The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2023 37 Excellent Exposure Kathleen Rose Photography USA / Ufa, Novosibirsk, Moscow / 1977 I was a guide on the second half of Photography USA in 1977. At that time there was a bit of a lull in the Cold War, known as détente in the West and raz- ryadka in the Soviet Union. There had been successful SALT talks, a joint U.S./ USSR space mission, and a number of cultural initiatives. That is not to say there were not still significant disagree- ments over conflicts around the world, but there was some relaxation of tensions between the late sixties and 1977, and that is how it felt to me on the exhibit. There were still visitors who wanted to spar with us on what was wrong with America, but it was always possible to defuse the situation and to get the crowd on your side. The first city we opened in was Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan in the Ural Mountains. Ufa was close to a thousand miles east of Moscow, but it seemed like it was on another planet. I had been a student in Moscow and Leningrad in 1972 but had never been to a provincial Soviet city that saw few, if any, tourists. Ufa had hosted a U.S. Information Agency exhibit five years earlier, but other than that it had seen few foreigners. I remember that the hotel we stayed in still had the smell of recent varnish with a top numerous articles in the media warning local citizens that the guides were somehow dangerous and up to no good. They were especially hard on our local guides in non-Rus- sian areas such as Georgia and Moldova. We were some- times followed by druzhiniki , watchers who threatened some kind of retribution against families of individuals we were trying to date. Dating usually consisted of walking along the river, as there was very little else to do. That we were able to see things with our own eyes as guides was crucial to debunking myths about Soviets and, later, about Russians. I learned early that there was never going to be “a level playing field”—that is, if we played nice with the Russians, they would respond in kind—and that it was naive to think so. Russians are wonderful people and have a rich culture and abundant resources, but subsequent work in the region solidified my early impressions that they seem to need an “other.” Someone asked me recently if I thought that things are worse now in Russia than in Soviet times, and whether we might do any of the old exchanges or cultural programs to ease tensions. On the whole, it’s worse now in Russia, but not quite Stalinesque (people do seem to fall out of windows, but wholesale murder of political dissidents is not the norm). At least in Soviet times starting in the 1950s, the Soviets saw a purpose in displaying their advances in sci- ence and culture. We were the enemy, but there seemed to be some sense to engaging us, perhaps handing us the rope to hang ourselves. That doesn’t exist today. Today we’re still the enemy, but the sense of engaging us to score their own points is gone. Today, with President Vladimir Putin, there is a former KGB officer, a silovik (a member of one of the various security services), converted to a Russian imperialist in charge in what he sees as a winner-take-all existential struggle. The U.S. government should not stop trying to engage the Russians through our cultural and exchange programs, but with Russia passing laws to label all organizations that administer such pro- grams foreign agents, I’m not holding my breath. Michael Hurley joined the Foreign Service with the U.S. Information Agency in 1985, and was posted to Kuala Lumpur, Moscow (three times), Surabaya, and Budapest. As an information officer in Embassy Moscow’s Press Office (1987-1990), Hurley advanced the Information USA and Design USA exhibits. Later, he was the chief architect of a two-year celebration of culture in the U.S., raising $2 million in the private sector in Russia to create “American Seasons in Russia” (2011-12). Hurley retired from the Foreign Service in 2015. A Polaroid print of exhibit guides Kathleen Rose and John Beyrle taken by a fellow guide on the floor at Photography USA in Novosibirsk, 1977. COURTESYOFKATHLEENROSE