The Astronaut-Cosmonaut Dialogues
Victoria Shares the Story of One of High Points of Her Professional Life
The Story
From 1980 to 1990, Victoria Elliot served on the Board of the Soviet American Exchange and the Board of Esalen Institute. During this period, when official diplomacy between the United States and the former Soviet Union was largely at a standstill, she hosted working meetings, welcome parties, and debriefings for many of those traveling between California and the USSR.
Living in a large two‑bedroom, two‑bathroom apartment in Manhattan, Victoria often offered her home as a base for Director Jim Hickman and as a guest space for visiting participants in the exchange. One of the first Soviet visitors to stay in her apartment at the request of Dulce Murphy was Paul Posner, brother of well‑known Soviet newsman Vladimir Posner.
Victoria first met Paul the morning after his arrival, finding him in her small dining area. She has often described him as a figure from central casting in a B‑movie with an anti‑communist theme. He immediately declared that both the author of Gorky Park and the publisher of Playboy magazine should be shot, to which Victoria responded, in her role as a welcoming hostess, with calm remarks about the importance of a free press as a keystone of American democracy. Over time, as Paul attended more events, his stance softened and he developed a greater appreciation for American freedoms—precisely the kind of shift these citizen exchanges were designed to encourage.
Development
Over the years, Victoria hosted discussions and planning sessions around a series of remarkable events, including the first satellite exchanges between Russians and Americans and preparations for John Denver’s first concert in the Soviet Union. She also organized a party for Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze on his first trip to the United States, borrowing a friend’s large Park Avenue apartment because she felt her own home was not grand enough to host a foreign minister.
Her many gatherings for visiting Soviets became a familiar part of her life; her future husband jokingly referred to these occasions as “Commies for dinner,” yet he always made a point of attending. When Jim Hickman later stepped down as Director to pursue other paths, the Board appointed Jim Garrison as his successor.
Hickman remained involved behind the scenes, helping Garrison navigate the organization’s extensive network of relationships and its creative history. Together with Victoria, Garrison organized the visit of Abel Aganbegyan, Mikhail Gorbachev’s chief economic advisor. Victoria called her friend John Swing, Executive Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations, to ask whether the Council would be interested in meeting Aganbegyan. Swing immediately agreed, providing office space and arranging for Aganbegyan to address Council members.
Victoria also contacted a client from her executive search practice, the Vice Chairman of Smith Barney, to ask if the firm would host a lunch and tour of the New York Stock Exchange for Aganbegyan. Smith Barney organized the lunch, which was attended by many CEOs of major Wall Street firms, and Victoria joined the event.
Later On…
The Wall Street leaders were stunned by Aganbegyan’s frank description of the Soviet Union’s financial difficulties and the impending revolution underway under Gorbachev’s leadership. Victoria and Jim accompanied Aganbegyan onto the floor of the stock exchange, where he witnessed the sophisticated electronic and computer systems that powered American markets. For him, the contrast with his own office—equipped with old‑fashioned file cabinets and a rotary telephone, and likely without a computer—was striking
Although Victoria did not host it, she also attended a party for Boris Yeltsin organized by Jim Garrison and the Soviet American Exchange. The event took place at the home of Bob Swartz, former publisher of New York Magazine and founder of the School for Entrepreneurs. Her souvenir from the Yeltsin trip was a T‑shirt reading, “I survived Boris Yeltsin’s visit,” with a list of several cities printed beneath.
Near the end of her involvement with the Soviet American Exchange in 1990, Garrison—who had arranged Gorbachev’s visit to the United States—invited Victoria and her husband to a small private meeting of eight people with Gorbachev before he addressed a larger gathering of about 200 guests at the Waldorf Astoria. Victoria remembers being starstruck by his charisma and humor, qualities that were rarely visible in his formal public speeches.
Not long afterward, she resigned from both the Esalen Institute and the Soviet American Exchange. She left the Esalen board because her consulting and recruiting work in Europe required extensive travel, and she could no longer justify the additional 3,000‑mile journeys to Big Sur, California. She stepped down from the Soviet American Exchange because she sensed it was the end of an empire—even if the full extent and implications of that ending were not yet clear.