February in Moscow seems like the longest month of the year - day after day of cold wind, gray skies, falling snow; the women in gray quilted jackets and gray shawls sweeping the streets with witches' brooms; the Hotel Metropol's corridors dimmer and dimmer, ghosts in the corners, a time when life congeals and hope vanishes.
February 1953. For weeks I had been growing more and more edgy and even frightened. I had been living in Moscow as The New York Times's correspondent for four years. I knew the city, and I knew something was going on behind the scenes.
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