Swimming to Antarctica_ Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer - Lynne Cox [97]
16
Facing the Bomb
Pulling my hood over my head, zipping my raincoat, and stepping out of the taxi, I ran across Green Street through a series of puddles and gutter spray, to the black wrought-iron fence rimming the perimeter of the Soviet consulate in San Francisco. It was the spring of 1986, and for ten years I had been working, nearly every day, on trying to obtain permission from the Soviets to swim across the Bering Strait.
I had written to Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov, and Gorbachev, as well as ambassadors and other diplomats. No one in the Soviet Union, at the Soviet embassy in Washington, or at our embassy in Moscow had responded to my inquiries. At the time, there was only one man at the State Department who believed that I had any chance of getting permission. But then a friend put me in touch with Armand Hammer.
During our meeting, Dr. Hammer agreed to contact Alexander Terehkin, the cultural attaché at the Soviet consulate in San Francisco. After six phone calls, I finally reached him, and we set a time to meet.
When I heard the gate at the Soviet consulate, and then the heavy metal door, clang shut and lock behind me like a prison door, I began to perspire and shake. Deep down, I was scared to death of the Soviets. When I was a child, we’d be drilled by our teachers to duck under our desks and cover our heads. This, we were told, would protect us from nuclear missiles. Even then, I knew we weren’t being told the truth, that my teacher was lying. It was a lie she wanted to believe, one she wanted everyone to believe, but I didn’t. My father was a radiologist, and he used to let me accompany him to the office, where he put on a heavy lead jacket to take X rays. X rays and radiation were dangerous; they could kill people.
I knew my parents were just as afraid of the Soviets as everyone else was. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, my parents had the radio or television on throughout the day and night. They tried not to show their fear, but people were talking about the end of the earth, how if the Soviet Union dropped a bomb on us, all of us would die. Everything, all the animals and plants, would die too. I didn’t want that to happen to me or my family or friends or my dog, Beth. Why did Khrushchev want to drop a bomb on us? Why was Castro letting him put nuclear missiles in Cuba? Watching Walter Cronkite on television and listening to him, and seeing President Kennedy’s face blank of emotion, his voice filled with controlled tension, as if he were really angry or frightened or both, made me really scared. At night, when I heard the engine sounds of an airplane flying above, I wondered if it would be my last night on earth, and I would hug my dog, Beth, praying that it was just another airplane. Why did they want to hurt us? Why couldn’t we be friends with them?
Standing in a narrow, stark-white waiting room inside the Soviet consulate, I felt like I was alone. I was now in Soviet territory and I was nervous about being there.
Somehow I got my feet to start moving again. Stepping carefully across the wooden floor in my high heels, afraid I would slip and fall, I walked over to a bulletproof window and smiled at a Soviet man in uniform sitting behind the glass. I asked if I could please meet with Mr. Terehkin. Unsmiling, the Soviet guard picked up the phone and dialed an extension. I really wanted to turn around and leave. In the Soviet consulate, I knew I was standing on Soviet soil, and it was just frightening. None of these thoughts were helpful at all. But more than anything, I wanted to believe that the Soviet Union wasn’t the evil empire. Soviet citizens were people like us. Why did they have to be enemies? Why did we have to fear them?
For at least five minutes the man behind the bulletproof glass memorized my passport, noting every stamp and visa. He wrote the information into a ledger. Then he picked up the passport again and compared it with my face. Staring directly at me, it seemed as if he were