I’m preparing for a lecture on the history of machine translation, and my father is helping me by sharing his memories of the field’s development.
In 1982, there was a huge (and hugely important) international conference on machine translation held in Moscow. I’m sure you all know how tense things were between the two major organizers of the Cold War. So when the North American scholars arrived at the conference, everything they did and said was analyzed under a microscope on both sides.
My father was a young, promising scholar in the field of applied linguistics who was making the best use he could of his perfect English (which was an impossible rarity in the Soviet Union.) Coupled with his Jewish last name that made his origins confusing, my father’s American accent often attracted people who thought he was a fellow American. “Ah, it’s so great to see a fellow Texan here!” he would often be told. “I’m from Dallas. You?”
So my father spent all his time with the North American scholars. After the panel meetings, he went to the university cafeteria with a group of American scientists who were all in their seventies. After the meal, my father decided to take a walk around downtown Moscow. Soon, however, he started feeling really bad. Remaining conscious was an effort, and he was in excruciating pain. He ended up hospitalized and discovered that the North American scholars were all at the same hospital in critical condition.
The BBC immediately released a report, “A terrorist act or KGB’s provocation? Why is the USSR poisoning American scholars?”
Of course, the KGB immediately started investigating because it didn’t want an international scandal to develop. What it discovered was actually worse than any deliberate provocation. It turned out that, on the day when the American scholars ate at the cafeteria, the food was served by a dishwasher who forgot to wear rubber gloves over her fingers that were infected with fungi. So the food got infected. My father, who was the youngest person among the scholars, recovered quickly, while the academics who were both older and less accustomed to Soviet cuisine, barely managed to survive.
I’m sure at this point the KGB wished this had been a result of deliberate provocation than something this shameful.
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