AN EMBASSY PARTY

I used to go to embassy parties every so often. I went to one at the soviet embassy in Washington dc in december 1973 back when the ambassador was a jolly gentleman named Mr. Anatoly Dobrynin and the Ussr was still there.

Anatoly once let me in on the secret that he was really a famous soviet fighter pilot during a lot of the war but then his boss in Moscow (which was the capitol of the Ussr at that time, you know) told him he would make a much better ambassador than a pilot of planes so they turned him into one, an ambassador I mean, so he went to a special ambassador colledge the Kgb runs in Moscow to learn how to hold embassy parties and then they sent him to Washington dc, where he set up a pretty good embassy and held parties quite frequently and laughed whenever he told that story to blondes, which was probably most of the time, so he wouldnt ever have to fly fighter planes anymore which he did not really overly care for because according to Anatoly a fellow gets shot at quite frequently if they are a fighter pilot so for that reason alone he enjoyed giving embassy parties a lot better than flying a plane.

Anyway that was the story he always told blondes and it was really tray tray drole because Anatoly was quite large, you could say even massive and he would have had no little trouble fitting into a fighter size aircraft which are quite frequently not very roomy, you know. Eau contrare, they are really quite cramped. I know, because an air force kernel once took me for a ride in a fighter jet after a pentagon party but it was really quite dull because you have get in the back seat and sit under a helmet like the ones in the beauty shop only smaller, with earphones, and it actually ruins your hairdo and your stockings get runs. And the radio in the dashboard doesnt play music at all or even the news but just a lot of boring men talking whose names are all Roger who you have to listen to in your helmet all the time so you cant even get a single word in edgewise yourself, but its so noisy that you wouldnt even want to because no one could hear you anyway and besides there is nothing to see that you would want to talk about unless its the back of the pilots seat three inches in front of your face.

Well perhaps russian fighter jets are built quite a bit roomier if communist pilots are all Anatolys size so while it is theoreticly possible that Anatoly could of fit into a communist russian one it did not seem very likely so as a consequents I never really gave credants to a single one of Anatolys stories. Besides, a Cia girl whose a GS-3 clerk in ID&D (thats identification and dossiers) once told me that she saw in his file that Anatoly gets airsick at the drop of a hat and for this reason when he first came to Washington dc he arrived on a cunard ocean liner and hasn’t ever been near an airplane even on the ground, so I know for a fact Anatoly was never really a pilot but just a very good thrower of embassy parties that knows how to tell a good story.

But dont get me distracted! I was talking about embassy parties.

…So one december evening in 1973 we went to a party at the soviet embassy because there were some very important soviet goverment people visiting there from Moscow and they desired us to meet them.

In those days I was a receptionist in C&C (thats ciphers and codes) at the Cia across the river in Langley Virginia and my boss, who always joked with the soviets that he was the curater of the russian collection at the national gallery, liked to take me to parties and always told me to wear a rather low-cut cocktail dress of which I had several rather daring oat coutoor ones made in paris france just for embassy parties. The Cia had a line budget item for everything in those days, even french parisian cocktail dresses.

So I decided to wear my silver one with the spaghetti straps which since hemlines were quite high in those days and as my legs are quite long (and rather shapely I could add but I wont on account of Im rather modest) my dresses quite frequently left a lot of leg showing too, even when standing, and since it was winter and I would be wearing a long wrap, it created a rather pleasing affect in the room when my wrap was removed which my boss always did so at the most prominnant moment so as to attract lots of attention which was usually enjoyable on my behalve at least if not on the others behalves too.

Well the soviet embassy in Washington dc was on K street just a couple blocks down from the white house, but it used to belong to Mr. George Pullman that invented the special cars on the railroads that only the negroes can work in, but when you went inside and walked up the grand staircase to the landing where it divides into two split staircases going up the other direction, instead of a giant portrait of Mr. George Pullman there was hanging a giant portrait of Mr. Lenin that invented the Ussr but forgot his first name, which might of got Mr. George Pullman rather upset, not because Mr. Lenin forgot his first name or invented the Ussr but because they took down his portrait and put up Mr. Lenins instead, but since he was dead he couldnt, but so was Mr. Lenin. So it was a draw.

Mr. Lenin appeared to have had something wrong with his neck because in all of his pictures, of which there were lots in the Embassy, even on napkins and glasses and ashtrays, it showed him with his neck tightly twisted and looking off in the exact same direction up and to the right, his little beard pointing up in the exact same direction as his eyes, with a severe and highly meaningful look on his face like he just had a highly important meeting with God so now he finally knows all of the answers, I mean God does, not Mr. Lenin, since from his expression it was quite clear Mr. Lenin knew them already.

But Anatolys party was the first time I was ever on television, almost twenty-four of them to be exact, because they had a little room off the grand foyée that used to be the cloak room. A cloak is a funny old fashion coat with no sleeves that nobody wears any more but all the rooms are still there so you can either gossip in them or put tv's in and since communists are not fond of gossip this cloakroom was filled with twenty-four little televisions, but nothing was showing on them besides all of the embassys windows and doors and the stairways and you could even see little cars whizzing back and forth on K street outside. Communist tv is very boring, you know. I know because I saw it at the embassy that evening.

So we went up the grand staircase and admired the rather large size portrait of Mr. Lenin and hoped his neck would improve, and some rather thick gentlemen took our coats and looked us over quite closely. At the top of the staircase there was a grand ballroom with a parkay floor where Mr. George Pullman probably held some extremely grand balls, but since the soviet union at that point in time didnt believe in grand balls and had removed Mr. George Pullmans portrait besides and had replaced it with Mr. Lenins who it was quite clear from his severe expression disapproved rather strongly of balls, now they just held embassy parties in it so Anatoly could tell his tray tray drole stories about when he was a fighter pilot of planes but then they turned him into an ambassador.

So there was this very long table on one side of the room covered with quite a large choice of communist oar derves but right in the middle was an ice sculpture of Mr. Lenin with the same neck disorder but surrounded by iced silver dishes heaped with red and grey communist caviar (which is fish eggs extracted by surgeons) and bottles of vodka (which is very pale white wine squeezed from potatoes) and rows and rows of glasses with Mr. Lenin etched on them to pour it into.

So there were also some rather squat ladies dressed up in black french waitress suits with frilly little white aprons which somebody warned us were the wives of the rather thick gentlemen which already had taken our coats and we should not say anything to them besides I would simply adore some more caviar, thank you, because they were all Kgb and carried special small little tape recorders built into their serving trays, but they were cunningly trained to serve vodka and caviar so that we wouldnt suspect them and we would consider them to be mere butlers and waitresses and perhaps say something secret by accident because we all had security clearances, you see, and sometimes a girl will let a secret slip out in an indiscrete moment, so all the rather thick gentlemen and rather thick ladies hovered around us waiting for an opportunity to record a couple secrets and win the order of Lenin which is like our congressional medal of honor we give out for being extremely patriotic only it has Mr. Lenins picture on the front instead of George Washington and the hammer and sickel (thats the communist emblem, you know) on the back instead of an eagle, but there all made by the same engraving firm in manhattan called Estermann bros that makes medals for all over the world and also prints bank notes for sixty-six countries. I know because I saw a copy of Estermann bros order book which showed that the Ussr ordered two hundred thirty-six thousand seven hundred and twenty-three orders of Lenin in 1971 at a cost of $2.79 apiece, with a big price break at over two hundred thousand.

They say you can get anything in manhattan, even the order of Lenin. But I really wouldnt know that for a fact since Im a Washington dc girl born and bread and they say you can get mugged in manhattan almost as quick as getting the order of Lenin so I try not to go there and have been quite successful so far since I have never set foot in manhattan and never intend to. I have been as far north as baltimore, but I lost a heel there once so I consider it a dangerous city.

I have never lost a heel in Washington dc, but one time I lost an earring down a storm sewer grating in georgetown. That was after a rather wild party at a famous senators house where some girls lost more than an earring, since a few girls lost both earrings and one girl even lost a gold filling, but the senators friends all said she swallowed it during charades and she ended up paying her dentist forty-seven dollars for a new one that was only silver amalgum! I know, because shes in the typing pool in S&R (thats surveylance and reconnassance), over in D building and she told me about it one day in the canteen.

The Cia langley campus has eleven canteens, you see, where a girl can get a big luncheon for only fifty cents, but the best one is in F building, where she can get a waldorf salad for only a quarter which is quite a bargain even if your on a diet. But thats only on mondays wednesdays and fridays so on most other weekdays the G and K building canteens are far better values even if they have more fattening luncheons for fifty cents.

But please don’t distract me all over again, I was talking about this embassy party! What does a girl have to do to tell a story around here without getting distracted every five seconds? Now what was I talking of? Oh yes, we were eating all that communist caviar.

…So, as I was relating before I got interrupted, in case us receptionists needed to say anything at all besides about accepting more caviar, thank you, we were instructed by our bosses to say it in code, such as, "Gladys has got a rather bad headache to-night but it is still quite foggy outside," so they, all the Kgb butlers and waitresses I mean, would have to stay up all night working on figuring out just exakly what we really said, which meant they couldnt send anything else secret back to Kgb headquarters in Moscow while they were still working on figuring out just exakly what it was we had said.

So by using this strata gem us receptionists could still be quite patriotic and eat up all that red and grey communist caviar, which is always really rather delicious despite it being communist, especially the little dark gray, almost black ones that come from the black sea which is why the sea is called black, you see, while the red sea for the same reason is where they get all the red caviar of course.

So all we receptionists quite suddenly developed simultaneous headaches and talked about the weather a lot, which got picked up on all of the small little serving tray tape recorders so the soviet Kgb would have to listen to it all night to figure it out and couldn’t send any real secrets back to Moscow while they were working on our headaches and the fog. So we all felt really quite patriotic and had no regrets about eating all that communist caviar.

So by now everyone else had arrived including some quite famous senators and congressmen and even some cabinet secretaries and judges and their receptionists (and a few older girls who from their looks were probably wives), so Anatoly could start telling his exciting pilot stories all over again, so he did, so everyone laughed again and drank lots of vodka although most of the famous senators and congressmen and even a few of their receptionists (or wives) seemed to have had some vodka or something else earlier but they all had some more anyway.

Now the soviets and also their close neighbors the russians are quite fond of vodka, you know, but they dont think it works unless the glasses are bigger than beer steins, and quite a number of toasts were proposed, so by the time they were drinking to the outer republics quite a few guests and more than a couple russians and soviets had to sit down. Even if there wasnt a chair.

Now drinking vodka from glasses bigger than beer steins eventually makes you want to sit down sooner or later, you see, but quite a few people seemed to prefer reclining under one of the tables so that they could rest up and not have to drink any more toasts since communist etikette says if your reclining under a table resting up your not obliged to drink any more toasts (its considered rather poor form in fact) but if your still standing or sitting you have to or you might be thought impolite and not get invited again.

So if a girl wants to get anywhere on the embassy circuit, she needs to keep a breast of the suttle little newontses of different national etikettes because at the romanian embassy for instants a person can still drink toasts if they are resting up under a table (they can even propose them) but its only fair to say that at most embassies, even the soviet and romanian and the other communist ones, a girl is not expected to keep up with the minor toasts or recline under a table to rest up but can keep right on eating oar derves if they want to, of which at the soviet embassy I always recommend the dark grey caviar (the small ones) and to avoid any color pickled mushrooms which can give a girl gas. Or even a rash.

So we finally ate up all of the caviar and the ice bust of Mr. Lenin was almost all melted so that his neck appeared to have gotten quite a lot better. So the rather thick gentlemen fetched us our coats and we all went on television again as we walked outside onto K street and caught us a cab.