The Foreign Service Journal, April 2009

A P R I L 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 53 nates, though several legendary U.S. diplomats who worked in Moscow seemed equally indifferent to the plight of their fellow citizens—or at least un- willing to risk their careers to help them. Some of this indifference seems to have stemmed from the feeling that these Americans had brought their fate upon themselves by leaving the United States, and perhaps also from class dif- ferences between the diplomats of that era and the working-class expatriates who sought their assistance. In addition, Tzouliadis reminds us that many Americans in the 1930s still believed in the notion that the Soviet Union was a “workers’ paradise,” and tended to dismiss accounts of the Great Terror as propaganda. The great singer Paul Robeson on his visits to Russia re- portedly refused appeals from persons looking to escape the USSR, and pub- licly supported Stalin until the end. While one obviously needs to be careful about passing judgment on diplomats of a different era, Tzouliadis persuasively argues that Davies failed to use the leverage available to him. In contrast, he notes, the Austrian ambas- sador to Moscow rescued dozens of his similarly-endangered compatriots, and the German government, newly allied with the USSR, didn’t hesitate to use its influence to secure release of its citi- zens (most of whom ended up in Ger- man concentration camps, however). Included among the ranks of Tzou- liadis’ “forsaken” are U.S. servicemen captured during World War II and Korea, most never heard from again. While this chapter could be its own book, Tzouliadis uses it as an effective bridge to relations with modern-day Russia. After the fall of the USSR, an early 1990s intergovernmental project to analyze newly opened Soviet-era archives to trace the fate of those cap- tured U.S. servicemen quickly ran into resistance from the Russian security agencies. Those truly knowledgeable about the events of this era may take excep- tion to some of Tzouliadis’ assertions and interpretations. Nonetheless, The Forsaken is a superb introduction to the Great Terror and the story of the thousands of Americans caught up in it. Marko Velikonja joined the Foreign Ser- vice in 1999 and has served in Manila, Montreal and Moscow. He is currently an economic officer in Yerevan. B O O K S