(2 of 2)
The Tools. As the group headed off from Moscow's Yaroslavsky Station amid a blare of brass bands, the Rev. Mr. McKenna read a statement signed by 32 members of the group. "We believe in the right of citizens to travel." he said. "We reject the notion that we are a tool of Communist propaganda." Not 24 hours later one of the group, Brooklyn's Larry Moyer, was pumping out glowing dispatches for the United Press about Communism's "oceans of golden wheat . . . big factories and golden domes of Byzantine churches . . . new industrial giants seldom visited by foreigners."
Back home the misguided tour stirred up most editorialists and most vocal politicos. "They have played into the hands of the Kremlin propagandists," said Minnesota's Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey. "They have fallen for a come-on gimmick," added Montana's Democratic Senator Mike Mansfield. "My remedy," Vermont's liberal Republican Senator George D. Aiken summed up, "would be a good spanking for every one of them."