Thanks, Brian--great to hear about your experience with Pioneer Travel. As I think I mentioned in the piece, the story I heard was that Alex had been making personal side visits to photograph Jewish cemeteries during the USSR trips. They were obviously not on the Inturist-approved itineraries, in addition to making the regime nervous about their possible use, of course. So I think in 1973 (the year before my trip), he heard he could no longer enter the country nor could Pioneer Travel send groups. In response, Alex invented a fictional tour group based in Canada (or maybe the UK?) as a kind of cover to fool the authorities and we were admitted anyway!