Cautiously our driver worked the cab between trucks unloading yellow barriers on the street outside the downtown Royal, considered in 1972 to be Copenhagen’s finest hotel. A polite soldier stopped us to apologize for the inconvenience, although he volunteered no explanation for the barricades.

In that early evening the lobby was crammed with people. Suddenly, out of nowhere, came an assistant manager who pounced on our luggage and deftly ran interference for my wife and me to an empty, back elevator.

Inside our ninth-floor room he handed over the key, and, graciously refusing a tip, told us that someone would be along shortly to answer questions. I assured him we had a few.

With surprising ease I reached Potters, a friend at the U.S. Embassy, who had made our reservations. “So far,” I told him in the Russian we both spoke and enjoyed using on one another, “your influence has been incredible.”

“Thanks be to God, and also to the Kremlin,” he chanted in Church Slavonic. A sharp Kremlinologist who liked to create Russian crossword puzzles, he sat behind a desk overlooking a splendid nine-hole Danish golf course offering an unobstructed view of the Soviet Embassy only about a six iron further.

“Your room,” he went on, “is beneath an entire top floor reserved for Alexey Nikolayevich.” He meant Kosygin, the Soviet premier.

“He’s here?”

“Expected about midnight, they say, to avoid those unhappy demonstrators.” Refugees from the U.S.S.R. and other communist venues, he said, were having trouble understanding why the new sovereign, Margrethe II, needed to invite Kosygin for a state visit so early in her reign.

“Have you had dinner?” Potters asked.

“On the plane.”

“Good. Stay put, Clem, and we’ll do business in the morning and maybe nine brisk holes in the afternoon.” I was in Copenhagen to buy Danish furniture at diplomatic prices for our embassy in Budapest.

By dawn the barricades seemed ample for heading off any rash charges at the hotel doors. A fabulous breakfast arrived at our room at seven. Wilma, my wife, was pouring coffee when there came a polite knock. In my pajamas I eyed the neatly attired, softspoken Dane—a Captain Ewald, he said—who apologized for intruding as he handed over the morning paper featuring Kosygin’s likeness just beneath the front-page fold.

“We are obviously not dressed to travel,” I complained.

“No, no,” he said. “You and Mrs. Scerback may stay undisturbed. As a matter of fact, you are the only guests remaining on this floor.”

“And the Soviets are above us?”

He nodded. “Thirty of them. But you may come and go as you please.” “They know we are here?”

He smiled. “To be sure.” Suddenly switching to Russian, he said, “Your telephone is, of course, secure, Mr. Scerback.” Handing over my shined shoes, he added, “We have our own lines to several embassies—including yours.”

“Almost like