Editor:

I was still a teenager in 1969 traveling throughout Europe including several Iron Curtain countries. Major angst was felt entering through security at Checkpoint Charlie when some of my fellow tourists were escorted into a secondary area to be stripped searched before we were allowed into East Berlin. Once in the city, the streets were almost barren, but the military police were easily spotted from their stations high above, the many streets still showing ruins from WWII.

Entering Czechoslovakia, our group was forced off the train as we held the wrong visas to transit the country. Each morning in Prague we watched the Russian military parade through the street outside our hotel. In Moscow, our group was forced to leave Gorky Park by police after we enthralled a crowd with their f

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