Evening star., 1941-10-30
Ny Visit With
Josef Stain
Russia at War;

photographs framed and under
glass. At the far end of the table,
its lone occupant was seated; not
at the head, but on one side was
the man I had come to see. The
interpreter and I walked rapidly
the length of the table and while we
were walking Stain got up and we
shook hands across the table. The
interpreter pulled out chair for
down together with my Voice be-
tween us at the head of the table.
Thin Sheaf of Paper.
Stain had a very thin sheaf of
papers in front of him-not over
six or eight sheets. They looked
like reports of some kind. While
we talked. Stain lit one cigarette
after another, smoked all the to-
bacco in each. Russian cigarettes
are two-thirds-long paper holder
and one-third tobacco. Thus, even
their stubs are longer than our unlit
cigarettes. The only other thing
in front of Stain was an ash tray
overflowing with paper cigar stubs
and an open box of new cigarettes,
already half empty.
There was an awkward moment
after we sat down I was so full of
looking at Josef Stain that I forgot
what I wanted to say. He looks
exactly like his pictures, but older
and grayer. His face was abso-
lutely impassive and gave no clue
to what he was thinking. 1t startled
me, his looking so much like his
pictures. For a month I had hardly
entered a room. a restaurant. rail-
way station or an Office without
having that same face staring i'm
passively at me from the most
prominent place on the wall. His
face was lined and his skin was
brown and coarse, but not un-
pleasant. In his youth his hair
and his muStache were very black,
but now they are quite gray. He is
So. He wore his habitually lmpec-
cably neat gray costume, which is
neither uniform nor civilian. When
I got over my stage fright We be-
gan to talk.
knowledge of Details.
The circumstances in which saw
Stain included the same promise
one must give Prime Ministers and
Presidents; no direct quotation. l
might use the information he gave
me. I might describe my visit. l
might not quote directly. Late in
our conversation he reminded me
of this.
I had business with him. I felt,
and still feel. the Importance OF freer
exchange of news between the Soviet
Union and the u. S. A. In way, l
represented the American press. So
1 began at once to press my case
for wider privileges for working cor
respondents in Moscow. No one had
been allowed to visit the front-1t
was too dangerous" Even more
important the amount of red tape
that foreign correspondents had to
go through just to arrange to get
their stories, let alone passing them
through the censorship, left them
only an hour or two to gather and
write their news.
Conversation Formal at First.
These first 10 or IS minutes we
spent together were very formal and
unsatisfying to me. I was having
a hard time phrasing my questions
and arguments for the interpreter.
BY the time I saw Stain I had
worked with Interpreters enough to
know little of the necessary tech
nioue. You must keep your SEN
tences very short, avoid idiomatic
language or slang which the in
terpreter may not understand and
may miStranslate.
Stain is very good at talking
through interpreters. Whether he is
like that with his associates or not
I don't know, but his talk with me
was characterized by short, clear
replies, instantly given and always
to the point.
Another condition of my talk was
a promise given to Lozovsky that I
would not keep the boss long. He had
a war to run. At the end of IS min
utes I told the interpreter to tell
Stain that had made promise not
to impose on his time and that I
wanted to keep it. When this was
translated Stain smiled for the first
time. The effect was startling. His
whole face changed. The austere,
static, deadpan quality absolutely
disappeared and his expression be-
came warm and alive The smile
became laugh and he said, I'm
not that busy. Let us 60 on talk
ing" We went on talking for nearly
an hour more.
From then on we talked ex-
clusively about the war and we went
all over the world from front to
front and from problem to problem.
I experienced an extraordinary sem
sation. I knew few words of Rus