The Foreign Service Journal, June 2021

80 JUNE 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Through a Journalist’s Eyes Assignment Russia: Becoming a Foreign Correspondent in the Crucible of the ColdWar Marvin Kalb, Brookings Institution Press, 2021, $24.99/hardcover, e-book available, 352 pages. Reviewed by Eileen A. Malloy Marvin Kalb has written a memoir that is difficult for the reader to resist binge- reading straight to the end. I had expected to findmyself at home with this book, sharing with the author a longtime fascina- tion with Russia, and I looked forward to seeing Moscow in all its 1950s Soviet glory through the eyes of a young journalist. Assignment Russia was that andmore. Particularly fascinating were Kalb’s insights into the changing world of news journal- ism, from the time when radio was king to the early days of television news’ ascen- dency. Before he could be a successful foreign correspondent, he had to learn how to be a journalist. Recruited by Edward R. Murrow— acknowledged as the best of his day— Kalb lived and breathedMurrow’s mantra that “a reporter’s job was not tomake news, but to cover it—with honesty and humility, with fairness and dignity.”The book details his early work at CBS in radio news, his first exposure to production of a television documentary, and his deter- mined efforts to become the recognized Soviet expert at CBS. Along the way, Kalb worked with, sup- ported and admired journalists such as Walter Cronkite—the man who ultimately became the most trusted journalist in America. Kalb proved his worth by offering CBS’ star journalists background informa- tion on the USSR, in general, and, in par- ticular, on the thinking of then–Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, whomKalb hadmet during an assignment as a translator to the U.S. embassy inMoscow. The relationship of the United States and the USSR during the 1950s, and the danger of a nuclear confrontation, made Kalb’s perspective invaluable to CBS. Readers who came of age in the late 1990s or later may find Kalb’s description of the USSR as being of “burning contemporary relevance” a bit overdramatic. But those of us who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s— and can remember practicing drills for a possible nuclear attack—will agree with his assessment. Eventually Kalb got his coveted assign- ment toMoscow, just in time to represent CBS at the ill-fated Paris Summit on the Berlin crisis. Kalb’s reporting on his one- on-one discussions with Khrushchev early on the morning of the summit gives the reader a wonderful sense of Khrushchev’s propaganda approach to the 1960 U-2 shootdown fiasco. While we already have access to a num- ber of sources describing President Dwight Eisenhower’s thinking on the impact of the shooting down of the U-2, most recently in Susan Eisenhower’s 2020 book, How Ike Led , firsthand reporting on the Soviet leader’s thinking is much less accessible. Once on the ground inMoscow, Kalb and his wife, both fluent Russian speakers, took every opportunity to talk with Soviet citizens, fromhigh-level bureaucrats to lowly taxi drivers, in an effort to under- stand the health and prospects of the Soviet state. Kalb personally believed that the alliance between the two communist superpowers—China and the USSR— was unraveling. Both countries, he believed, “were guided primarily by their national needs, which led inexorably to differing interpretations of communist ideology.” He saw the upcoming split long before key players in the White House and the Department of State. One of the more remarkable scenes Kalb witnessed was the unofficial funeral for Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago . Kalb was one of the few, if not the only, Western journalists to attend the Peredelkino event. He filmed the mourners, observing those artists and writers brave enough to ignore the Soviet government’s attempts to keep people away from the funeral, including the poet Voznesensky, and watched the contrasting behaviors of Pasternak’s girlfriend and his wife. Makes one wish to have been a fly on the wall! I very much enjoyed Assignment Rus- sia and look forward to the next in Kalb’s series of memoirs. Into his 90s now, he has a great story to share. Eileen Anne Malloy, a career Foreign Service officer from 1978 to 2008, served in the U.K., Canada, Ireland, Australia, Russia, Turk- menistan, Ukraine andWashington, D.C., where she held multiple assignments. The U.S. ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic from 1994 to 1997, she was appointed senior adviser on Russia and the former Soviet Union for Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in 1999. BOOKS One of themore remarkable scenes Kalb witnessedwas the unofficial funeral for Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago .