On to Moscow

Armed with a bronze plaque for the City of Stalingrad, General Charles de Gaulle climbed into his transport plane and zoomed off for Moscow. In Cairo, he dropped down for a chat with Egypt's King Farouk. In Teheran, he dropped down for a chat with Iran's Shah Reza Pahlevi. But at Baku, Russia's big oil city on the Caspian Sea, General de Gaulle ran into General Winter.

Air travel was perilous. General de Gaulle and fellow travelers (among them: Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, Chief of Staff General Alphonse Juin) chafed, killed time at the Azerbaijan Opera House, then caught a train for Stalingrad. There the General watched steel pour from the furnaces of the Red October Metal Plant (now restored to 60% of former production), tractors roll from the assembly line of the Stalingrad Tractor Works. General de Gaulle presented the "Homage of France" and the bronze plaque in memory of Stalingrad's defense to the city.

Then he caught a train for Moscow. He arrived in a blinding snowstorm. At the flag-decked Kursk Station, a Red Army Guard of Honor stood at attention. A Red Army band played the La Marseillaise and the Soviet Hymn. Down 100 yards of red carpet marched People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Viacheslav Molotov and a reception committee of fur-coated, fur-hatted, felt-booted Russian and Allied dignitaries.

For five minutes De Gaulle kept them waiting. Then, muffled in a fur-lined khaki greatcoat and red cap, he detrained, saluted, shook hands with beaming Commissar Molotov. While Soviet newsphotographers cranked their cameras, General de Gaulle spoke into a microphone: "On behalf of the people of France, I pay homage to the gallant people of the Soviet Union." Then, his long nose and ears blue with cold, he sped to the Foreign Office's guest house.

A few hours later he disappeared into the Kremlin.

Next day the General attended an early Mass at the Roman Catholic Church, Saint Louis of the French. Later, at the French Embassy, he met French soldiers, including men of the famed Normandy Air Squadron, who are serving on the Eastern Front with the Red Army. Then he hurried off to a gala luncheon where he and Marshal Stalin exchanged toasts in champagne and vodka.

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