meeting ethnic Koreans in Samarkand, his offer of marriage by a woman he didn’t even know, and an hours-long “interview” with a KGB agent posing as a journalist. He was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy in 2000.
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Nixon's "jowls were wobbling in anger" when a young foreign service officer, during Nixon's historic 1972 visit to China, saved the President from embarrassment by refusing to interpret. Here is the story.