In Russian Wonderland: An American's Odyssey in Soviet Russia (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780999603208)

Charles Cole is an honor graduate (1967) of the 18-month Russian Course at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California. After over a year and a half of intense study at DLI (6 hours daily, 5 days each week), he was assigned by the Army Security Agency to a border listening post in West Germany to monitor Soviet military radio communications as part of America's signals intelligence system of "early warning" of potential threats to the West. Upon discharge, Mr. Cole attended Kent State University and, in 1972, completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a major in Russian and German. He then joined a United States Information Agency (USIA) cultural exchange exhibit and traveled throughout the Soviet Union from July through December of 1972. In 1973, Mr. Cole was hired to teach Russian to American military personnel at the same educational facility (DLI) where he had himself been trained in Russian some years before. He worked in a number of duty assignments at DLI until his retirement in 2002. He also served six years as a Warrant Officer in a U.S. Army Reserve Psychological Operations (PSYOP) battalion in California where he wrote leaflets and broadcast materials targeted at Soviet forces in East Germany until 1991, at which time the Soviet Union dissolved. During this period, Mr. Cole also received a Master of Arts Degree in Teaching Foreign Languages at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (now the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey). Charles Cole has been actively engaged in the study of the Russian language and of Russian and Soviet history and foreign affairs for over 50 years. His current work, In Russian Wonderland (2017), focuses on his experiences serving as a Russian-speaking "guide" on the 1972 USIA exhibit "Research and Development in the USA," describing in detail the things Mr. Cole saw in the USSR and linking them to features of the current Russian Federation. His observations are timely and give the reader a useful backdrop for Russian actions appearing in the news today.