Years in The Soviet Union
In 1921, while waiting for his internship to begin at Bellevue Hospital, Hammer went to the Soviet Union for a trip that lasted until late 1930. Although his career in medicine was cut short, he relished being referred to as "Dr. Hammer". Hammer's intentions in the 1921 trip have been debated since. He has claimed that he originally intended to recoup $150,000 in debts for drugs shipped during the Allied intervention, but was soon moved by a capitalistic and philanthropic interest in selling wheat to the then-starving Russians. In his passport application, Hammer stated that he intended to visit only western Europe. J. Edgar Hoover in the Justice Department knew this was false, but Hammer was allowed to travel anyway. A skeptical U.S. government watched him through this trip, and for the rest of his life.
Read more about this topic: Armand Hammer
Famous quotes containing the words soviet union, years in, years, soviet and/or union:
“If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.”
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“Nothing an interested foreigner may have to say about the Soviet Union today can compare with the scorn and fury of those who inhabit the ruin of a dream.”
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“Visitors who come from the Soviet Union and tell you how marvellous it is to be able to look at public buildings without advertisements stuck all over them are just telling you that they can’t decipher the cyrillic alphabet.”
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