I congratulated them on this wondrous achievement but, privately, felt a dull sickness. The Soviet Union had beaten us to the punch again. But later that day our guide looked us up and carefully corrected the story: The cadet had been mistaken, the rocket was not manned.

That evening we tried to purchase Pravda. No copies were available in Vilno. Later we heard from other Americans that Pravda was not available in other cities in the USSR that evening - this part is hearsay, of course. We tried also to listen to the Voice of America. It was jammed. We listened to some Soviet stations but heard no mention of the rocket.

This is the rocket the Soviets tried to recover and later admitted that they had had some trouble with the retro jets; they had fired while the rocket was in the wrong attitude.

So what is the answer? Did that rocket contain only a dummy, as the Pravda now claims? Or is there a dead Russian revolving in space? - an Orwellian "unperson," once it was realized that he could not be recovered.

I am sure of this: At noon on May 15 a group of Red Army cadets were unanimously positive that the rocket was manned. That Pravda did not change until later that afternoon.

Concerning unpersons - Rasputin is a fairly well known name in America. I was unable to find anyone in Russia who would admit to having heard of him. He's an unperson.

John Paul Jones is known to every school child in America. After the American Revolution Catherine the Great called him to Russia where he served as an Admiral and helped found the Russian Navy, negligible up to that time. I tried many, many times to find a picture of him in Russian historical museums and I asked dozens of educated Russians about him - with no results. In Russian history John Paul Jones has become an unperson.

Trotsky and Kerensky are not unpersons yet. Too many persons are still alive who recall their leading roles in recent Russian history. But they will someday be unpersons, even though Dr. Kerensky is living today in California. In the USSR it is always tacitly assumed that the Communists overthrew the Tsar. This leaves no room for Dr. Kerensky. If pinned down, a Soviet guide may admit that there was such a person as Kerensky, then change the subject. The same applies to Trotsky; his role, for good or bad, is being erased from the records. We saw literally thousands of pictures of Lenin, including several hundred group pictures which supposedly portrayed all the Communist VIP's at the time of the Revolution. Not one of these pictures shows Trotsky even though many of them were alleged to be news photos taken at the time when Lenin and Trotsky were still partners and buddies.

This is how unpersons are made. This is how Pravda is created.

The theme of the May Day celebration this year was "Miru Mir": "Peace to the World." A sweet sentiment. But it isn't safe to assume that the dictionary definition of peace has any connection with the official Communist meaning, since even yesterday's Pravda may be reversed tomorrow.

"Cooperate with the inevitable' means 'Roll with the punch' - it does not mean stooling for the guards."

- L. Long

FOREWORD

"Don't Go To Russia If You Expect Tidy Toilets" is the heading on an article by H. Marlin Landwehr (News paper Enterprise Association) in the Santa Cruz SENTINEL, Sunday, December 2, 1979. "Russian toilets," writes Mr. Landwehr, "are uniformly filthy, with no toilet seats, coarse (if any) toilet paper, and extremely low pressure.

From this and from many recent (1979) personal reports I know that my 1960 article INSIDE INTO URIST is still timely despite minor changes. Intourist still has three classes of travel: Bad - Worse - Horrible. These are now called: "Deluxe Suite, Deluxe, and First Class" - i.e., "First Class" is in fact third class - an Orwellian Pravda.

Dirty toilets and bad food explain themselves; relative prices are harder to make clear, as the 1960 prices I cite as being outrageously high seem like bargain prices in 1979. So I must adjust for inflation, not too easy when dealing with four sorts of currency: 1) the 1960 dollar fully convertible to gold in the world market at $35 = 1 troy ounce of fine gold; 2) the 1979 floating dollar having today, 3 December 1979, a price per troy ounce of fine gold on the world market of $432 and some odd cents; 3) the 1960 western - tourist ruble, a currency not traded (= "blocked") in the world market, not convertible, not spendable outside its own country, and having its official rate set by decree and in direct consequence a very different black market (= free market) rate; and 4) the 3Dec - 79 western - tourist ruble, a blocked currency not equivalent to the 1960 western - tourist ruble.

To define the relationships between a fully - convertible gold currency, a floating currency, and two different blocked currencies is a task that causes headaches. The arithmetic is simple, the semantic problem is not, and it is further complicated by both conscious and subconscious personal attitudes. You may not "believe in" a gold standard, for example (and I readily concede the

truth of the old saw that one cannot eat gold), but it does not matter what I believe or you believe, our floating dollar is now worth in gold whatever the rest of the world tells us it is worth, i.e., the price at which they will buy dollars or sell gold. The only yardstick I can apply to all four currencies is the troy ounce of fine gold (= 480 grains in both troy and avoirdupois, or 31.1035 grams in metric).

Since the ruble is not traded in the gold market, I must equate rubles first in dollars, then translate into gold. (This fiscal discussion is not my idea; our editor complained - correctly - that a much shorter discussion was unclear.) In 1960 the Kremlin - decreed rate was 4 rubles

= $1.00 USA. Today Monday 3 December 1979 the Kremlin - decreed rate to U.S. tourists is 1 ruble = $1.52 USA.

Now to work -

In 1960 $1.00 USA equalled

1/35 tr. oz. Au. = 13.715 grains = 0.888671 + grams gold,

and one ruble equalled $0.25, or

1/140 tr. oz. Au. = 3.429 grains = 0.222167+ grams gold.

While on Dec. 3, 1979, $1.00 USA equalled

1/432 tr. oz. Au. = 1.1111... grains = 0.071998+ grams gold

and one ruble equalled $1.52 USA, or

0.003518+ tr. oz. Au. = 1.7 grains = 0.109438+ grams gold.

- which doesn't tell us much, especially as the dollar floats and changes every day, and the ratio between the dollar and the U.S. - tourist ruble is by decree and subject to change without notice. In the following article I show all prices three ways: 1) 1960 prices; 2) 3 - Dec - 79 equivalent by world free - market conversion; and 3) 3 - Dec - 79 equivalent by Kremlin - decreed dollar/ruble ratio.

The conversion factor for the world free market is 432/

35 = 12.343; the Kremlin - decreed conversion factor is

1520/250 = 6.08. You are free to believe either one or

neither.

But the above still doesn't tell you very much as the Early Worm Deserves the Bird. The floating dollar changes daily and the ruble/dollar ratio changes whenever the Kremlin changes it... and you will not be reading this on December 3, 1979. But all is not lost; you can obtain and apply the conversion factors for the day you read this in the same fashion in which I did it:

For the world free - market conversion factor first get that day's gold fix from newspaper or radio, then divide by 35. For the Kremlin factor telephone a Soviet consulate or Intourist New York, get the current price of a ruble in dollars and cents, divide by 25%. Then reach for your pocket calculator.

It would have been simpler to state that travel in USSR in 1960 was extremely, outrageously expensive - a planned swindle.