Frontier Embassy

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow last week was open for business--but there was no business. Each night Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt and his aides drove 20 miles northeast of threatened Moscow to the emergency quarters appropriately named "The Refuge," on a high bluff overlooking the roaring Klyasma River. There, on an estate surrounded by a high picket fence, in a comfortable, plain, seven-room house, the U.S. Diplomatic and Consular representatives prepared to guard the interests of the U.S. in one-sixth of the earth's surface. They found themselves almost as isolated as the pioneers of the old West, in their stockades in Indian territory.

In Washington, Soviet Ambassador Oumansky was closeted frequently with U.S. Under Secretary of State Welles. But in Moscow, Soviet Foreign Commissar Molotov had no appointments with U.S. Ambassador Steinhardt. The onetime New York attorney, who had been doing foreign chores for the Administration ever since he campaigned for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, and who had kept his fingers wisely crossed on Russo-German friendship since last fall, continued his enforced policy of keeping his eyes open though the Kremlin doors remained closed.

Farsighted Ambassador Steinhardt had stocked "The Refuge" with food enough to last 100 days, with medical and surgical supplies. He ordered army tents, imported from the Philippines, put up under the trees. Wives and women clerks had been shipped to Sweden or Iran; some Embassy members are now on their way to Vladivostok. Having done these things, Ambassador Steinhardt found his days even more than usually frustrating. U.S. military observers are not allowed near the front. For years Russia has dogged all diplomats with spies, has refused to permit even ambassadors of friendly countries to circulate freely. Communications home, slow at best, will now be slower; U.S. official information, sparse in peaceful times, is in danger of drying up. Ambassador Steinhardt appeared to be on ice for the duration.

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