Bernard M. Gwertzman '57

“I’ve always had a great fondness for Bloody Marys. But it was very hard to get tomato juice in Russia,” Bernard M. Gwertzman ’57 says as he remembers his days as a foreign correspondent in the Soviet Union. “The only tomato juice was imported from Bulgaria. It wasn’t reliable.”

Gwertzman, once managing editor for The Crimson, grew familiar with Russia despite the unpredictable supply of tomato juice. As a graduate student at Harvard, Gwertzman participated in an exchange program with the Soviet Union. Years later, he returned to Russia as the bureau chief for The New York Times.