Mission to Moscow

Joseph Davies, a personal friend of Roosevelt and ambassador to Stalin in 1937–38. The book contains strictly confidential reports to the White House, letters, and the ambassador’s personal diaries about Russia. The ambassador offers a perspective on the purges, the vast construction projects of the USSR, Soviet art, and everyday life. The book describes negotiations with Stalin, Churchill, and leaders of Nazi Germany. Davies was awarded the USSR’s highest order—the Order of Lenin—for assistance with Lend-Lease and the opening of the second front. The book includes a great number of the ambassador’s everyday notes—from visiting Artek to tasting wines in Massandra or secret storerooms of the Hermitage with Scythian gold.