Word: zinchenko
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Slim, scar-faced Constantine Zinchenko was up against his toughest job. He was one man, and the press at Paris was 1,650 strong. Some reporters found it hard to believe that Russia cared one whit about world opinion; Zinchenko was proof that, for reasons of her own, she did. As his Government's No. 1 press-relations man, he had been sent from Moscow on a major mission: to see that newsmen of 30 nations got a sound briefing on the Soviet line at the peace conference...
...Luxembourg Palace, Zinchenko sat through the long debates beside Molotov and Vishinsky. Whenever he left the Palace, his black portfolio tucked under the arm of his London-made suit, reporters beset him with questions. All evening long, his telephone rang in his small, untidy office at the embassy in the Rue de Crenelle...
...head of the press section of the Foreign Ministry, able, thirtyish Constantine Zinchenko is the man who accredits or bars foreign correspondents who seek entry to Moscow, though the MGB (formerly NKVD) are finally responsible for keeping the foreign press colony so small. From their first day in Moscow, when they formally present their credentials to him, correspondents must deal with Zinchenko if they want interviews, transportation, stoves for their rooms, extra food, or transfer from one Metropole Hotel room to another...
Around his home office, Zinchenko alternates between his London wardrobe and the grey, postmanlike uniform of the Foreign Ministry. He and his pretty wife have attended small parties at A.P. Correspondent Eddy Gilmore's house. There, and at embassy affairs, guests know him as a good conversationalist, a chain smoker, a man who carries his vodka well. But he may drink with a reporter one day, baffle him by ignoring him when in official company the next. Last year he escorted Mrs. Winston Churchill on her Russian tour, impressed her as a nice young...
...correspondents, he never makes a promise, but always says "I'll see what I can do." They tell a story, possibly apocryphal, to show that Zinchenko has a sense of humor. An American newsman in Moscow was giving him a sales talk on freedom: "Why, back home," he said, "I can march into the White House at any time, shout 'Down with Truman!' and then march out. Nothing would happen to me." Grinned Zinchenko: "I can do that, too. I can march into the Kremlin at any time, shout 'Down with Truman!' and nothing will...