A Comment from Dan Clark

I date my Russia experience from Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Iowa in 1959. Whatever I grasped of our Cold War world at age 8, I knew this was the "enemy" leader coming through our town, and I was keen to see him and understand what it all meant. I got a good look at him and his motorcade from my Dad's shoulders as we stood just a few feet away on the curb of the Lincoln Highway in West Boone. It's a memory still strong after 50 years. As an adult, I've been fortunate to welcome many visitors from the former Soviet Union in Iowa, to have had some as house guests, and to have helped many Iowans with their exchange efforts as well. I visited Estonia and Ukraine in 1984 and traveled in Russia eight times, 1984-1998, especially Stavropolski krai, Iowa's sister state. My wife visited Russia twice, and our daughter Becca lived more than a year in Kislovodsk. In the course of all these adventures, we have made many, many friends, some for life. For us, all this makes sense because we're Iowans, and this is what Iowans do.

A Comment from Alexander Rytov

My name is Alexander Rytov, I am a son of Marina Rytova who worked for many years for the corn project and was a very good friend of Roswell Grast and Nikita Khrushchev. Unfortunately, my Mum died in May this year. But during her life (she was 84) she told me a lot of very warm stories about her visits to Iowa, her life among American farmers and the corn project itself, which could help Russia and U.S. to build a strategic economic basis for friendship and cooperation in the future. Corn could become a material foundation for earlier economic reforms and political changes in Russia, earlier and wider than in China. Especially after denouncing by Khrushchev Stalin's repressions against its own people. Roswell Garst understood this perspective very well. My mam has many photos of her stay in the U.S. and Iowa. She knew by heart the hymn of the state: "We are from Iowa, where the tall corn grows..." I am the director of Stella Art Foundation, which is one of the leading Russian organization in promoting contemporary art in Russia. I travel often to the U.S. as I have a lot of relatives, friends and partners. Maybe once I could visit your Foundation and pass you absolutely unique photos from our collection about Roswell Garst Farm, Iowa farmers and etc., which could enrich this fantastic story to which my family has so close and touching relation.
My warm wishes,
Alexander Rytov

A Comment from Bruce Campbell

We visited with Bruce on the phone, and he shared this story with us:

I was a good friend of John Chrystal's. I went over there in 1992 with the Iowa Program. We went back in the fall saw that the program had failed due to human error. They didn't apply herbicide and bugs ate the corn. In 1994 we sent equipment over and raised soybeans. It was the only perfect field in all of Ukraine. It helped the Ukraine people get $30-50 million worth of soybean sales, helping them get closer to world market prices.

A Comment from David E. Metzler

When Nikita Khrushchev visited Iowa in 1959 I was an associate professor of biochemistry at Iowa State University. My previous research had led me to collaboration with a well-known Russian biochemist and I had started to study Russian in preparation for a hoped-for visit to the Soviet Union in 1961. I was very much aware of Khrushchev and his efforts to promote peace. When I heard that he would stop at ISU on his way to Coon Rapids and would arrive in front of the chemistry building I was there bright and early. A substantial and friendly crowd was waiting. There were police, too. Soon some men in long dark overcoats with long rifles appeared and went to the rooftops of nearby buildings. There were no protestors, but three students in dark hats and long trench coats amused us by walking around on the grass nearby carrying violin cases. Then we heard the din of what seemed like every sheriff in central Iowa following Khrushchev's limousine with their sirens blaring. They all pulled up in front of me in a small parking lot. The sheriffs and other officers formed a circle around Khrushchev. He was so short I couldn't see him at all. A good many students jumped over the barricades and surrounded his car. It was somewhat amusing. The sheriff's made a solid ring around Krushchev and escorted him into the Home Economics building which he was visiting. When they came out later there was nobody protecting the car! I could see that Khrushchev was shaking hands with a crowd of students but there wasn't room for me to squeeze into the circle. I went home and watched Nina Petrovna and the children at the nearby ISU pig farm on television. Nina reached across the fence and shook hands and greeted as many people as possible.

This was the beginning of a lengthy and very interesting exchange program with scientists in the USSR. I received a travel grant to attend the International Congress of Biochemistry in Moscow in 1961. There I met some people with whom I would collaborate for many years. In 1965 I took my family to live in Moscow for more than five months to attend schools there while I participated in biochemical research in an institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. This was part of a very active exchange program between the U.S. and Soviet academies of science. The U.S. had a good staff at the embassy in Moscow. This fact facilitated our ability to visit many places and to interact with many Russians and citizens of other parts of the Soviet Union. While studying Russian in preparation for this visit I had made the acquaintance of Boris Runov, who was an exchange student in agricultural engineering at ISU. He later became a high minister of agriculture under Mikhail Gorbachev. This was a time when John Chrystal was making regular visits to Russia and I had opportunities to interact with both Chrystal and Runov. I think that the significance of Roswell Garst and John Crystal's friendship with Krushchev and later with Gorbachev were very important in overcoming tensions of the Cold War. I was happy to be able to play a small part in that successful effort. It was Roswell Garst who started it all.

A Comment from Bob Anderson

I began working to create the Iowa Peace Institute in the Summer of 1986 working closely with State Senator Jean Lloyd Jones and former Governor Robert Ray and the Stanley Foundation. We hosted a group of Soviets from the Mississippi Peace Cruise that included the Cosmonaut Georgi Grechko, and famous Soviet Actress Natalya Gundareva. One of them was a collective farm manager from Ukraine, outside of Cherkassy. Later we worked with him to establish what must have been one of the first exchanges of rural youth. We arranged for a group of youth from his collective farm to come to Iowa and for a group of Iowa rural youths to travel to Ukraine to spend time on his collective farm. I believe that would have been in 1989. Vladimir and Irina Bassis, two Ukrainian English teachers, assisted with the project on both sides.

We ultimately established IPI in Grinnell, IA, and were there when the Soviet-American Peace walk was completed across Iowa.

Later Vladimir and I worked together to create the Iowa-Cherkassy Agriculture and Culture Center, Newton's Sister City relationship with Smela, Ukraine and Oskaloosa's relationship with Shpola. Marshalltown also has a Sister City relationship with (I believe) Zvenyhoroda. Ultimately Iowa created a Sister State relationship with Cherkassy.

I traveled with Dan Clark from the Stanley Foundation to Ukraine and Russia in 1990 and attended a peace conference that was held in Moscow and Sochi. That is when I also traveled to Pytigorsk (also a Sister City to Dubuque) and purchased the oil paintings at what was described by the Jewish owner as one of the first privately owned art galleries in the country.

I created the International Center for Community Journalism in 1993 and focused on federal grants to bring journalists from the former Soviet Union to the United States so they could learn about our free press and what used to be a good journalism business plan. We brought groups of journalists from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Mongolia and other parts of the world under United States Information Agency and later State Department grants. Vladimir Bassis came to work for me under an H-1 B VIsa as we started that program. It was expanded and re-named IRIS in 1996. We sold our property in 2002 and moved to Ames because Vladimir and Irina were working on graduate degrees there. Vladimir and Irina Bassis are now U.S. citizens. He works for the Iowa Department of Education and Irina is the Communication specialist for Mary Greeley Hospital in Ames.

A Comment from Senator Daryl Beall

I spoke often about citizen diplomacy while in China for three weeks earlier this summer. The Des Moines Register published my essay on citizen diplomacy, noting that more Iowans per capita have passports than any other state, and the audacity of Roswell Garst to invite Premier Nikita Khrushchev to the cornfields of Iowa 50 years ago. That's a perfect illustration of citizen diplomacy. I wish you continued success.

A Comment from Jonathan Fletcher

My grandfather Jonathan Fletcher and great grandfather C.B. Fletcher were friends, business associates, and great admirers of Roswell Garst. I am told that my grandfather was named after Jonathan Garst.

A Comment from Irving Carlson

Roswell Garst took Walt Wedin and I on a tour of his bromegrass pastures in 1962. Both of us worked with forage crops at Iowa State University. I have about six pictures of that tour.

A Comment from Phyllis Burroughs Heffron

Thank you for including me in this email. My father, Wise Burroughs, was present that day 50 years ago in Coon Rapids. I wish I had known about this earlier, but I will be on vacation, out of town, for this event.

A Comment from Ro Foege

Another great memory of Khrushchev's visit from 50 years ago:

My eagerness to attend is that I, together with four of my colleagues from Wartburg College, attended the events at Iowa State College 50 years ago. We were able to hand Mr. Khrushchev a copy of the college newspaper, The Wartburg Trumpet. He put it in his suit coat pocket!

A Comment from Joan (Hooker) Miller

That year I was living in Kansas City with my husband (class of 1954), and visiting my parents, whom lived in Woodward, Iowa. They owned the furniture store right on the main street, which is two blocks long (it's still the same as I was there last year for a high school class renuion; we had quite a crowd for such a small town). We were visiting that week (by train to Des Moines) and just happened to be at the store. We just found out shortly before Khrushchev would be driving east and here came the the police and other cars. As he came down the main street he slowed and he waved at us, standing about 10 feet away. Our son was only 2.5 years ols and he was exicted, as well as I.

A Comment from Don Lester

I adopted two boys from Russia, both when they were 8 years old. They are now 14 and 11, and as a single dad, I have tried to immerse them with their heritage and our US culture. As I see it, I'm their father and Russia is their mother and she has given me two fine young men to call part of my family. I'm really looking forward to these events. My younger son and I were in Moscow the day after the funeral of Boris Yeltsin and I have a picture of my son at Yeltsin's grave covered in a mound of flowers. We were being given a tour of Moscow and this cemetery was a part of the tour. I have contacted other families who have adopted from Russia in hopes that they may be able to help with translations for you (unfortunately my boys don't speak conversational Russian any more). I saw first hand having been to Russia twice and having to stay and live there twice for 30 days that our people and their people are so similar that we just want better lives for our children and to be happy. More visits like this can only continue to break down the confusion that exists between our two countries and help us to both be leaders in the world who work together to solve Earth's bigger issues.

A Comment from Denny Weddle

I was a Freshman at DrakeUniversityin 1959, was finished with orientation, enrolled in a full class schedule and heard from my folks (Dad and Mom owned Weddle Hardware then) that Nikita Khrushchev was coming to Coon Rapids to visit Roswell "Bob" Garst and the Garst Farm. I thought that pretty neat for a littleIowa farm community and called my folks and said I was going to try to get back for that visit. Then I had an idea that I thought would make the trip an official one and not result in an absence already in my first semester. I spoke to my Radio-TV Professor, Dr. Jim Duncan, and told him about the upcoming trip and if I could do an interview for the Khrushchev visit rather than the boring subject he had given me which to this day I do not even remember. I promised I will interview the Russian Premier and bring back the interview the next week to the Drake RTV class and report it to all. Jim was a great teacher AND good guy and gave me permission to be absent. So, I hopped the bus from Des Moines on September 22, 1959 and as we drove Highway #141 and got to the outskirts of Coon Rapids, there were what I learned later were Secret Service folks everywhere. The big bridge that went to the Bob Garst Farm was blocked, people and press seemed to be all over the town. Settling in that night at our home on 4th Street, I lay awake that night wondering HOW the heck am I going to get to the Farm House and fulfill the promise to my Professor? Next morning I got up and, with a youthful thought of just doing it headed south of town for the farm. Once I got near the bridge I realized they would probably not let me through as I was sure the security people would be the ones to stop me, not the Garst family or employees. How to do it? Then when I got to the bridge there was the answer; the Des Moines Register and Tribune distributor was standing with about 25 newspapers and I asked if I could buy them. He said, sure and I did. Then I walked to the first security person and said I had to take the papers to the Garst House for the media and VIPs. He let me through. Phew, first challenge completed. I walked across the bridge and came to a major crowd of people near the house and contemplated my next action and, I think, it was about Noon that the caravan of cars started arriving from Des Moines with politicians, Khrushchev, military guards, press shooting photographs and cameras clicking everywhere. It was quite awhile before I saw Mr. Garst with Mr. Khrushchev, and, when I did, I walked up close to them and his interpreter (I soon learned he was more important than anybody else to me as I certainly knew no more Russian than Nyet and that was not what I wanted to say). Thank goodness Bob Garst knew a lot of us Coon Rapids kids. As I moved over to him and said, "Hi Mr. Garst, I am a Freshman at Drake and I sure would like to ask Premier Khrushchev a few questions for a report for my Radio-TV class. Would that be OK?" He said, "Denny, lets see what Mr. Khrushchev says," and turned to the Interpreter and asked, and he immediately asked the Premier. He nodded yes and I stepped forward. As I recall I was able to get 5-6 questions answered from:

• How does Iowa farmland compare with that in the Soviet Union?
• What do you hope to gain with your visit?
• Did you know, because of Garst and Thomas, we are the largest seed-corn processing plant in the world? ( I had been told that and hoped it was true--he was impressed) and he shook Bobs hand after the interpreter advised him of that fact.
• After you receive all of the farming information/tourshow, do you bring that success and increased crop production to your country?

I dont remember the other questions I asked with answers translated back to me from the Premier to Interpreter, but I soon realized I had had great answers, gotten nearly 8 minutes of interview and ACHIEVED my goal. Thanking all three I almost kicked up my heels anxious to put my sloppy left-handed notes to a typewriter and a pretty good chance a reflection of the interview for my Radio-TV class. That I did that night on my folks typewriter. Then the next week I was back at Drake where I could not wait to do my report. It worked out so great, I got an A and Dr. Duncan told the class thats the way to do an interview. Yea, but only because of the kindness of Bob Garst did it happen, and every time I told anybody this historic story I have given thanks for allowing it to happen. To the Garst Family, I again say thank you; it made for a very special event and time in my life.

A Comment from Karen Cutler

As an Iowa high school senior in the year 1959 and a freshman at Grinnell College and a member of the class of '63, I remember reading a short diary story in a Grinnell College student booklet publication about the author and his friend sitting in the Garst haybarn door watching the famous farm yard meeting. I wish I remember the name of the publication, but I'm sure someone at Grinnell College could find it. Whether the story is a true recollection or maybe a farce you might get a kick out of reading it.

A Comment from Richard Jirus

I well remember the day Khrushchev visited Iowa State University. It was the same day I was discharged from the Air Force in Kansas City, MO. I decided it would be the only time I would see a Russian world leader, and hustled up to Ames. I made the mistake of wearing my discharge uniform, and got to the campus about the same time an ROTC class discharged. I have never saluted so many people in such a short time in my entire career in the Air Force. The thing I remember the most was waiting outside the home economics building for the Russian delegation to exit. About four college students walked down the middle of the street in rain coats, slouch hats, and carrying violin cases. They actually walked right up to the waiting limousines before secret service grabbed them and hustled them away. At home the next day I read in the paper that they were actually carrying violins in the cases, and were released with warnings. You have to love college humor.

A Comment from Jay Cole Simser

Thanks for the invitation. I probably won't attend anything but it did remind me that 50 years ago when I was just out of High School I saw Mr. Khrushchev on the campus at Iowa State University. I also remember that three young guys (scalliwags) were running around in trench coats carrying violin cases.

I wonder what the security would be if he were to have come to America today. Seems a long time ago and a much simpler time.

A Comment from Stan Eckert

This was one of the events that helped shape my involvement in the world around me. When we found out that the caravan would go down Highway 141, past Granger, two of my Dallas Center High classmates and I asked for a field trip to see the caravan. Of course, we were denied the right. So in protest, we went anyway. At first we were to be suspended then it was changed to stay after school for, I think three days. When we reported to the study hall for our punishment one of the things we were to do was spell the name of the person we went to see. Naturally we never had spell check then and I mumbled something. The High School principal, who was a person I respected, looked me in the eye until she had my attention, then looked at a copy of The Des Moines Tribune, which had a headline "Khrushchev Visits Iowa." I learned that not everyone 'on the other side' is against you. I really feel that she was the reason it was changed from suspension to stay after school.

Thanks for allowing me this stroll down memory lane.

A Comment from Lou Licht

In 1977 I was selected as one of 14 Americans on an exchange to USSR for a Young Agricultural Specialist Exhange Program. I'm from an Iowa farm, got my MS in Ag. Engineering from Oregon State back in 1978, and now plant trees all around the U.S. through my company called Ecolotree.

Just wanted to pass on:
1. When traveling for 3 months all around USSR and meeting with agricultural officials in 1977, they were still talking about the Garst event. Corn! Being the only delegate from Iowa, the Kruschiev/Garst meeting was a source of many proud moments.

2. The core concept on what I do - phytoremediation that uses plants to clean pollutants - was first introduced to me by the Ukranians outside of Kiev where they were using wetlands for wastewater treatment.

I hope I can come. Contratulations for this great event which acknowledges yet again the importance of Iowans in supporting the quest for world peace.

A Comment from Louise McCeery

Louise wrote in to Creating Great Places and we wanted to share her story:

(This is in reguard to) The articles in the Guthrie Center newspaper concerning the activities you are planning for the 50th Anniversary of Nikita's Historic Visit to Iowa on August 29, 1959. My daughter and I attended that event. We lived only a few miles from the Garst Farm which they visited. As we were waiting for the visitors to pass by us where we were standing, it stopped suddenly and one of the visitors from Russia got off of the hayrack and came over to where we were standing. He asked Mary, my daughter, if she would like to ride out to the field with them. He told us he has a little girl about her age and was homesick to see her. Mary was ready to go so (she) took his hand and went on the hayrack onto the Garst field of corn. When they came back, he asked if she would like to eat lunch with him at the farm house. She did, so away they went again, hand-in-hand. Mary was seven years old at the time and is now Mrs. Clarence Leighty. She lives on a farm close to Guthrie Center, and is the high school librarian at the school at Aububon. I am her mother and wanted you to know about our wonderful experience that day.

A Comment from David Maxwell

David shared this with Creating Great Places as a comment to a previous post, but we thought it was great and wanted to make sure it front and center:

When I was 17 years old (1962), I traveled through the Soviet Union for 7 weeks as the bandboy for the Benny Goodman Band's tour of the USSR (my father was the first trumpet player). That trip led to me desire to become a diplomat (later channeled into a career as a professor of Russian literature and ultimately a university administrator) and my major at Grinnell College in Russian Area Studies (where I enrolled 6 weeks after returning from the USSR).On July 4th, 1962, the band was invited to the U.S. Embassy's "party house" on the banks of the river in Moscow. At one point, there was a tremendous outpouring of excitement: Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev had shown up to wish us "congratulations on the anniversary of your revolution." He made the rounds of the party and shook hands with everyone - including me -- and was particularly struck by the fact that the first trumpet player (who, at 6'5" and 240 lbs, towered over him), was able to greet him in Russian!Given the political environment of 1962, most people I knew found it hard to believe that I'd actually been in the USSR - shaking hands with Krushchev was well beyond the limits of credibility for most of them!The Goodman Band was the first American jazz band "behind the Iron Curtain," and was seen as an important early step in the cultural and educational exchanges that ultimately -- I believe--had a powerful impact on relations between the two countries, and on political change in the USSR..

We are inviting all those who remember the Khrushchev's visit 50 years ago to send us their memories. What do you remember of US-Soviet relations at that time?. What do you remember of the visit and why do you think it significant?

Khrushchev in Iowa is going great guns. At last word 50 Russian agribusiness leaders are planning to come for our commemoration. The next challenge will be to match them with their US agribusiness counterparts. Any suggestions?