“At the end of the 1920’s the Foreign Service of the United States... introduced a program of regional specialization. It was a fortunate innovation, for, among other things, it provided the Service with a group of well‐trained Russian‐language specialists just at the time when the United States was beginning its new and troubled association with the Soviet Union.One of the first of these was Charles E. Bohlen, and for the next 40 years he was to be involved in every major developm...