M. Gessen recounts how her grandmother, a Soviet censor, reviewed Harrison Salisbury's articles for The New York Times. Salisbury, who arrived in Moscow in March 1949 after WWII service in Crimea and Leningrad, was assigned to the Soviet capital despite aspiring for other posts.

His grandmother worked in the Chief Directorate of Literature and Publishing, reviewing foreign correspondents' copy before publication. She repeatedly censored Salisbury's March 19, 1949 article 'Cosmopolitanism' Bothers Moscow,' which exposed the Soviet campaign against 'rootless cosmopolitans'—a coded term for Jews. She removed Salisbury's satirical description of Soviet newspapers as 'penetrating,' cut details about targeted intellectuals, and excised mention of Jewish surname listings and organizational crackdowns.

Though revealing to the author's grandmother, the article contained no new information—she and other Jewish intellectuals already feared persecution, knowing university graduates were becoming unemployable.