December 23: “Package from American Embassy with coffee, cigarettes, razor blades, candy, etc. Was told today that starting in January I would be given The National Geographic, Popular Science, and Nation magazines. Can be bought in Russia. Two walks today; made envelopes. Potatoes for supper; didn’t take any.”
December 25: “Christmas Day. Had manna for breakfast, soup and plate of noodles for dinner, and a plate of mashed potatoes for supper. Typical Sunday here but no movie this weekend. Took one walk and took a nap in the afternoon. All that made this Christmas Day was my knowing it was. Am pretty homesick. Worked on carpet quite a lot today.”
December 26: “Only took one walk today. Made 250 envelopes. Finished a play by Gorky, Lower Depths. Worked on carpet. Had potatoes for supper; didn’t take any.”
December 27: “Four letters today. Two from Barbara, one from Mom and Dad, and one from Jessie. Jessie’s and Barbara’s had pictures in them.”
December 31: “New Year’s Eve—a very lonely day with lots of reminiscences. Spent several hours writing in the history of my stay here [the journal]. Thinking very much of my wife. Hope I can go to sleep tonight.”
Twelve
On New Year’s Day I was startled to hear my own voice on the radio. It was a year-end wrap-up of significant events of 1960, and parts of the trial were rebroadcast.
I asked Zigurd if there was any mention of the RB-47 pilots, but on this the news was curiously silent. So far as I knew, they had yet to be brought to trial. However, on the off-chance they had been sent to Vladimir, I had resumed whistling American songs during our walks, in hope of making contact.
My diary entries for 1961 started off with a humorous note.
January 1: “Just opened a package that I thought was cookies. Turned out to be Cocktail Dainties! Why in the world is the American Embassy sending me cocktail snacks when they know I don’t have and can’t get cocktails?”
On January 2, regular programming was interrupted for Khrushchev’s New Year’s toast. Greatly excited, Zigurd translated it for me. Khrushchev had said that with the passing of the old year and the old government of the United States, Russia was willing to forget the U-2 incident and start 1961 fresh!
Diary: “Surely they can’t forget about it with me in prison? Much hope.”
Zigurd shared it. He had maintained, from the very start, that I would not serve my full sentence.
That same day something else occurred to make me hope he was right.
With the Little Major on leave, Major Yakovlov brought the mail. Just before leaving, he told us we needed haircuts.
Journaclass="underline" “This is very strange, for no one has ever mentioned our needing haircuts before, even though they were certainly needed.”
To a prisoner, anything out of the ordinary, no matter how seemingly unimportant, takes on significance.
First there was Khrushchev’s toast, then Major Yakovlov’s remark about haircuts. If they were going to release me, they would want me to look presentable. It all fitted.
Of course, I reminded myself, we did need haircuts. It could be coincidence.
I didn’t believe that. Nor for a moment.
Following the excitement, reaction set in.
Diary, January 3: “Having a sinking spell in my thoughts. I suppose my chances of being released soon are better than they were, but I am too unimportant a person for anyone to worry about me. My release depends on the whims of men who could not care less what happens to me or to any single person. They think in millions, not in ones. Made over five-hundred envelopes today.”
Using up my two-hundred-and-fifty-envelope quota was a nervous response. I paid for it immediately.
January 4: “Ran out of paper for making envelopes today. No more available, so can’t make any.”
January 5: “Has been a very bad day for me. Have been very depressed most of the day. Took bath and was supposed to get a haircut, but barber didn’t show up.”
Journaclass="underline" “A prisoner never gives up hope. He is always waiting for some miracle to happen. There would probably be a lot more trouble in prisons if this were not so…. A person would go completely crazy in prison if there wasn’t, in the back of his mind, this hope of getting out, some way or the other.”
We got the haircuts on the seventh.
On the ninth we were visited again by the major. I asked outright how my chances looked. He replied that things would go well for me if Kennedy made a policy of having better relations with the USSR.
This time I didn’t try to hide my excitement. One thing I had learned about the Communists, particularly the KGB, was that no one ever ventured a personal opinion. Every statement was prefaced by the collective we. “We think…” We feel…,”I was never told anything that Moscow hadn’t approved, that wasn’t the official line. The major wouldn’t have ventured this much unless he had some assurance that prospects were good.
January 11: “I don’t think I have mentioned it before, but ever since May 1 I have had a constant high-frequency ringing in my ears. It was lower than usual this evening.”
January 13: “Excellent news today. The colonel (regional KGB, from Vladimir) told me that my release from prison depended wholly upon how Kennedy reacted to the toast of Khrushchev on New Year’s Eve. I certainly hope that Kennedy in his speech on the twentieth will come out very strong for good relations and easing the tension in the world. Hope he repeats what he said during the campaign, about apologizing for the flight, etc.”
January 15: “Started reading Ben-Hur. I finished all I can do to the carpet this morning. I hope I am able to deliver it in person to the States soon. I feel fairly certain that February will see me free, but there is always the possibility of it not happening. I refuse to think about that. Potatoes for supper,”
I was rather proud of the carpet. It measured twenty-one by twenty-eight inches; had six colors in the pattern—light and dark green, tan, red, pink, and black; and contained over thirteen-thousand crosses, each cross formed by pushing the needle through four times. I estimated it had taken about three hundred hours. At least I would have something to show for the time I had spent in Russia.
Letter to Barbara, January 16: “I have great hope of something very important happening soon. I don’t want to build up your hopes, but it is entirely possible that I could be released in the near future. I am placing much hope on the attitude of Kennedy toward better relations with the Soviet Union, which I think he will try to improve. If his attitude is favorable, then my chances are very good.”
Citing Khrushchev’s toast and his intention to pass over the incident, I noted, “in order for the incident to pass and be forgotten, it would be necessary for me to leave prison. I hope they haven’t forgotten that part of the incident and the fact that I am still here….
“These are optimistic hopes, and are far from certainties. I hope they aren’t too optimistic, and I hope by the time this letter reaches you that we both will have heard something or, better still, will have seen each other on that side of the Atlantic. If we haven’t heard by that time, then these were only wishful thoughts.”
After mentioning that I had finished her anniversary gift, and hoped to deliver it in person, I closed with some pessimistic thoughts: “In a way I suppose it is very stupid of me to have any hopes of being released soon. If it doesn’t happen, I will be extremely disappointed, so I should not allow myself to get into the position of being disappointed.”
Diary, January 18: “About -20°C. My cellmate and I only take one walk when it is this cold. It is almost impossible to crumble bread for the pigeons at this temperature. The hands get numb after a few seconds. One can not stand still, either, or the feet freeze.”