Joe frowned, his breath misting in a cloud of vapor as he glanced around the large, sparse front hall. “It certainly needs some work,” he agreed.
Luckily, I had come prepared. I had read and studied up enough prior to our Atlantic crossing to understand that these revolutionary Russians hated or distrusted much of what we Americans stood for—democracy, capitalism, faith—and apparently they eschewed comfort as well, if our lodgings were any indication. Fresh, healthy food would be in short supply, I’d heard. “Joey, my dear, I may be living in Moscow,” I said, as I looked around the large, dingy space that we were to call home, “but I plan to show them a thing or two about our American way of life. Maybe I can even win a few friends with some fresh vegetables.”
“It sounds like as good a place to start as any,” my husband said, hauling one of our many trunks up the wide stairway. He paused on the landing, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. “Mumsie, how many trunks did you say?”
“Thirty,” I answered, stepping past him with a leather valise in my hand.
Joe’s eyes widened. “Thirty trunks?”
“And fifty suitcases,” I said. “I may not travel light, but I travel ready. You’ll be thanking me soon enough.”
* * *
—
The society columns and the D.C. Old Guard had been as vicious on my departure from the capital as they had been on my arrival, predicting that I wouldn’t last more than a few months in Russia. So I’d arrived with a fierce determination to prove them wrong. Of course I would have preferred London or Paris, though I would never have admitted that publicly. Of course I’d been apprehensive about the bitter cold—I’d been spending my winters in Palm Beach for years—but did they forget that I was from Battle Creek? Snow was nothing new to me; I’d spent my youth tromping through the stuff. I’d do it for Joe. I’d do it for our president, who had sent us off with orders to make friends with these stolid, mistrusting Russians. And I’d do it for myself, to prove I was so much more than just a coddled society hostess. Sure, I didn’t know a word of Russian. I did not have any credentials in politics or foreign service. I knew there were many who scoffed at these facts, and at us, from Washington to Moscow. Who was Marjorie Merriweather Post to think she could manage a job as important as this one?
Marjorie Merriweather Post just so happened to be the first Ambassadress to the Soviet Union that America had ever sent. Our government had only recently recognized the Soviet Union, and since Joe’s predecessor, a competent and pleasant enough friend by the name of Bill Bullitt, had not had a wife, I would be making history. And—our president hoped—I would be making friends.
We were to be gracious and warm and hospitable, but not flashy. When it came time to pack, I had locked up all but a few pieces of jewelry in storage in New York and Palm Beach—I didn’t want to remind the somber Soviet officials of their dead tsarina.
In opening our doors and inviting Communists into our parlor and our dining room, we’d be inviting them to glimpse the capitalist comforts of our American lifestyle; to that end, I packed our china for hosting banquets, our crystal stemware for entertaining, our linens and lace for elegant dinner parties. At Bergdorf’s and Bloomingdale’s, I ordered us an entirely new wardrobe for the Russian winters: heavy coats trimmed with fur, thick cashmere stockings, muffs and kid gloves and sable hats in the muted dark colors so often seen throughout the Russian capital.
Many in the Soviet Union were starving, the country having suffered from widespread famines in recent years, and winter would no doubt present the cruelest months of all. And even the food and drink that they did have available on the sparse store shelves seemed questionable at best. State Department aides had warned us before we departed that we should not drink the water without first boiling it, that to eat whatever raw fruits or vegetables were available would be a foolish idea, that meat and fish posed even greater risks, due to the widespread presence of tapeworms. Milk or cream would have been out of the question, but the country didn’t have either in ready supply.
This, I decided, we could also use to our advantage. “Let’s call it grocery diplomacy,” I declared. I knew that, as ambassadress, I would be expected to host luncheons and dinners for large crowds regularly, and—even on the rare nights that we dined in, just the two of us—I was not going to endure months without fruits or vegetables, without meat or chicken, not when our own country had an abundance of it all year round, in large part because of my own company’s ingenuity and success. So I’d packed dozens of coolers and iceboxes onto the Sea Cloud, cramming every inch with Birds Eye frozen fruits and vegetables; pounds of meat, fish, and poultry; cases of rock salt; frozen desserts; and tubs of frozen cream. I would welcome my guests as a generous hostess and dazzle those Commies with the extent and variety of our American plenty, brought to them by my very own General Foods Corporation.