Summer Warmth

Russian summer and invasion time came to Moscow together. Flower girls hawked lilacs and forget-me-nots. Soda-water wagons rolled through the streets with neighborhood kids in tow. Workers hurried home at day's end to spade their victory gardens. The Moscow River brightened with canoes and racing shells. There were concerts and operettas in the parks. The trees along the Kremlin's wall turned a lovely green. Fresh coats of paint shone on the trams and busses.

The newspaper supply ran even shorter of demand than usual. Clubs and study groups swamped the Moscow Lecture Bureau with requests for Second Front speakers. More than one comrade puzzled over the map of France in the British Embassy's publication, Britanski Soyusnik (British Ally). On it the English Channel appeared as "Angliski Canal." Russians, accustomed to the French "La Manche,"asked: "When did the English build the canal between themselves and France?"

Second Front talk was everywhere: on the jampacked weekend trains off to suburban camps and rest homes; at the all-Soviet Union boxing championships and the even more popular grand chess tournament; in the lobbies of the movies, where the new Soviet Sky of Moscow told the story of the battle for the capital in 1941. and the old U.S. Jungle Book and Thief of Bagdad pictured the adventures of Sabu. At the U.S. Army Air Forces' new bomber bases in western Russia (see WORLD BATTLEFRONTS), G.I. Joe chummed up with G.I. Ivan. U.S. Businessman Eric Johnston continued to buzz around the Soviet Union, impress his hosts with his smoothly plain talk (see BUSINESS). At the level where Russians, Britons and Americans actually met, international relations were of the best.

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