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Bears In The Caviar
Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of. This was but the first in a string of daring moves that kept Thayer in the thick of all things Russian for the next two decades. Architect of the infamous party that Mikhail Bulgakov used to imagine his famous ball scene in Master and Margarita, Senior Polo Instructor to the Red Army, translator to ambassadors, sparring partner for Vyshinsky, drinking partner of Budyonny, nemesis of the KGB, and, oh yes, Third Secretary in the Foreign Service, Charles Thayer was a boundlessly resourceful, creative and fun-loving public servant. In this memoir (out of print for half a century), he offers an unparalleled look behind the scenes of diplomatic life in Russia (and Germany, Iran and Afghanistan) before and during World War II. For anyone with even a passing interest in US-Russian history, this is a priceless memoir to read and savor.
303 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1950
About the author
Charles W. Thayer
29 books1 followerCharles Wheeler Thayer, American diplomat and author.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 26, 2022
If you read this memoir by Charles W. Thayer, I certainly recommend the introduction by Avis Bohlen, his niece and a foreign service officer herself.
Thayer’s book wasn’t at all what I was expecting. The primary story begins in 1933 just after Thayer graduated from West Point. He had decided against an army career and in casting around for work he ultimately falls into the the first U.S. legation to open in the Soviet Union.
His memoir has a too jolly tone and reminded me at times of the 1960s tv show Hogan’s Heroes. You know terrible things are happening around him yet he barely gives any information on that. Instead he focuses on the comic side of life and bureaucracy in opening a new embassy.
Thayer is basically third translator and third secretary to anyone who needs him. He is completely honest about this. He is a “fixer” who gets to deal with absurd situations no one else wants to deal with. He deals with issues such as getting 40 boxcar loads of embassy furniture from the station to the embassy, organizing parties with trained seals running amok while their trainer is dead drunk and his assignment to train the first red army polo team.
With WWII coming on he does mention the NKVD (Stalin’s secret police) and the purges of a few Soviets he knows. Very small mention though. We follow him to new posts in Germany just prior to war and finally Kabul as a last post. What he does not cover is his very sad end in government service. That is why it is so important to read his niece’s introduction. He fell afoul of the McCarthy investigations in 1950 based on unproven and scurrilous rumor, remained forever on J Edgar Hoover’s radar and couldn’t get any government work. Completely career ending.
This book was one of his attempts to make a living and I suppose he avoids the controversial hoping to get back into government work. Sad.
Thayer’s book wasn’t at all what I was expecting. The primary story begins in 1933 just after Thayer graduated from West Point. He had decided against an army career and in casting around for work he ultimately falls into the the first U.S. legation to open in the Soviet Union.
His memoir has a too jolly tone and reminded me at times of the 1960s tv show Hogan’s Heroes. You know terrible things are happening around him yet he barely gives any information on that. Instead he focuses on the comic side of life and bureaucracy in opening a new embassy.
Thayer is basically third translator and third secretary to anyone who needs him. He is completely honest about this. He is a “fixer” who gets to deal with absurd situations no one else wants to deal with. He deals with issues such as getting 40 boxcar loads of embassy furniture from the station to the embassy, organizing parties with trained seals running amok while their trainer is dead drunk and his assignment to train the first red army polo team.
With WWII coming on he does mention the NKVD (Stalin’s secret police) and the purges of a few Soviets he knows. Very small mention though. We follow him to new posts in Germany just prior to war and finally Kabul as a last post. What he does not cover is his very sad end in government service. That is why it is so important to read his niece’s introduction. He fell afoul of the McCarthy investigations in 1950 based on unproven and scurrilous rumor, remained forever on J Edgar Hoover’s radar and couldn’t get any government work. Completely career ending.
This book was one of his attempts to make a living and I suppose he avoids the controversial hoping to get back into government work. Sad.
May 3, 2018
“For half an hour I sat alternatively chirping and cursing. The crowd shouted advice. The Japanese giggled. The bird continued serene in the cherry tree.”
^ one excerpt of Thayer’s many ridiculous stories recalling the outrageous situations he found himself in as an American diplomat to the Soviet Union during WWII.
This witty memoir is a testament to Thayer’s incredible story telling skills. The book is full of dry humor and witticisms; it’s a great light read, regardless if you’re interested in historic US-global relations.
^ one excerpt of Thayer’s many ridiculous stories recalling the outrageous situations he found himself in as an American diplomat to the Soviet Union during WWII.
This witty memoir is a testament to Thayer’s incredible story telling skills. The book is full of dry humor and witticisms; it’s a great light read, regardless if you’re interested in historic US-global relations.
May 25, 2023
A good book and a fun read. I also recommend it because each of the chapters pretty much stands alone. You can leave it on the big pile of books that you are in the process of reading for weeks or months and pick it up again without wondering “What was this about again?” That’s a fine quality for a book to have.
The Long-Suffering Wife and I both enjoyed this book and laughed out loud at points, partially because it’s just funny, but also because, when much younger, we found ourselves in a position like Thayer’s in a late-twentieth-century iteration, when we opened a new Embassy in one of the successor states to the former Soviet Union. (Neither of us at any time came as close to danger as Thayer did.) The amount of absurdity was about the same. We nodded our heads in recognition when, for example, Thayer had to cease all activity during a chaotic evacuation of embassy staff in German-besieged Moscow by train during World War II in order to search for the Ambassador’s missing umbrella (p. 237).
This would be a fine book for a young person (even a teenager) considering a career in diplomacy or international civil service bureaucracy, because it captures well what it is like to do the everyday work in this capacity. When you are new in this field, you spend a lot more time (as Thayer relates) cajoling unhelpful customs officials to release Embassy-bound equipment than you do sipping champagne and trading confidences. This comes as an unpleasant surprise to some of those who sign up, envisioning a life of international adventure. Some of these people resign, disappointed and loudly lamenting that their talents are being wasted.
Something I learned: In the last chapter, Thayer takes up falconry because, why not, right? In any case, I learned some trivia about the word “gauntlet”. My inferior education, from which falconry was lamentably absent, did not include the information that the special glove you use when training a falcon is called a “gauntlet”. Subsequentgoofing off research on the internet resulted in the knowledge that “gauntlet”, in this meaning, is from French and connected to “throw down the gauntlet”, but “run the gauntlet” is of a completely different derivation. In the latter case, “gauntlet” is from Swedish, and not connected to gloves at all. Details here.
This paperback edition has a very useful introduction by Ambassador Avis Bohlen, who is also Thayer’s niece. It also has generally good notes explaining the references to then-famous people whose fame has faded. However, the editors missed one. On page 100, Thayer calls the Soviet Chief of Protocol “the Grover Whelan of Russia”. Grover who? Actually, he turns out to be an interesting guy. Read an appreciation of him from the website of public radio station WNYC, which Whelan helped found in 1922, here.
The Long-Suffering Wife and I both enjoyed this book and laughed out loud at points, partially because it’s just funny, but also because, when much younger, we found ourselves in a position like Thayer’s in a late-twentieth-century iteration, when we opened a new Embassy in one of the successor states to the former Soviet Union. (Neither of us at any time came as close to danger as Thayer did.) The amount of absurdity was about the same. We nodded our heads in recognition when, for example, Thayer had to cease all activity during a chaotic evacuation of embassy staff in German-besieged Moscow by train during World War II in order to search for the Ambassador’s missing umbrella (p. 237).
This would be a fine book for a young person (even a teenager) considering a career in diplomacy or international civil service bureaucracy, because it captures well what it is like to do the everyday work in this capacity. When you are new in this field, you spend a lot more time (as Thayer relates) cajoling unhelpful customs officials to release Embassy-bound equipment than you do sipping champagne and trading confidences. This comes as an unpleasant surprise to some of those who sign up, envisioning a life of international adventure. Some of these people resign, disappointed and loudly lamenting that their talents are being wasted.
Something I learned: In the last chapter, Thayer takes up falconry because, why not, right? In any case, I learned some trivia about the word “gauntlet”. My inferior education, from which falconry was lamentably absent, did not include the information that the special glove you use when training a falcon is called a “gauntlet”. Subsequent
This paperback edition has a very useful introduction by Ambassador Avis Bohlen, who is also Thayer’s niece. It also has generally good notes explaining the references to then-famous people whose fame has faded. However, the editors missed one. On page 100, Thayer calls the Soviet Chief of Protocol “the Grover Whelan of Russia”. Grover who? Actually, he turns out to be an interesting guy. Read an appreciation of him from the website of public radio station WNYC, which Whelan helped found in 1922, here.
May 1, 2012
Pretty much the only book I've read recently that I could not put down. Witty, engaging and full of a delicious self-mocking humour, this book charts the exploits of the American diplomat Charles Thayer across Soviet Russia through to wartime Berlinand ending in Afghanisatan. Highlights include releasing several hundred finches in the American embassy, daring the desert raiders between Pakistan and Kabul in a rented mini-bus and teaching Red Army Cossacks to play polo. Had me chuckling well into the wee hours of the morning and must read if you can find a copy
August 12, 2021
The author was a US diplomat in the early part of the 20th Century and he tells some crazy stories from his time served in Soviet Moscow, Nazi Berlin, and Kabul.
He graduated from West Point but decided the army wasn't where he wanted to spend his career so he went to Moscow to learn Russian on the hope that FDR would soon recognize the Soviet Union as a sovereign state and set up a US embassy there. That's nuts but it worked and he became not only a diplomat but an interpreter for the ambassador. Then hilarity ensues. For example, he accidentally becomes the polo instructor for the Red Army.
The book is not well written and it definitely has the tone of a mid-century, upper-class white man, including what were commonly accepted views of women and BIPOC that reads as racism to a modern audience. Still, the stories are entertaining and it's fascinating to see his tenacity in setting up an embassy not only in Soviet Moscow but in Kabul later in his career (he designed the chancery in Kabul!). Unfortunately, a witch hunt of McCarthyism ended his career and a reliable source of income. He wrote this book to try to earn money as a writer.
He graduated from West Point but decided the army wasn't where he wanted to spend his career so he went to Moscow to learn Russian on the hope that FDR would soon recognize the Soviet Union as a sovereign state and set up a US embassy there. That's nuts but it worked and he became not only a diplomat but an interpreter for the ambassador. Then hilarity ensues. For example, he accidentally becomes the polo instructor for the Red Army.
The book is not well written and it definitely has the tone of a mid-century, upper-class white man, including what were commonly accepted views of women and BIPOC that reads as racism to a modern audience. Still, the stories are entertaining and it's fascinating to see his tenacity in setting up an embassy not only in Soviet Moscow but in Kabul later in his career (he designed the chancery in Kabul!). Unfortunately, a witch hunt of McCarthyism ended his career and a reliable source of income. He wrote this book to try to earn money as a writer.
May 11, 2024
2.75 stars. This was ok. Some of his diplomatic memoirs were interesting and very typical of Russia during the mid to late 30's. Other times, the chapters were all over the place. There were some comical parts and then other times he didn't seem like that much of a likable guy. The last few chapters weren't even based in Russia as he was stationed in Kabul. Perhaps a different title would have been better. The Introduction by Avis Bohlen was a little biased. If it weren't for the great cover (the reprinted version by Russian Life. Not the one shown here), I doubt I would have picked this up.
March 18, 2017
The young Thayer set up the U.S. embassy in Moscow in the 1930s and served as a resourceful and irrepressible 3rd secretary until the Germans invaded. The book is actually hilarious.
His account of the last big embassy party he organized and all the shenanigans with bears, etc., seems unbelievable, but Bulgakov used it as a party scene in The Master and Margarita. Boris Steiger was the model for Bulgakov’s Baron Meigel. p.178 In 1939 Thayer was reassigned from Moscow to Berlin. His comparison of Soviets and Nazis: “Besides the Government itself, the “leaders” hardly commands your admiration or respect In Moscow they were just as ruthless, cruel and treacherous, but things were done with a certain air of oriental dignity. In Berlin it was screaming speeches by Hitler in the Sport Palast, the flamboyant boasting of Goering, the blustering of Goebbels, and the beating and bullying of the police. It was the ostentatious brutality of the Nazis that literally added insult to injury.” p.179
His account of the last big embassy party he organized and all the shenanigans with bears, etc., seems unbelievable, but Bulgakov used it as a party scene in The Master and Margarita. Boris Steiger was the model for Bulgakov’s Baron Meigel. p.178 In 1939 Thayer was reassigned from Moscow to Berlin. His comparison of Soviets and Nazis: “Besides the Government itself, the “leaders” hardly commands your admiration or respect In Moscow they were just as ruthless, cruel and treacherous, but things were done with a certain air of oriental dignity. In Berlin it was screaming speeches by Hitler in the Sport Palast, the flamboyant boasting of Goering, the blustering of Goebbels, and the beating and bullying of the police. It was the ostentatious brutality of the Nazis that literally added insult to injury.” p.179
August 18, 2021
Super fascinating, inside-baseball read for me. I loved hearing about the dynamics of FSO life at this incredibly formative time of U.S. politics and foreign policy. The anecdotes were great - fascinating how so much has stayed the same and, at the same, how so much has changed. I kept waiting, however, for actual stories (wacky or not) about the formulation of policy - but those details did not come to light! It would have also been interesting to hear about personal relationships during this time - professional or personal from his perspective.
October 25, 2025
икра оказалась мелковата — масштаб проблем поражает воображение. все какие-то мелочи, тут да там, очень много лености и скуки. взгляд иностранца на русских тоже не самый притязательный
написано немного тяжеловесно, хоть и с претензией на юмор, очень много референсов на людей, важных для контекста американской дипломатии, но не шире того
написано немного тяжеловесно, хоть и с претензией на юмор, очень много референсов на людей, важных для контекста американской дипломатии, но не шире того
November 7, 2019
It's not a great history and it's not great literature but it is very well written, provides many fascinating insights into U.S./Soviet relations just before and just after Roosevelt formally recognized the Soviet Union, and it is often laugh-aloud funny.
April 4, 2019
Good stuff
Enjoyed a quite easy read. It provides good historical context for anyone interested in that period of time. I recommend.
Enjoyed a quite easy read. It provides good historical context for anyone interested in that period of time. I recommend.
March 16, 2016
This book is amazing. As a young man, Thayer stood before, then General (1 Star) Patton, to explain why he did not want to go into the cavalry, fresh out of West Point, having captained the Polo Team. He wanted to enter the state department, and, having heard that the US would possibly soon open a new embassy in the Soviet Union (the first since the Russian Revolution) he entered the country as a tourist, and learned Russian. When the embassy opened, he rubbed elbows with many of the great names of the day, Russian and American: Zinoviev, Tukachevsky, Kirov, Rusk, Dean, John Toland. He was stationed in Germany while the war raged in Europe. And, after the war, travelling between postings, spent 3 days in Marakesh with Josephine Baker as his personal guide. His final diplomatic post was with the first mission to the kingdom of Afghanistan. His history of that country, written in 1944, seems relavant even today. I highly recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews