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.