Goodwill Ambassador

If you don't see him with a cocktail glass in one hand, or flashing his benign smile as he shakes your hand, you've caught Mikhail "Mike" Menshikov at a rare moment.

Mike came to this country less than a year ago as the new ambassador of the Soviet Union with a brief-case filled with smiles and "better understanding." Since then the silver-haired diplomat has spent all his energies in an attempt to fulfill the American image of the goodwill ambassador. "Things are going slowly," he admits, "but I'm still hopeful." And it's clear that many long years of training lie behind the hopes, words, and smiles Mike offers at every opportunity.

Fifty-six years ago Mike Menshikov was born in a small town just outside Moscow. He entered college when he was twenty-two to study economics and recalls that "at the time I entered college, I didn't know what would become of me after five years." His interest in economics, however, led him to write his thesis on food-stuffs and world trade, a field he was later to specialize in. He took his course in the evening, and during the day worked in a cold storage plant. He graduated from the Moscow Economic Institute in 1929.

Soon after his graduation, he worked with an export-import company, but left that to accept a position in England with a British-Russian trading corporation. His "acquired practical knowledge" of international economics and world trade, he confesses modestly, helped him become president of the second largest corporation in Russia, where he was in charge of all exportation and importation of timber.

It was about this time that Mike paid his first visit to the United States. "I clearly remember that November day in 1936," he recalled, "when Roosevelt was elected President for the second time. It was a very interesting occasion." Seven years later he returned to America as a member of the Soviet delegation sent to Atlantic City to discuss the formation of the United Nations Reconstruction and Relief Agency. When the conference concluded, Mike remained in this country as a deputy minister of foreign affairs in Washington.

At the conclusion of the Second World War, Mike returned to Moscow, where he boasts, "I was one of the members of the Cabinet under Stalin for three years." It is with no small amount of pride that he recalls his meetings two or three times a week with Stalin. "Occasionally," he adds with a wry smile, "we used to meet more often, just to talk."

Armed with a glass of dry sherry, Mike is an amiable conversationalist, listening politely and with a nod of his head now and then returning answers to difficult questions with the open frankness and straight-from-the-shoulder approach that has won him many friends.

His daily routine in Washington of attendance at cocktail parties, banquets, concerts, and other social gatherings demands the stamina and inexhaustible vigor of a man who has pledged himself to the difficult task of winning friends and friendship for his country. "When I get tired," he says, "I take a walk in the fresh air, or else I sit down for a while and just think. Thats' enough."

But Mike's day is almost never ending, and time to rest or sleep is a luxury an ambassador cannot always afford.

Perhaps Mike's visit to Harvard echoed some reminiscences of his own college days when life was a great deal less hurried and complicated. "When I was in the University," he confides, "my roommates wanted to study all the time. They thought by staying up all night before an examination they would learn all the knowledge. Me, I just went to sleep."

As Mike offered his departing handshake he said with the diplomatic sincerity which marked his visit to Harvard, "I wish I could stay here and study for two years." And then he added with a revelation of his quiet humor, "Maybe they could use me at the Russian Institute here."