Most College student last August were either finishing up summer jobs, returning from Europe, or dismally planning this year's courses. Most Faculty members were either finishing up summer research, enjoying the end of their vacation, or dismally planning this year's lectures. Two Faculty members, however, were doing something different. Harold J. Berman, professor of Law, and Richard N. Frye, associate professor of Middle Eastern Studies, were combining scholarship with unique vacations--in Soviet Russia.

Berman, a specialist in Soviet law, went to Moscow on August 13 primarily to make inquiries about international trade on behalf of a group of American businessmen. His other chief aim was to study the current state of Soviet law, which is undergoing major reforms.

Frye, who was in Russia from August 25 until September 22, went to gather information about his specialities, Iranian and Central Asian linguistics and history. His travels through Uzbekistan and Kazakistan were the first unrestricted Western visit to those areas since the war.

A recently announced desire of the Russians for increased trade with the West prompted Berman's trip. His mission was to find out what goods the Soviet wanted to export and import, and to study the commercial and legal questions involved. He discussed these subjects with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and with the heads of more than ten Soviet import-export combines.

Berman spent all but one day of his visit, which lasted till September 13, in Moscow. Besides his trade conferences, he met with leading Soviet judges, attorneys, and professors of law. He had extended opportunities to inspect court records and attend sessions of various courts. He then spent one day visiting the monastery at Zagorsk, 50 miles from Moscow, and talking to peasants along the way.

Meet Justice Douglas

The professor succeded in attending sessions of several Soviet courts but never could gain admittance to the Supreme Court. This tribunal, unlike its American counterpart, meets only in closed sessions. Even a special request to the Vice-President of the Court, who gave a dinner in honor of Berman and of United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, did not get Berman admitted to one of the closed sessions.

Justice Douglas also met Frye during the summer, incidentally, while both men were touring Central Asia.

This is the area where Frye, after a few days in Leningrad and Moscow, spent most of his time in the U.S.S.R. He visited the universities of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and Tashkent, even attending classes in the latter institution. But most of the time he traveled just as a tourist, seeing people at their jobs and talking to them whenever possible. Traveling alone, without guide or interpreter, the Russian-speaking scholar journeyed with as much freedom as he would have had in the United States.

"Whenever I wanted to go somewhere I just bought a ticket," he explans.

And Frye certainly bought a long string of tickets during his trip. Arriving in Helsinki by plane on August 24, just after the close of Summer School in Cambridge, he proceeded from there to Leningrad, where he gave a talk on Middle Eastern history at the Hermitage Museum. From there he went to Moscow, where he was interviewed on the radio in Russian and Persian, and then to Uralsk, in the Urals. His next stop was Aktyubinski in Kazakistan, whence he went to Dzhuzali near the northeast tip of the Aral Sea.

Long String of Tickets

From there he went to Taskhent, near the Afghanistan border, where he was again interviewed on the radio, and thence to Bukhara, from which point he retraced his steps--and his tickets--back to Helsinki and home.

Neither Berman, who speaks fluent Russian, nor Frye, conversant as well in Uzbek, was easily recognized as a foreigner. On more than one occasion Berman was asked for street directions in Moscow, and Frye acted frequently as an interpreter. Once at a bazaar in Uzbekistan he translated for an Uzbek and a Muscovite, neither of whom could understand the other.

On another occasion Frye was attending an Uzbek ballet when he noticed a commotion during the intermission. A member of an Indian trade delegation, for the moment without his interpreter, was trying to get the autograph of the prima ballerina. She had no way of understanding his intentions, however, and must have imagined all sorts of things. But then Frye came up and explained in Russian what the Indian wanted. The ballerina was pleased to comply. When he, too, asked for her autograph, however, she refused, saying, "Go away, it's only for foreigners."