History has a way of reminding you

When it may just repeat itself: Visiting Ukraine in 1988

Before I return to my more academically relevant historical research, I must look back at one more Foreign Service memory—this one, more timely in terms of recent events—and reminisce about that other life …

It was April 1988, and I was traveling in the Soviet Union as part of the entourage of Secretary of State George Shultz, helping shepherd a group of journalists—who needed little actual help from me—through a whirlwind tour of two cities, Kyiv, Ukraine, and Tbilisi, Georgia. I was posted to the State Department’s Press Office, seconded to the European/Soviet trip as an assistant to the department’s spokesman, then-Assistant Secretary Charles Redman.

Secretary George Shultz, National Security Adviser Colin Powell, flanked by Asst. Secretary Charles Redman
(background), US Ambassador Jack Matlock (at left). Undated. Author’s photograph.

After a few preparatory days in Helsinki and Moscow—where it was 75 degrees and sunny when we landed—the party was ready to move on to the two cities, then still very much part of the USSR. All of us traveled down on the Secretary’s plane; from the second stop in Tbilisi, Secretary Shultz would then fly on to Brussels, while some of us would return to Moscow on Aeroflot, then home to Washington on commercial U.S. flights.

I was reasonably familiar with Northern Europe, having lived in Copenhagen for two years as a junior Foreign Service officer before being posted home to the press office, while awaiting review and possible promotion to the next grade, as a mid-level officer. But the Soviet Union was a far cry from anything I had yet seen in “wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen” or my travels through Northern and Western Europe. In Moscow, I saw little except the interior of the new, half-occupied Embassy—about to be gutted, I was told, because of Soviet bugging devices built into it during construction—and my hotel room in the dreary Stalin-era Hotel Ukraine, a mile away. It was memorable—but hardly impressive. Shabby and not very comfortable.

Before we left on that trip, I did get into the Kremlin on one outing—accompanying the journalists to a ceremonial meeting between Secretary Shultz and then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The meeting room was ornate, breathtaking—a far cry from the forgettable streets and fading buildings beyond

Secretary Shultz meets with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Moscow, April 1988. Author’s photo.

In Kiev—still its “official” name in those Soviet days—the Secretary was treated to a warm reception on this tour—a serious policy tour, in between the tourist stops, his first outside Moscow. I remember following him around in case anyone had administrative questions, but my friend Don Oberdorfer—like most of the veteran journalists I was nominally charged with overseeing—knew far more than I did. His Washington Post report (“Shultz Makes Weekend Tour of Ukraine, Soviet Georgia”) for April 25, 1988, summed it up better than I could:

Shultz has been wanting to get out of Moscow to see more of the Soviet Union ever since the
intensive phase of superpower diplomacy began bringing him to the country frequently a
year ago. This weekend he finally got his chance … On Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine …
Shultz paid an emotional visit to the Babi Yar memorial at a grassy ravine where thousands of
Jews were executed by the occupying German troops in September 1944, and where
thousands of Ukrainians later perished.

The Babi Yar memorial to World War II victims in Kyiv, Ukraine, in April 1988. Author’s photo.

“We have to say to ourselves always, never again,” Shultz said—going “out of his way to mention the slaughter of Jews, a sensitive point with Soviets, who erected an elaborate monument at Babi Yar but rarely note that many of the victims were Jewish,” Oberdorfer wrote. The number was gargantuan, unthinkable—at least 30,000, probably far more.

George Shultz was one of my few idols in public life. If not everyone I knew admired him as much as I did—a stolid, honest, steady guy who stood up for his Department of State employees when drug tests and lie detector tests were proposed—I would have done anything he asked me to do. I do not know how far George Shultz could see into the future that day at Babi Yar, but I think he saw something none of us around him did. A dreadful reckoning, unless we continued to stand up to tyranny.

He passed away only recently, after a very long and productive life, a year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine—and the return of murderous slaughter to a once-peaceful city. I treasure his memory, although he seemed rather wary of me—after a chance encounter in Washington when I almost tripped him, while trying desperately to get out of his rapid-pace way. Luckily, the onetime Marine barreled on undeterred. The diplomatic security guard briskly shoved me aside, against the nearest wall, and growled: “Stay.” I did.

I remember studying the towering memorial from a distance—I did not get to accompany the Secretary as far up the steps as he climbed, thank goodness. (In his late sixties, he had far more energy than his water-carrier, just over half his age!) Some called the memorial majestic, unforgettable. I found it among the ugliest public sculptures I ever saw—like something out of a bad Soviet dream—but then I detest most modern statues.

Still, its importance and significance—while Shultz and the Reagan administration were forcefully badgering the Soviets into allowing Jewish refuseniks to immigrate—were unmistakable. Under Gorbachev’s “glasnost” era—and Shultz’s relentless pressure—the exodus finally began.

There were, thankfully, more festive moments in his brief, half-day visit, as when Secretary Shultz visited the magnificent, 900-plus-year-old Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sophia—officially, then and now, a museum—with his irrepressible and irresistible wife, Helena, better known to us all as “Obie”(short for her maiden name, O’Brien). Hand in hand, she was the eternal tourist, good-natured and kind-hearted, always trudging along as energetically as her husband.

Obie and her husband lead the way, as usual. Kyiv, Ukraine, April 1988. Author’s photo.

Secretary Shultz visits Saint Sophia Cathedral (top), and pays tribute at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (bottom).
Kyiv, Ukraine, April 1988. Author’s photos.

Or when he laid a floral tribute at Ukraine’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier—just after we all witnessed one of the regular wedding-day processions by young Ukrainian couples. Traditional Ukrainian weddings went on for days, I was told—I wondered whether this well-dressed, obviously affluent couple had bothered to go in for a religious ceremony, officially discouraged by the Soviets.

Happy Ukrainian couple in wedding-day procession to Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Park of Eternal Glory.
Kyiv, April 1988. Author’s photo.

The Park of Eternal Glory was indeed a commanding site, and simpler but more impressive to me than Babi Yar, if somehow lacking the emotional impact of similar monuments elsewhere in the world. In an officially atheist world like the unlamented Soviet Union, the heavy-handed attempt to substitute regimented, state-sponsored patriotism for genuine human emotion often fell flat. It did not ring true—felt cold, lifeless—and only those who visited it showed any vibrancy, however well-concealed.

One of my traveling companions gleefully decided to compare my height—a paltry 6-foot-1—to the actual monument afterward. The obelisk is 27 meters high, of granite, with an eternal flame at its base. My friend neglected to turn the camera sideways, as he should have, but you get the idea. Little diplomat, big monument.

The unknown diplomat doesn’t quite measure up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Kyiv, Ukraine, April 1988. Author’s collection.

Despite the pressures of a tight schedule and occasionally confusing itinerary, I did have two memorable moments—one reasonably gratifying, the other far less so. At one stop, I inadvertently struck up a conversation with a young Ukrainian man, in his twenties, who seemed to be well-educated, with clear, barely accented English. (At the time, I spoke neither Russian, which I learned only later, nor Ukrainian—only useless Danish.)

I still have a letter he wrote me months later; he asked for, and I gave him, my U.S. address. He was eager to talk to an American, any American—U.S. tourists were somewhat rare in Soviet days—and I found our brief encounter, with so many questions, exhilarating. Diplomats, however, are taught to be skeptical of friendly strangers.

I had been cautioned beforehand not to get too friendly with local residents on the trip, if for purely practical reasons—let the journalists do that if they chose, but officials like me should avoid strangers and any possible complications, however seemingly innocent the situation—and just in case, report any contact with suspected Soviet “spies.” (I did.) But he seemed harmless enough, and I am a naturally gregarious guy—as well as a former journalist myself.

My last memory of Kyiv, however, was a more potent reminder of the normal challenges facing all tourists, even traveling diplomats. I went out for a quick cafeteria lunch with some of the journalists, and ordered a Pepsi to drink, the only non-Ukrainian drink available. It came in a bottle, unchilled. Not being a fan of warm Pepsi, I asked for a glass of ice. No one warned me not to, but I should have guessed why no one else in my group wanted ice. Within 12 hours, I paid the awful price—a frightening case of Montezuma’s revenge—and only the kindness of another traveling journalist, the next morning in Tbilisi, saved the day.

Until then, I had never heard of Imodium, but he had a box. (God bless you, Jack!) Drink plenty of bottled water after you take this, he warned me. Locals, it seemed, had developed a natural immunity to the ill effects of Kyiv’s poorly-filtered water and its frozen version.

To this day, 35 years later, I will only drink Pepsi out of a cold can—and only when it is the only carbonated beverage available. (So much for the soft drink invented in my home state.) And wherever I go, I always take Imodium in my travel kit.

Next time: Ida B. Wells and the perils of paving over historical potholes …