In West Virginia: Comradeship

By Gregory Jaynes

West Virginia wants to meet some Russians! How about it? We look forward to your response."

That exclamatory request, over the signature of an official of Salem College, a tiny liberal arts institution in the vertical world of Appalachia, was dispatched last February to the Soviet embassy in Washington. The letter, written at the direction of Ronald E. Ohl, president of the college, pointed out that Soviet-American relations "are not getting better" and asked that the embassy send some representatives to West Virginia to talk face to face.

The embassy acquiesced with alacrity, and late last month a Lincoln Continental bearing West Virginia plates (the embassy had requested the license number beforehand, along with the route to the college) arrived in the capital to collect Oleg and Ksana Benyukh and Oleg and Irina Shibko. The driver was Calvin Carstensen, director of community education at the college, and when he met his passengers they handed him a map with a route sketched out that flummoxed him. To go their way would inflate the normal driving time--4 1/2 hours--by half again or more.

Directly, however, Carstensen learned that just as there are areas in the Soviet Union that are off limits to Americans, so are there counties in the U.S. that are off limits to Soviets. These restricted spots do not always make sense, as they would, say, if a military installation were involved. But they make sense enough to the Kremlin and to the State Department. Thus the way back was taken out of the bewildered driver's hands, and they went the long way round. The passengers did not complain, although Irina Shibko got carsick.

The schedule called for a president's reception at 4 p.m., with punch and snacks, followed by a dinner in the cafeteria, followed by a question-and-answer session at 7 p.m. The big Lincoln growled round spiny hills whose flanks were flecked with dead old cars, over swollen brown rivers, through towns where businessmen affect three-piece suits the color of certain gaudy birds--the passengers being made tardier by the minute.

Meanwhile, the guests at the college had been alerted about the delaying circumstances. At 7 p.m., in a meeting hall, a couple of instructors refreshed them on Soviet history and told them that "our intention is not to antagonize or further antagonize these people but to bring the discussion onto common ground." The audience, numbering about 250, was reminded that "after the revolution of 1917, the U.S. was among the nations trying to destabilize the Marxist regime. We tend to forget that; they never will." Looking at his watch, one speaker said it seemed to him that "at times our governments get in the way of any possible negotiations." The audience grew angry at the inhospitality of its own State Department. At 8 p.m. the Soviets walked in to a standing ovation in a room full of sympathy.

Oleg Benyukh, chief of the information department at the Soviet embassy and the leader of this delegation, opened by saying there are "too many things that divide us," so he would prefer to spend the evening talking about the "things that will unite us." He added, "I'm of the opinion that the Americans know about my country many times less what we in my country know about the U.S." He said Americans were more interested in themselves than in their neighbors, let alone foreigners. The audience did not make a sound.

The first question, when question time came, was whether there was nature preservation in the Soviet Union. And Benyukh said yes, adding sorrowfully that "there are poachers everywhere in the world now." The second question: What surprises had they found when they first came to this country? Oleg Shibko, first secretary of the embassy, said the friendliness and "your high level of life." Benyukh then took the floor and said that despite all the criticism he had heard about it, "I love New York."

The next question was concerned with what the Soviet people do for recreation, for vacations. Irina Shibko, assistant managing editor of Soviet Life, a propaganda magazine put out by the embassy ("It is certainly propaganda," she had said earlier, "but what is not in this world of ours?"), said the Soviets do essentially what the Americans do on holidays.

Mrs. Shibko went on to say that the "standard of living is high here, but we have things in Soviet Union you don't have here: free education." The virtues of free education in the Soviet Union and the convenient ignorance of primary and secondary public education in America consumed the next quarter-hour, kicked off by a simple question about vacations, and finally the talk got around to the multilingual Soviets as opposed to the one-language Americans. "We speak English to Americans; Americans don't speak Russian to us," was one of the remarks. "Perhaps you've been too rich for too long or too safe for too long, but I sense a bit of arrogance," was another.

The evening ended chummily.

Next morning the visitors were taken to several schools in the region. At Lincoln High, moments before the Soviets arrived, the loudspeaker blared, "Students are reminded that our first responsibility is to make a favorable impression for our friends from the great country of Russia." On the front steps, Band Director Louis Oliverio had arrayed his finest musicians. He had worked feverishly to get the music to the Soviet national anthem, obtained it less than 24 hours before, and now the Cougar band got through it without a hitch.

Benyukh, pleased, said it would be only right if the band followed up with The Star-Spangled Banner. Without sheet music, with a gulp or two, and with a roll of the timpani, the young scholars commenced, the cheeks on the horn players collapsing and filling like hearts. With the exception of two trumpets that fell shy of the highest notes, they acquitted themselves all right.

The only town of consequential size in the area of Salem College is Clarksburg, a coal town of about 22,000 people, and it was to Clarksburg the visitors were taken that afternoon for a public meeting. In an 1839 house in the center of Clarksburg, a place called Waldomore that had once been a library, punch and cookies were being served to about 100 citizens awaiting the Soviets. On the sidewalk across the street was an aged Cadillac hearse along the side of which had been painted RUSSIANS GO HOME. The driver, Richard Hofmann, a heating and air-conditioning man, stood on the porch of Waldomore in a knot of Veterans of Foreign Wars until the police came and told him if he did not move his hearse they would tow it away. He moved it, then came back to hear Bill Smith, wearing his V.F.W cap, say, "They tell me they're going to get a Russian professor out there at the college."

"Good," said Hofmann. "It'll give us something to shoot at on Saturday night."

The Soviets arrived in the Lincoln Continental, which Carstensen parked on the sidewalk. Said Hofmann: "Anybody tell them they can't park there?"

Inside, Benyukh started it off pretty much as he had the night before: "There is so much today that divides us, divides us bitterly, so it is very noble to search restlessly for whatever it is that unites us."

In the two-hour question-and-answer session that followed, however, one of the things that divide us arose. The prickly question had to do with the Korean airliner shot down last year, and having it posed obviously displeased Oleg Benyukh, who said, "I would have refrained from this." Then he gave an extemporaneous rendition, a variation of the by now familiar explanation: "At the time the plane was shot down it was shadowed by an American reconnaissance plane for a long distance. .. Our pilot did not know it was a passenger plane ... It was without lights. It would not respond. It was absolutely dead as far as the radio goes ... It flew 500 miles into Soviet space and the local commander, the local commander, ordered it be brought down."

The public meeting ended with punch and friendly talk of selecting "a sister city" for Clarksburg somewhere in a coal-mining region of the Soviet Union. The guests got back in the big Lincoln, and Carstensen shoved it into gear for the long ride home. All save six or seven of the gathered West Virginians waved goodbye, waved for dear life--the purpose of the meeting, as everyone knew. --By Gregory Jaynes