The Foreign Service Journal, September 2020

92 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL George Krol retired to Middletown, Rhode Island, in 2018 after 36 years in the Foreign Service, during which he served in Poland, India, Russia and Ukraine, and as ambassador to Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Domestically, he held positions of, inter alia, deputy assistant secretary of State for Central Asia and director of the Office of Russian Affairs. Ambassador Krol teaches an elective course on the former Soviet world as an adjunct professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, lectures locally on foreign policy topics and is an associate of Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. S ome readers may recognize the photo of an American and a Soviet soldier embracing after meeting in April 1945 at the Elbe River in Germany. They represented the historic coming together of American and Soviet armies that culminated in Ger- many’s surrender weeks later. In 2005, as U.S. ambassador to the former Soviet republic of Belarus, I was looking for ways to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, a war that left its tragic mark on practically every family in Belarus. I also wanted to improve America’s image among Belarusians in the midst of a hos- tile state media environment. Perusing a local newspaper, I found tucked away in the back pages a small item about the famous photograph, noting that the Soviet soldier, Alexander Silvashko, lived in a remote village in Belarus. I immedi- ately determined to meet him. s With the quiet help of the Belarusian veterans’ association, my intrepid Belar- usian assistant was able to contact Mr. Silvashko and set up a visit. My driver then took us—the U.S. defense attaché, the Belarusian assistant and me—hours down tiny dirt roads to reach the little village of Morach and Silvashko’s mod- est apartment. Mr. Silvashko warmly welcomed us. He lived alone. His wife had died a few years before, and he had long retired as director of the village school where he also taught history. Over tea, Silvashko vividly recalled his meeting with the American soldier in the photo, Lieuten- ant Bill Robertson. s As the U.S. Army advanced through Germany from the West, Silvashko recounted, Robertson’s commander had tasked his unit to find the Soviet armies then moving in from the East. Hoping to be the first American to meet the Soviets, Robertson defied orders and drove beyond his authorized perimeter to reach a bridge spanning the Elbe River in the town of Torgau. Silvashko, a lieutenant in the Soviet army, had REFLECTIONS History of a Handshake: Ground-Level Public Diplomacy in Belarus BY GEORGE KROL also reached the bridge on the Elbe’s eastern side. He saw a group of soldiers in strange uniforms on the other bank waving a white sheet painted with red stripes and a blue smudge. Never having seen an American flag or American soldiers, he thought the group could be Germans attempting to entice his unit across the half-destroyed bridge into an ambush. Silvashko ordered his men to lob a couple shells at the group, scattering them. After a few minutes, one of the group, Robertson, returned to the bridge unarmed and, with hand signals, urged Silvashko to come across and meet him halfway. Silvashko did so, climb- ing across the fractured beams until he reached Robertson. Although neither could understand the other’s language, through gestures each finally made out who the other was. The Allies had finally united! Robertson then invited Silvashko to come with him to American headquar- ters. When Silvashko, along with his two superior officers, arrived, the Ameri- cans feted them with food, drink and exchanges of insignia and wrist watches. It was then that a photographer snapped the famous photo. The next morning, the Soviets returned to their lines where the two senior officers were promptly arrested, Many times Silvashko said if only the comradeship … had endured, what a different and better world it might have been.