At the beginning of June 1969,I became the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times. I had also married Marie-Jeanne Marcouyeux on April 19, in Washington and after a brief honeymoon in London and Paris, we were beginning our married life in Moscow, No sooner had I assumed command of the bureau when Henry Kamm departed for his next assignment in Asia. My “big story” was obviously going to center on the Soviet reaction to the planned launch of Apollo 11 when the first men were due to set foot on the moon in mid July. Almost simultaneous with the launch of Apollo 11, the Soviet Union gave prominence to an unmanned space ship, Luna 15, which seemed destined to prove that an unmanned capsule can do as much on the moon as a manned one. But in fact, just as Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, Luna 15 in effect disappeared.

In early June 1970, an American biologist, whose name I do not remember, came to my office in Moscow and handed me a protest written by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn against the forced detention in a mental institution of Zhores Medvedev, who was a respected biologist who had run afoul of authorities for his outspoken criticism of Stalin’s favorite biologist, T.D. Lysenko. I wrote a story on Solzhenitsyn’s protest which was published on June 17, 1970. I also distributed the protest to my other colleagues from the Western press in Moscow as was our custom then.

And lo and behold, the next day, Medvedev was released from the mental institution. The story gets more fascinating. About a week later, Medvedev invited the Western press corps to a luncheon at a well known hotel in Moscow to demonstrate he was sane and knowledgeable. Afterwards, I went up to him and asked for a private meeting. He suggested meeting him in the parking lot of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. My wife and I met him in the parking lot and then the three of us walked into the Bolshoi and then he directed us to an exit door, so we then took advantage of a pleasant Moscow evening to walk the streets and converse. In our talks in English, he related that he was a big fan of English mysteries. So the next time we met, I was happy to give him an assortment of Agatha Christie novels.

A year later, the Russians launched Soyuz 11, whose three man crew was supposed to enter a space station, Salyut 1. They did, and remained there for 21 days, but when they attempted to return to earth, disaster struck. The capsule they were in lost its pressure, and the three all died as they were returning to earth. It was a very big story for us, and my article led the paper on June 20, 1972.

Meanwhile, I had seemingly lost touch with Zhores, but was happily reunited with him when my Washington Post colleague, Anthony Astrachan invited me and Marie-Jeanne for a farewell dinner. He was leaving soon, and I would be returning to Washington at the end of September. His guest was Zhores Medvedev, whom I had not seen for a while. At the end of the dinner, Zhores emptied his pockets of dozens of rolls of 35 mm. film . He explained that he and his brother Roy had been writing what they called “Political Diary” and he asked that we do our best to publish the “Diary” in the west. Astrachan brought the rolls to the London bureau of The Times which arranged their publication. Meanwhile, in Moscow Marie-Jeanne and I wrote a couple of articles based on the tapes. It was Marie-Jeanne’s first and only byline in the Times.

Zhores eventually emigrated to London where he did many books and other scientific works until he died on November 15, 2018, three days after his 93d birthday.