How vexing! Troyanovsky’s trip to Moscow last October ‘to report to the government’ was surely a mistake. It only succeeded in raising American hopes, when no solution to the difficulties was foreseeable. And now, with Troyanovsky declaring on his return that he has brought nothing new, a natural reaction has set in. I envy neither Troyanovsky nor Boev,

Ivan V. Boev, deputy people’s commissar of foreign trade, 1932–33; member and then chairman of the Soviet AMTORG Trading Corporation in Washington, 1934–47.

especially Boev: what will he do and how will he trade after such a falling out? This American incident is sure to reverberate everywhere, England included.