On the “Arcane Modern Science of Kremlinology” or The Case of the Vanishing Birthdays
Cold War History, Feb 2016: The New York Herald Tribune reported that 'by every means of transport,' personal tokens and grand offerings were 'funnel[ling] toward Moscow from the Elbe to China, from the Arctic to the Black Sea'. The Chicago Tribune wrote of 'beflagged special trains ... converg[ing]' from capitals in Eastern Europe. News of the preparations for Josef Stalin's 70th birthday celebration trickled out of American magazines and newspapers. The Boston Globe counted 'whole exposition halls of trinkets and pictures, factories and socks'. To the list of tribute, the Washington Post added word of 'a "wonder" telephone that ma[de] 14 calls at once ... a cactus plant, a coal shovel, a planetarium, [and] a collection of bean shooters'. The 'parcels and crates' queued through Red Square. So that by the night of Tuesday, 20 December 1949, on the eve of Stalin's birthday, newspapers across the United States – from the Los Angeles Times to the Milwaukee Sentinel to the Daytona Beach Morning Journal – were reporting on the 'vast hoard of tribute ... piled up at the Kremlin'…