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as our country's foremost specialist on Soviet agriculture. Following two years in Moscow, I 

 returned to USDA, where I mainuined my interest in Soviet agriculture while I was Chief of the 

 Wheat Export Subsidy Branch in ASCS and Deputy Director of the Grain Division of the Export 

 Marketing Service. 



In 1974, under the terms of the U.S.-USSR bilateral agreement on agricultural exchanges, I led the 

 first U.S. team to the Soviet Union to study the production of winter grain. Thereafter, I took 

 agricultural study teams to the USSR aimually, with the exception of 1977, until my retirement in 

 1989. Travel with these teams took me to almost every part of the USSR, and while they mainly 

 dealt with different aspects of the grain industry, they included almost every facet of Soviet 

 agriculture. Farms, experiment stations, research institutes and local, republic and national 

 govenunental ofiBces and their personnel all came within my experiences. Many of the relationships, 

 professional and personal, continue to the present. 



In February 1992, Dr. Richard Crowder, the Under Secretary of Agriculture for International Affairs 

 and Commodity Programs, requested me to return to USDA as his Special Assistant, to advise him 

 on the Former Soviet Union. I served in that capacity for four months, during which time I traveled 

 to the FSU three times, accompanying the Deputy Director of AID, Andrew Natsios and 

 Ambassador Richard Armitage; and as a member of the site survey team for the Lx)aned Executives 

 Program that was led by former Secretary Richard Lyng. 



My last visit to the FSU was last August, when I accompanied two private businessmen who wanted 

 to learn about the agriculture of Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and with the Dean Emeritus of 



