Category: My Favorites

Lost In Moscow

A cab picked me up in front of my hotel in Moscow at 8 a.m. sharp, just as my host said it would. Everything was going as planned.

Red Square, Moscow
This is Red Square in Moscow. St. Basil’s Cathedral is in the background.

I had arrived the previous afternoon from New York, walked around Red Square, took photos of St. Basil’s Cathedral, and now I was ready to go to work. I was in Moscow to talk to Russian journalists about how investigative reporting is done in the United States or, at least, how I did it.

I didn’t know where my taxi was going — I didn’t have the address, the driver was just supposed to deliver me.  I had been told it wasn’t far but the driver kept on driving, on and on.  I couldn’t asked for an explanation, he didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Russian.

Finally he stopped, reached over the seat, opened the back door nearest the curb, and motioned for me to get out. And then he drove away leaving me standing in front a tan colored, six or eight-story building that was, like most buildings I saw in Moscow, on the ugly side.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow

I soon discovered that he had not taken me to the place where I supposed to give a talk; he had taken me to the U.S. Embassy.  This was a huge problem, maybe a  fatal problem — my host didn’t know  where I was and I didn’t know where I was supposed to be.

There were two guards in front of embassy.  One appears to be an American and one a Russian.  I spoke with the American and then, at his direction, went inside.  Our embassy helps Americans in trouble, doesn’t it?  And I sure was in trouble.

I had flown a total of more than 5,000 miles to make the opening speech at a meeting of Russian journalists and now, because of this SNAFU, it was starting to look like that might not happen.

The embassy fellow did help me.

He found the address of the outfit that had invited me — that’s not where I was speaking, but it was a start — and he wrote the address in Russian on a piece of piece of paper.  I asked if he would call a cab for me. He said he could do that but it might be several hours before it arrived. There just weren’t enough cabs in Moscow, he said. And they weren’t reliable.

That part, the unreliable part, I already knew.  

What I had to do, he said, was catch a car. Go back outside, he said, give this address to the guard, and asked him to catch a car for you.

Because taxi service is so poor catching cars is an everyday thing in Moscow. You hold up an arm, a car stops, and you tell them where you want to go. If it’s on the way to where they’re going anyway, you agree on a price, and get in. If it’s too far out of the way, or you’re not willing to pay what they’re asking, they drive away and you catch another car.

The American guard flagged down a ride, negotiated the price, I got in, and off we went, to where I had no idea.  It wasn’t long before two things were obvious:

One, this guy didn’t know where he was going — twice he stopped to consult a map.

Two, he didn’t want any help from me, didn’t want to look at a map I had in my pocket.

He never smiled, never gestured to me. He gave every indication that I was a sack of potatoes to be delivered, nothing more. He drove on and on, turning this way and that, and, meanwhile — tick tock, tick tock — time was slipping away.

At last he stopped, got out, and motioned for me to get out. I followed him across the street to an alley between two buildings. On one side of the alley there were two armed men wearing camouflage uniforms, solders I assumed.

[I saw a lot of security men in Moscow: soldiers carrying automatic weapons posted at public buildings; plainclothesmen in the lobby of my hotel; and a guard at the door of a deli/liquor store I visited.]

We went down the alley, to the rear of a building and then inside where there was another guard lounging at the bottom of a stairwell.  None of this, the alley, the back door entrance, the security, made a lick of sense to me. Was I in danger?

We went up three flights of stairs, to a door at the top of the landing. He knocked, and someone who worked for my host opened the door.   This ill-tempered Russian had taken me right to the door of the place I needed to be.

Oh, yes, I tipped him.  Generously.

Postscript: My host flagged down another car, and sent me on my way to the conference.   I was a few minutes late, but not too late.

My name tag
My name tag

I think almost everything I told them was interesting but almost nothing I told them was relevant.   Russian journalists don’t have the access to public records or  to public officials that reporters here have.  And working there can be dangerous.  According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 38 journalists were murdered in Russia from 1993-2018.  During that same period seven were murdered in the United States, including four at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, MD, this past summer.

One of the Russian journalists I met in Moscow told me that when she goes to a press conference called by the mayor of the city she covers she is given a list of questions to ask.   And what happens if she doesn’t stick to the script?  She said she was not allowed to attend the next press conference.

I fear that some Americans, those who consider the press “the enemy of the American people,” would like to stop reporters here from asking questions not approved in advance by the mayor, or the governor.  Or the president.

Coming Monday: The Peacenik Band

THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER, Part 2 of 2

When Ralph Harris, a 17-year-old Charlotte boy, told me that THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER had threatened his life –“Ralph Harris, I’m going to kill you.” — he laughed. Not a big laugh, but a laugh all the same. That was worrisome.  Who laughs about someone threatening to kill them?

I was a reporter for The Charlotte News and I had been assigned to find Ralph Harris and write a story, on deadline, about what should have been a frightening phone call.

I asked him where he was when the strangler called and he said he was working at a mom and pop store he owned on Graham Street. And I said, “Ralph, you’re not but 17 years old.”
And he said, well, he and his father owned it. That was also worrisome.

I asked him what he was going to do when we finished talking and he said he was going to “hail a cab” and go home.

I knew Graham Street. My Dad owned a sweat shop on Graham Street, close to the stadium built years later for the Carolina Panthers football team.   I had worked for my Dad in the summers when I was in junior high and high school — and I didn’t think Ralph Harris could have hailed a cab on Graham Street if he had stood on the curb all day.

Three red flags.

I knew that boy wasn’t telling the truth.  But I also knew it was 12:15 p.m. and deadline was only 15 minutes away.   Besides, what did it matter what I thought I knew?  The truth was never going to come out.

Only two people knew for sure what had or hadn’t happened and neither one of them were ever going to say. THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER knew, but he wasn’t going to say. And the boy knew, but he wasn’t going to say either. If he admitted he had lied he could be charged with making a false police report.

So I began to write:

“‘Ralph Harris, I’m going to kill you.'”

“That’s what THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER told a 17-year-old Charlotte boy …”

Bla, bla, bla.

I met deadline, accepted pats on the back  for a job well done, and went to lunch with Darrell Sifford, the managing editor.

Paperboys used to hawk paper on street corners.
Paperboys used to hawk paper on street corners.

As we walked back to the office I heard a paperboy on the corner of Trade and Stonewall Streets, next to our building, hawking my story to passersby. In a singsong chant he shouted:  “Gaffney Strangler Threatens Charlotte Boy!  Read all about it!”

They don’t hawk papers on the street anymore, haven’t for decades.   I loved hearing paperboys shouting the news of the day, especially when they were shouting about a story I had written.

Anyway, the M.E. and I turned in the front door of the building, crossed the little lobby in two steps, and pushed the elevator button. The door opened and a couple of our reporters got off.  One of ’em said, “Did you hear the latest on THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER story?

I wanted to say, “Hear it? My dear boy, I wrote it.” But I restrained myself. Instead, I said, “No, what happened?”

And he said, “The boy took it all back.”

“What!” I said.

“The boy took it all back,” he repeated.

I asked what had happened.

He said the TV reporters found Ralph Harris after I had filed my story  and were interviewing him when his Dad walked in, saw the cameras, and asked, “What’s going on?”
A TV guy said, “Haven’t you heard? Your boy has been threatened by THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER.”
And his Dad said, “My boy is psycho.”

And the boy said, “That’s right. I’m psycho.”

After that I gave some thought to calling that boy myself and saying, “Ralph Harris, I’m going to kill you.”

Postscript: THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER was captured days later, tried, convicted and given four life sentences.  He was stabbed to death in prison in 1972.

NOTE: That was the last quote lead I ever wrote.   Ralph Harris cured me.  He also changed the way I reported. From that story on, if I thought someone had lied to me I tried my best to prove it.

Coming Monday: “Good Luck”