The Russians visit Boston

   In the spring of 1975 I was assigned to the staff of Admiral Stansfield Turner who was the commander of both the U. S. Second Fleet and the NATO Fleet. One of the notable events in that spring was the port visit of two Russian (then the USSR) Destroyers to Boston. This was the first such visit since World War II and our flagship was the host; and this visit was to serve two purposes: ceremonies marking the 30th anniversary of the Allied victory, and preparations for the bicentennial in 1976.

   Here is a quote from the New York Times of May 13 1975:

   “The ceremonies began early this morning as a National Guard artillery battalion fired off a salvo to salute the ships as they passed Castle Island in Boston Harbor. Further cannonades marked more salutes and fireboats sent up plumes of water. Vice Admiral Stansfield Turner, commander of the Second Fleet, and his staff, wearing bemedaled dress uniforms and carrying swords, greeted the commander of the Soviet squadron, A. M. Kalinin, and his aides, who were similarly accoutered. Anatoly F. Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador to the United States, reviewed a detachment of Russian sailors on the deck of one of the ships…”

   We staff officers went aboard the Russian destroyers for a couple of hours and had a casual look around, and were not impressed. The ships were not in tip-top shape and although they were only a few years old they looked more like 30 years old. The Russian officers were friendly and treated us in the wardroom with sardines and vodka; the vodka was served so cold that it went down without any taste and after a few seconds it exploded somewhere between the esophagus and the stomach. Later we hosted the Russian officers on the flagship, and we could offer only coffee and doughnuts but they seemed to appreciate our refreshments. 

   Most of the Russian officers could speak some English, so after a while we chatted about harmless things like the weather at sea, problems with the senior officers, too much time at sea and not enough shore leave, etc. Later when the Russian officers had returned to their ships we learned from our own intelligence officers that most of the actual Russian destroyer officers had remained at sea aboard a support ship while the Russian

officers we had been socializing with were KGB intelligence officers pretending to be destroyer officers.

   The Russian destroyers stayed for 5 days. The Russian sailors were allowed to go ashore only in tightly controlled groups of about 10 or so, and only during the day. But they seemed to enjoy themselves greatly. Most of them were overwhelmed by supermarkets and department stores. They thought that ice cream cones were the finest treat ever, and there was a lot of fraternizing between the American and Russian sailors. There were a lot of exchanges of addresses and trinkets. The one thing that has remained with me was the awe with which the Russian sailors expressed for American technology; namely our invention of the ballpoint pen. These youngsters had not seen or written with a ballpoint pen and considered them very valuable. Our American sailors immediately grasped the opportunity and they could exchange a ballpoint pen for a Russian belt buckle, or a sailor’s hat, etc. After the first day of the Russian visit, all the ballpoint pens mysteriously disappeared from the flagship, but we survived until the Russians went back to sea and the next order of ballpoint pens arrived.