I Owe Russia $1200 by Bob Hope
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Really, a very funny and enlightening Cold War travelogue. The memoir is packed with one-liners that so have Hope`s voice that they probably fall flat with today`s readers. What is more interesting is the behind the scenes tales of makine road pictures with Bing Crosby and the logistics and travails and joys of his star-studded Christmastime USO tours of mostly remote U.S. installations. This includes Guam, the Antilles, Japan (Still reconstructing from WWII), Greenland, and Korea. How things have changed! Back then, he relates, the worry of the split Korea was the rural and agricultural South Korea. How would it make it without the industrial North? Among the 65 black-and-white picturs is one of Hope before a large crowd in Pyongyang. I have to do some post-Korean War research to find how that was possible!
The title refers to a jaunt to Moscow that is only two chapters of the book. Is is a very small subset of the content, but a fascinating look into trying comedy and cultural exchange in Kruschev`s Russia.
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