Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 654

my life I saw three Russians who came to the conference. This was regarded by some of the people on the committee as being a great feather in our cap. We were all very ourious. Everybody there was most interested and most curious to see them, to become acquainted with them. The thing we observed at once was that they moved in threes. Occasionally they would come up as a two and it got to be a joke that perhaps the third one was sleeping. I've forgotten who explained to us, but it was someone who was on to the Russians, that they were not allowed to go around as individual human beings and talk with us about this or that as the rest of us did, but that one watched the other. One of these was a commissar of the other two and the other two were commissars for the others. Everything they said and did had to be done so that everybody knew about it and it could be reported back to Moscow.

They weren't allowed to agree with us about anything, and I may say they didn't. They substantially fulfilled their orders and never agreed with anything, but at appropriate times they would rise and make a speech always in Russian and translated to the rest of us into French, German or English.

It was quite a large conference. I remember by the





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help