The speaker at last week's National Press Club luncheon in Washington was introduced as an "All-American Russian." He was short, of average build, blue-eyed, grey-haired, wearing a neat and conservative suit; his air of aplomb as he looked around the crowded room was that of a subdued advertising executive. He spoke good English, and as he began to read the text of a formal speech he ad-libbed that he liked to ski, swim, play tennis; he broadened that into "good sportsmanship" and that into "good neighbors" and that into "peaceful coexistence."
Then Mikhail Alekseevich Menshikov, 55, new U.S.S.R. Ambassador to...