Our first bilateral meeting was held at the U.S. Embassy. At the end of the meeting, Ford and Brezhnev left together by way of the front door where they appeared to exchange pleasantries. The rest of us piled into our motorcade and headed for Finlandia Hall where the Summit was being held.

The scene in the hall was astounding. During breaks, one would encounter various Cold War and western European leaders in the hallways. I remember particularly Tito with his badly dyed hair; the Polish leader Eduard Gierek looking appropriately glum; the Romanian anti-Russian communist Nicolai Ceauscsau (later executed); the Swedish anti-American socialist leader Olof Palme (later assassinated), and France’s Valery Giscard d’Estaing, elegant as expected.

The relatively small size of the iconic hall and the need to accommodate 35 heads of state and their staff meant that delegations were placed in close proximity. Our delegation was seated in the center of the main section, just across the aisle from the Soviets. Each delegate was given a small writing desk. It was intimate, requiring us to protect any classified information at our tables. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger created something of a media sensation when his attention to security lapsed and an Italian photographer got a snapshot of one of his secret documents.

I could not help keeping an eye on Brezhnev, taking note of whom he talked to and what he was up to. At one point, I noticed him reaching into his pocket for what turned out to be a pill. Our intelligence services had suspected that Brezhnev had serious health problems—he was a heavy smoker and had begun to look and act weaker. So I took note of what he did with the pill’s wrapper—he put it in his ashtray. If we could determine the medicine in the wrapper, perhaps we could infer his ailments. So I decided to look for on opportunity to get the wrapper.

Victor Sukhodrev, Brezhnev’s interpreter, surprised us when he arrived and pushed his way up to Brezhnev. Sukhodrev was considered by both American officials and the Soviets to be the best Russian-English interpreter in the world. He could not only handle all idiomatic expressions, but understood them in the various “dialects” of English—American, British, Scottish, Australian, Canadian, etc. He had a prolific memory—we witnessed him take only a few notes when Brezhnev would talk for upwards of 20 minutes straight and then offer a perfect English rendering. And he could translate “both ways” (Russian to English, English to Russian) seemingly non-stop. Sukhodrev had done all the interpretation at our bilateral embassy meeting.

Sukhodrev handed Brezhnev a single typewritten sheet of paper. I inferred that Brezhnev wanted to see the record of something discussed in our Embassy meeting. Brezhnev studied the paper carefully, waved Sukhodrev off, and then did something very surprising—he tore the paper into pieces and placed them in his ashtray where he had put the pill wrapper.

My curiosity was now piqued. So when the session of speeches ended, I carefully took my time organizing the papers at my small table as I watched the Soviet delegation file out. The straightest line to the door was through their now empty seating area, which gave me a chance to empty Brezhnev’s ashtray into my pocket.