Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your hospitality."

My colleagues and I came to Los Angeles mainly to attend the talks between the Soviet delegation and the Olympic Committee. We look forward to seeing Soviet and American athletes compete fairly on the field at next year's Olympic Games!

As for political issues—didn't President Reagan say that Ivan and Anya met Jim and Sally, and they talked about children and work, not politics?

So how about we talk about sports today? By the way, I'm really looking forward to the Lakers' NBA game the day after tomorrow. If I have the chance, I'll definitely go see them in person!

That evening, all three major American television networks broadcast a segment on their news programs—ABC used the headline "A New Face in the Soviet Union: The Humorous Ivanov," while NBC focused on the director himself.

In the past few months, Western media have begun to notice a group of faces in Soviet political circles that are different from the past—much younger than Andropov, much more flexible than Gromyko, who speak English, wear well-fitting suits, and are able to joke and respond to reporters rather than read from prepared scripts like robots.

Gorbachev made a similar impression on the West during his visit to Canada last year, and now Slava and Nyan have further reinforced this new image in Los Angeles.

For a country that has long been associated with "cold dictators," "gray bureaucrats," and "nuclear warheads" in the minds of the Western public, they are the best public relations.

The first two days in Los Angeles were formal Olympic talks, discussing technical details such as the size of the Soviet delegation's participation, accommodation arrangements, security requirements, and doping procedures.

Slava barely got a word in at these meetings because he knew nothing about sports affairs; his main job was to have "chance" encounters with some non-sports figures from the American side during the breaks.

I bumped into an observer from the State Department in the hallway and chatted for a bit; at lunch, I sat at the same table as an advisor to the mayor of Los Angeles and exchanged business cards; at a cocktail party, I was stopped by a man who claimed to be a "representative of the California business community" and chatted for twenty minutes about the possibility of opening up foreign trade to the Soviet Union.

These encounters were not true coincidences—both sides were fully aware of who had sent the other person, what message they wanted to convey, and to what extent they represented the decision-makers behind them.

But one of the characteristics of Cold War diplomacy was that many of the truly important dialogues took place in these chance encounters rather than at the formal negotiating table.

On the afternoon of the third day, something unexpected happened—or rather, something that surprised most of the Soviet delegation, because Slava suspected that the Americans had already made arrangements.

The Soviet delegation received a letter at the front desk of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. The letter, bearing White House letterhead, was an invitation from First Lady Nancy Reagan for key members of the Soviet delegation to an informal dinner at the White House that evening.

"To promote friendship and understanding between the people of the two countries."

Upon seeing the letter, the head of the delegation, Gramov, immediately forwarded it to Slava.

"Comrade Ivanov, you decide this."

Slava took the letter and looked at it.

The White House dinner, at Nancy Reagan's invitation, was a high-level diplomatic gesture of goodwill.

Although the First Lady's dinner was not a formal state event, it was a way for the Reagan family to show goodwill to the Soviet Union.

“Go,” Slava said to Gramov, “and tell them we are honored to accept the invitation.”

Then he suddenly remembered something and immediately turned to Director Nian: "Speaking of which, do we have evening suits?"

"I have a suit."

"White House dinners require evening gowns, not suits."

“Then let the White House prepare a set. I don’t want to buy it here. If the reporters see that officials from the Soviet delegation have traveled thousands of miles to buy evening dresses here, wouldn’t they laugh their heads off? We represent the country’s image abroad, and we can’t lose face.”

"Row."

Director Nian pushed up his sunglasses and glanced at him: "What do you think the effect would be if I wore an evening gown?"

"Would you believe me if I said I would make a mistake for the boss?"

"Get out of here, if that's what you're saying, then I'll wear a suit."

Ultimately, Director Nian and Slava were dragged to a high-end clothing store by a female diplomat from the Soviet consulate in Los Angeles. The consulate in Los Angeles had spare clothes, but Director Nian didn't like them.

Director Nian stayed in the fitting room for more than ten minutes. When she came out, she was wearing a dark blue velvet dress and her silver-white hair was draped over her shoulders.

The scene stunned Slava, who was waiting outside, for about three seconds.

“Boss looks good, meow,” he said.

"Shut up." Director Nian turned her head away, refusing to take off her sunglasses as if they were her true self.

In the end, she still didn't change the dress back.

That evening, they boarded a flight to Washington.

The California sunset spread a golden-red carpet of light beneath the wings, while the distant Pacific Ocean shimmered. The country's wealth and vastness, viewed from 30,000 feet, made one almost forget the invisible Iron Curtain separating it from another superpower.

The White House is waiting for them.

Chapter 38 I think Reagan did a good job; consumer goods are extremely abundant... (8K)

Washington, D.C., January 23, 1984

Slava never imagined that her first time flying first class would be on a flight from Los Angeles to Washington.

There was also a magazine holder in first class, which contained some magazines. He opened it and flipped through it, finally finding one that interested him—Time.

The cover story of this weekly magazine was a predictive analysis of this year's presidential election. He didn't quite understand the technical details about the Electoral College and swing states, but he spent a long time looking at the advertisements:

A new personal computer with a Chevrolet, Sony Walkman, and IBM...

They were all things he was interested in, but unfortunately he didn't have the money to buy them, and due to technological restrictions, he couldn't buy them openly either.

He sighed and closed the magazine. Director Nian peeked over from the side, glanced at the cover, and joked:

"If you had been born in the United States, you would probably have been a programmer."

"I am a programmer, after all."

"I mean you'll be a programmer who works in Silicon Valley, drives a Japanese car, lives in an apartment with a swimming pool, and drives his wife and kids to California beaches on weekends to sunbathe, not a beast of burden who queues for bread in Moscow, takes a seven-hour jeep ride to see cotton fields, and suffers from insomnia in Blagoveshchensk at minus forty degrees Celsius."

“Then let’s forget about it. You’re more important to me than any of this,” Slava said casually, dismissing the topic.

...

The White House's north porch was brightly lit in late January evenings, and Pennsylvania Avenue was swept clean. Secret Service agents had also preemptively cleared the slums of Washington, D.C., with homeless people either evicted or ordered to stay out of sight of the Soviet delegation.

Guests dressed in evening gowns or military uniforms filed out of cars and up the red-carpeted steps. Navy Marines, dressed in light blue dress uniforms, stood on either side of the entrance, their white gloves and brass buttons gleaming under the lights.

Slava had a strange feeling as he walked up the steps in his formal attire—he had seen countless images of the White House on television and the internet before his time travel, but only when he actually stood before it did he realize what those images couldn't convey:

This building is much smaller in scale than any of the main buildings in the Kremlin, but every detail exudes an aura of power.

Power was the best catalyst to ignite his ambition.

Director Nian walked beside him, her deep blue velvet dress swaying slightly in the evening breeze, her silver hair looking like silk touched by moonlight under the porch light.

She ultimately didn't wear sunglasses, as it would be impolite to wear them indoors; her bright pink eyes stood out against the cold Washington air.

Several American journalists waiting at the entrance clearly took several photos of her when they saw her, probably thinking that the sight of a silver-haired, red-eyed Soviet woman in an evening gown walking into the White House was enough to make headlines.

The banquet hall was already bustling with activity.

Nancy Reagan's dinners were never dull political gatherings—having spent years in Hollywood, she knew all the tricks of the trade for a "good show," and her guest list was crafted like a movie casting call:

There were several senators and their jeweled wives, a Golden Globe-winning actress, a Wall Street fund manager, a famous violinist, and a Pentagon deputy secretary—

And a small group of guests from the Soviet Union, who seemed somewhat out of place in this space filled with champagne bubbles and the scent of Dior perfume, yet it was precisely this incongruity that made them the most eye-catching focus of the entire dinner.

As for Nancy Reigen herself, she personally greeted several key members of the Soviet delegation before the banquet began. She wore a red Oscar de la Renta evening gown and looked like a blooming flower under the crystal chandelier in the state banquet hall—absolutely stunning.

P.S.: Oscar de la Renta's dresses are truly stunning; the only downside is that they're expensive.

“Welcome to the White House, Mr. Ivanov.” She shook Slava’s hand with a perfectly timed smile.

It seems that the First Lady's diplomatic smile is indeed an art that requires decades of practice.

“My husband asked me to tell you that he is pleased that the Soviet Union decided to participate in the Los Angeles Olympics. Sports should not be held hostage by politics.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Reagan,” Slava replied in his slightly Russian-accented English. “We think so too. Ivan and Anya also want to watch the Olympics!”

Nancy smiled, perhaps because Slava had used her husband's metaphor. Then her gaze shifted to Director Nian, pausing slightly—probably drawn to his magenta eyes.

“Ms. Ivanova, your eye color is really special.”

"Thank you," Director Nian said, a smile curving her lips. Slava kept looking at the corners of her mouth.

Nancy Regan seemed to sense that the two did not have a colleague-like relationship, but she did not say anything.

The first hour of the dinner is for free networking.

Guests chatted in small groups throughout the banquet hall, sipping champagne, awaiting the start of the formal dinner. Slava was stopped and talked for ten minutes by a middle-aged man who introduced himself as a representative of the California tech industry—about whether the Soviet Union was interested in purchasing American computer equipment.

This topic is essentially an unanswerable question within the framework of COCOM regulations, but both sides politely pretend it has an answer.

After all, a few months ago Japan pulled a big stunt by successfully buying back several high-precision machine tools that were under Soviet control from Japan, and this kind of underhanded operation behind the back of the United States was basically being done by European countries.

The woman was surrounded by a group of senators' wives. They were full of curiosity about this woman from the Soviet Union, and their questions ranged from "What exactly did you do in the Soviet government?" to "What brands of clothes do you usually wear there?" to "Do you have children?"

Director Nian answered these questions one by one with her unhurried humor. When a senator's wife asked her, "Can women also become government officials in the Soviet Union?" her answer made several people around her laugh simultaneously:

"Of course. In fact, women in the Soviet Union had full voting and election rights as early as 1917, much earlier than in the United States."

And we don't need my husband's signature to open an account—I remember you Americans didn't pass that law, what was it called, until 1974, to solve this problem?

“The Equal Credit Opportunities Act,” a young woman nearby, clearly knowledgeable about the topic, interjected. She was the agent of the Golden Globe-winning actress who had been invited tonight.

“Oh right, that,” Director Nian said, holding a glass of champagne she had barely touched, “Women in the Soviet Union could be engineers, doctors, pilots, and tractor drivers. Our labor participation rate was the highest in the world.”

Of course, we also have problems—for example, there is still an unfair proportion of housework borne by women. We want a high birth rate, high labor productivity, and a fair proportion of household labor borne by women... This balance is very difficult to achieve.

At least we don't need to discuss whether women should be able to work this year; we're discussing how to improve working conditions.

After hearing this, the wife of a senator, dressed in a pink evening gown, looked a little uncomfortable. This was probably because she herself was a typical upper-class American housewife in the 1980s, whose "job" was to accompany her husband to various social occasions, manage household chores, and participate in charitable activities.

In the world of these bourgeois ladies, women's participation in labor production has never been liberation but suffering, but the data that Director Nian mentioned is indeed irrefutable.

"But then again," Director Nian subtly steered the conversation to avoid making the atmosphere too sharp, "there's one thing that American women have that Soviet women envy."

"what?"

"Your stockings are of much better quality than ours."

Everyone laughed, and the atmosphere became relaxed again.

Amid the laughter, Director Nian calmly took a small sip of champagne, then glanced across the crowd at Slava on the other side of the hall—using his eyes to confirm that he hadn't caused any trouble.

...

The chance encounter that truly made the evening different happened about twenty minutes before the main dinner began.

After escaping the entanglement with the California tech representatives, Slava walked to the bar in the corner of the lobby and ordered himself a glass of lemonade.

He didn't drink much, especially not in situations where he needed to stay sober. Then, he suddenly noticed a man in his sixties standing by the bar, of medium build, with graying hair, wearing a well-tailored black tuxedo, holding a glass of whiskey, staring blankly at the crowd in the hall.

The man noticed Slava, his gaze lingered on him for a moment, and then he said in English with a heavy Eastern European accent:

"Are you the one from the Soviet Union?"

“Yes, Ivanov—Velikoslav Ivanovich Ivanov.” Slava extended his hand. “And you are—?”

“Lev Abramovich.” The man understood the meaning of the name, glanced at Slava’s physique, smiled, and shook his hand.

"A physicist, currently at Caltech."

Abramovich. The surname is a Jewish name in Russian—"son of Abram." Slava realized he was standing face to face with a Soviet Jewish immigrant—well, now it should be called an American Jewish immigrant.

“Caltech, impressive,” Slava repeated the word. “What are you researching there?”

“Condensed matter physics,” Abramovich said, taking a sip of whiskey, “formerly worked at the Lebedev Institute in Moscow, and came out in 1975.”

"Out?"

This word was quite unusual in the context of Soviet Jews.

He was an immigrant, or more accurately, "allowed to leave".

The process of applying for immigration visas for Soviet Jews was a nightmare in itself. Many applicants were immediately dismissed, socially isolated, and labeled as "traitors." The waiting time for approval could be as long as several years, and some people waited for ten years without being approved. These people were called "denialists" (отказники). They could neither leave nor return to their original lives, suspended in a vacuum between two worlds.

“1975…” Slava repeated the year, quickly doing a mental calculation—1975 was the year the US and the Soviet Union signed the Helsinki Accords, which included clauses on the free movement of people. In those years, the Soviet Union released a batch of Jewish immigrant visas as a gesture of goodwill towards the West. “After the Helsinki Accords?”

“I applied before, but it took three years to get approved. During those three years, I was fired from the Lebedev Institute, and my wife lost her teaching job at the university. Our family of four relied on friends for support for two years—in the last year, some friends didn’t dare to come anymore, for fear of being implicated.”

He calmly finished recounting this arduous history.

What happens after you arrive in the United States?

"After arriving in the United States?" Abramovich chuckled. "After arriving in the United States, I spent two years rebuilding my academic reputation, then three years getting tenure, and then it was just publishing papers, supervising graduate students, applying for grants..."

It's essentially the same as what I did in Moscow, except that things are a bit more Jewish-friendly here.

Regarding political correctness.

Slava was silent for a few seconds, then clinked glasses with the Jewish man.

He didn't know much about the Jewish question in the Soviet Union; before he traveled through time, the topic had become an object of historical research rather than a living reality.

Moreover, the presence of Jews within the Soviet Union was quite low; at least during his three and a half years in Moscow, he had almost no contact with the Jewish community.

"Do you mind if I ask a question that might be considered impolite?"