Soviet Vodka Diplomacy Works in a Maryland Town

CENTREVILLE, Md. — The people here on Maryland's rural Eastern Shore have “detente” of their own, complete with diplomatic protocol, state dinners, vodka and caviar.

The Russians have come to this village, having secured ‘tidewater beachhead here two years ago. They bought a summer dacha, the best part of the estate of the late John Jacob Raskob, the self‐styled “capitalist” and millionaire, who built the Empire State Building.

The initial reaction was surge of threatened patriotism in Queen Annes County, where not much had changed in 300 years except the tides and the taxes. The fervor approached the panic in the movie, “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Comingg.”

But time and a little neighborly vodka have moved the Russians and the citizenry back from the brink to their current détente. To the amazement of many, it has been as good for Yankee business as for the Russians’ suntans.

Paid in Cash

The announcement in Washington in March, 1972, that the embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had quietly paid $1.2‐million in cash for the two Raskob mansions and 40 acres of the choicest waterside frontage of the 1,600‐acre estate, Pioneer Point, set off an unabashed Red scare.

The Soviets merely sought a summer place for the 500 Russians of the city‐bound diplomatic mission. in Washington, 70 miles across the bay—something like the Glen Cove, LI,’ retreat of the even larger Soviet mission in New York.

But in this town of 1,800 persons, where Sunday movies were banned until 1951, there were suspicions about the Russians’ motives. Letters poured in on the three‐man board of commissioners.

“In the name of God and our God‐given country,” said one aroused, letter‐writer, “how could you sell any property to the Soviet Union, Our Enemy?”

The commissioners, of course, did not sell it. They were as outraged as anyone. And as quick as anyone to deplore the thought of the Rea Flag flying over Queen Annes County. Injury upon insult was the $12,000 a year in property levies, that, because of the taxfree Soviet extra‐territoriality, would be subtracted from the county treasury.

There were even stronger fears of international intrigue.

There were “fears of nuclear submarines surfacing in the Chester River to pick up American secrets and, defectors,” The Record‐Observer, Centreville's weekly newspaper, reported. There was even a belief in some quarters that “the county commissioners were acting on orders from the Central Intelligence Agency in an attempt to get a first‐hand view of top Russian secrets.”

The. fact that neither the Chester nor the Corsica Rivers which meet at the Russians recreational enclave to form Pioneer Point, is deep enough for a surfaced submarine, much less a submerged one, dispelled these rumors. Then another theory was offered: The Soviets meant to “farm” the Chesapeake Bay and its brackish tributaries with radar‐bristling trawlers, designed to snoop electronically on the huge United States Navy radio station across the bay at Annapolis, while vacuum cleaning the local waters of fish.

Clams and Crabs

Since English settlers drove the English out in the 17th century, the economy of Queen Annes County, has depended about equally—and delectably —on agriculture , and “watering,” the harvesting of 130 miles of clam‐and crab‐filled bay shoreline.

The county has successfully resisted condominium and other large‐scale real estate development along its waterfront.

The Record‐Observer complained that the Russians were “block‐busting, international style.”

Tony Kontos is a tiny, whitehaired, 79‐year‐old town philosopher and self‐styled “radical” who has kept the New York Restaurant here in its original nineteen‐twenties state for half a century. He and Herbert Goldstein, the owner of Fox's Department Store,. “used to be the only foreigners here.”

“Everybody was Anglo‐Saxon, you know?” Mr. Kontos added with an el'gant accent and a sardonic snort. “I was the only Greek and Goldstein, across the street, he was the only Jew.”

A Goldfish Pond

“Now it is better,” Mr. Kontos said the other day, commenting on the Russian takeover of the tree‐shaded, 33room Raskob mansion, with its crystal chandeliers, 13 fireplaces, a refrigerated fur storage vault and a wine cellar for 3,000 bottles.

With the red brick main house, the Russians also got a handsome brick dormitory and community‐center type of structure built by the Raskobs for their 12 children and the children's staff. On the property are also about a mile of sandy beach, a swimming pool, two tennis courts, soccer fields and a picnic grove with outdoor tables and a goldfish pond.

The entire tract has been en closed by the Russians with forbidding, high wire stockade.

A group of curious; visitors,’ conducted by Oleg Vermishkin, an assistant press attache from the embassy in Washington, found the enclave mostly full, of Russian children. On a Saturday afternoon, a score of long‐haired, bikini‐clad teenage girls sunned on the beach, and a disciplined but happy summer camp was under way.

For them, the Russians have installed a coin‐operated CocaCola machine. It stands near the plain red banner—minus the hammer and sickle‐‐under,

which the children line up for morning formation and a pledge’ of allegiance to their flag.

Mr. Kontos, Mr. Goldstein and Centreville's police chief, Charley Tarbutton, were among the guests when the Russians began a series of low‐key,, formal entertainments—dinner,1 vodka and a propaganda film for the Americans here.

The police were high on the Russians’ dinner lists at first, apparently because, for a time in 1972, militant Jewish Defense League leaders in Wash‐’ ington had threatened to bring, an army of anti‐Soviet demonstrators here.

But the J.D.L. never came and the police,. reportedly in‐, cluding a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent “snuck in as a police officer” by one sus picious local dignitary, appeared to have relaxed.

The Russians sent the Centreville mayor and council a Christmas box of vodka and caviar last year. (Jack Ashley, the Queen Annes County commissioner who has been most outspoken about “our feeling against the Russian, that goes back so long” refused a dacha dinner invitation. But, now he says “We don't even know the Russians are here, except that they don't pay their taxes.”

The Russians caused some friction with merchants here at first by asserting their diplomatic immunity and refusing, in broken English, to pay Maryland's 4 per cent sales tax for food and liquor in Centreville.

But they also have bought $500’ worth of fluorescent lighting fixtures at the Price & Gannon Hardware.Store, and $10,000 worth of dormitory furniture from Mr. Goldstein for the summer camp.

Moreover, they reportedly will sign contracts for as much as $100,000 with local building tradesmen to put up six new, prefabricated cottages, which were sent in crates from the U. S. S. R. as a gift to the embassy dacha from the Central Soviet of Trade Unions.

Even Joe Handley, a’ 75‐year‐old lifelong Eastern Shoreman who was formerly the Raskob estate manager and caretaker and who made no bones about his disapproval of the concept of having any Russians here at all, admits now that “they've treated me wonderful.”

The Russians also have impressed some local people here by caring for their land. At their request, Maryland's department of forestry recently planted thousands of, pine and hardwood seedlings on the estate, adding to the windswept wall of greenery that surrounds them there. The only objections were that the trees were free, paid for by the state, and the Russians pay no, taxes.

“But when all is said and done,” said John S. O'Brien, The RacordObserver's editor, “it's just a transplanted Russian novel.”

“And quiet flows the Corsica,” he quipped.