Hello and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, July 1972, Russian agricultural officials are holed up in a hotel in Midtown Manhattan,

and they are cutting deals left and right. The backstory is that Russia

had suffered severe crop shortage in the first couple years of the 70s, and this meant that

they had to buy wheat from America in order to keep their system afloat. This on its face would

probably seem like a good thing. American farmers could use the economic boost. They often had a

surplus of wheat, and the

geopolitics of it weren't that bad either. Nice to have Russia at the mercy of the United States

at the height of the Cold War. The problem was that Russia bought way too much of America's

wheat. Russian officials cut deal after deal with American farmers in secret, in isolation,

and as one official put it later,

the Russians knew how much they were buying, but no one else did. And it wasn't until months later that people were able to see the bigger picture, which was that Russia had snapped up one

quarter of our wheat crop. No surprise, this led to crazy ripple effects in the U.S. market, sent American

officials scrambling to stabilize the market and kind of soured this whole cushy deal.

So let's talk about the Great Grain Robbery of 1972. I wish I could take credit for that,

but it was someone at the time, I think a senator who called it the Great Grain Robbery.

But here, as always,

Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.

Hello, Jody. Hey there.

Want me to butcher Russian agricultural history in 30 seconds right now to set this up?

Absolutely. We're not moving forward until you do. Well, one thing you should have, Russia, big country.

Very helpful.

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