Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health

In the early 1990's, in the waning days of the Soviet Union, I served as a member of a United States delegation that visited Moscow to talk with the Ministry of Health about health policy. During our visit one of my colleagues, who firmly held down the left wing of our contingent, searched constantly -and in vain -for a poster of Lenin to take home. ''Lenin, Lenin. He's got to be here somewhere,'' was his mantra. On our last day in Moscow, several other members of the group arrived back at the hotel and with much fanfare told him that they had found his poster. A street vendor in the Metro had sold it to them. Gleefully they unfurled the life-size portrait -of John Lennon.