VIP

Edward J. Dowling is a pretty big man in Indianapolis. Fact is, only a couple of weeks ago Ed was elected president of Rotary. But the boys had to get along without Ed at the Tuesday luncheons at the Claypool because he was off traveling. Ed's the kind of a fellow who, when he decides to go some place, throws some socks and shaving stuff into a bag and starts. Eighteen months ago he sold his business (chocolate-covered cherries) and decided to see some of the world, maybe combine traveling with a little business. Ed asked the Soviet embassy in Washington for a visa to Russia.

It took a lot of "fooling around" to get that visa, but Ed got it. "I told them," Ed said, "that I wanted to go there and buy a lot of Russian vodka, $2,000,000 worth, and sell it to the people in the U.S. I told them it wouldn't hurt Russia a bit." Two months ago Ed left for Europe with a bunch of Indianapolis businessmen on a tour sponsored by the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, and when he got to Helsinki, he decided to use his visa.

"When You Want to Go . . ." "I've got a visa to Russia," he told the men at the Soviet Intourist Agency in Helsinki. "I want a ticket. How do I go? By boat? By train?" The Russians scratched their heads. "Where I come from," mused Ed, "when people want to go some place, they go." The Russians asked who he was. "I told them," says Ed, "that I was the most important man in the world, an American taxpayer." The Russians got him an airplane ticket.

On Friday, Sept. 23, Ed landed in Moscow. Some Russians met him. "They asked me why didn't they know I was coming," Ed recalls. "Why hadn't I cabled? I said I didn't know that I should, that where I came from I went where I wanted. The two Russians -- there are always two Russians -- scratched their heads like they did back at Helsinki. They questioned me for two hours but I gave them straight answers. They finally said, 'We'll take you to the hotel in Moscow. They can find out what it's all about.' "

Ed went to the Intourist hotel in a Packard. "We rode," he says, "along a magnificent highway. It had twelve lanes but no automobiles. Just bums along the road. At the hotel they asked how much money I had. I showed them my travelers' checks and they said they were no good. I said the American Express Co. would be very indignant about that because they prided themselves on their travelers' checks. I said I'd telephone collect and the American Express could put them straight, but they said no. They loaned me 100 rubles and offered to give me a guide, but I said, 'No thanks, I don't need one. I'd rather just look around.'

"If That's Heaven . . ." Ed roamed around Moscow for ten days. He said it was 90% slums. He said pregnant women worked on paving jobs in the streets while army officers walked around. Caviar, he said, cost twice as much in Moscow as it did in Indianapolis. Ed even took in a ballet. He couldn't help laughing, he said, when he looked down from a box on Ambassador Kirk, who couldn't sit in a box because of the five Russians who were always trailing him. "He had to sit in the orchestra," said Ed, "because there were too many of them."

When Ed showed up at the U.S. Embassy, the staff there shook their heads and bet him he wouldn't get an exit visa until Christmas, if then. But Ed Bowling knows his way around, wherever he is. He got his visa O.K. in eight days and flew back to Helsinki. Last week Ed landed on Hoosier soil again with 13 samples of vodka, and gave his wife Myrtle a big hug. "They say that Moscow is the heaven of the Soviet," said Ed. "Well, if that's heaven, all I can say is it's a hell of a heaven."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.