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, soviet and/or union:
“In the Soviet Union everything happens slowly. Always remember that.”
—A.N. (Arkady N.)
“Today, almost forty years later, I grow dizzy when I recall that the number of manufactured tanks seems to have been more important to me than the vanished victims of racism.”
—Albert Speer (1905–1981)
“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.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)