[NFBNJ] Fwd: The Russian Translator from Montana

[Linda Melendez]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: The Blind History Lady <theblindhistorylady at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Oct 1, 2021 at 7:10 AM
Subject: The Russian Translator from Montana


The Russian Translator from Montana
Hello Blind History Lady Fans:

In a vacant lot with cousins, just before his fourth birthday, Dale was
playing baseball. The kids were using a broken table leg as a bat, when it
splintered, driving a screw into Dale’s left eye. Blood came pouring down
his cheeks. Little Dale ran to his aunt’s home where his mother was
visiting.

“Mommy, Mommy!” cried the little boy.

“Let me see.” His mother said and took the little boy’s hands down from his
face and looked into the space where only moments before, Dale’s eye had
been. Within weeks the second eye went dart from infection.
***

Dale was born May 24, 1933, in Conrad, Montana. His parents spent almost
two years exhausting their savings and others to find a cure for his
blindness. After recognizing defeat, Dale’s parents sent him to the Montana
School for the Deaf and Blind in Great Falls. He dropped out at 17,
married, and found the world was not ready for a blind man needing to
support his family.

Mostly, Dale fixed cars out of his garage.

A man from Vocational Rehabilitation came in August of 1960 to visit
him. He said there was a project in D. C. to recruit blind translators,
sponsored by President Kennedy to open Federal careers for the blind. Was
Dale interested?

The man from rehab explained that fifteen blind persons who passed a series
of tests would participate in a pilot program to learn Russian fluently and
translate secret documents. If he passed the two-year program he would be
offered a job with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Dale had to make
his mind up in two days as the test was in a few days in Denver
Colorado.  Aggie, his wife said, “Go for it!”

Dale flew for the first time and by himself to Denver. He listened to
sounds on the tapes and repeated them back to the testers. When he left
Denver, Dale had no idea how he did.

Three weeks later he got the news that he was one of the fifteen. He had to
be in D. C. in two weeks. Aggie said she would join him later after closing
the house.

Dale found D. C. hot and humid, weather he was unaccustomed to. Someone met
him at the airport and escorted him to the hotel.

The fifteen were housed in a hotel for the first several days. The
Department of Health, Education and Welfare provided a $43,000 grant to pay
the expenses incurred by the university for accommodations for the blind
students. The Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind was contracted to provide
travel training for the blind newcomers to acquaint them with the
district. Dale did not bring a cane with him. The other blind students had
a cane or dog guide and were college students or graduates.

The blind travel instructor, who taught him to navigate the city, ride the
street cars, and find an apartment, was horrified that Dale did not have a
cane and no travel experience.

In Conrad, Dale rarely walked alone or carried a cane. Someone always
offered to pick him up if Aggie could not drive. Dale took Aggie’s arm or
the arm of someone when not at home. Now he was in a big city and expected
to travel on public transportation alone!

Three students took an apartment with Dale on the opposite side of
Connecticut Ave from the institute. Connecticut Avenue’s six lanes of
traffic terrified Dale.  One roommate had a little sight and Dale thought
that guy could lead them back and forth across the street each day. No such
luck. His roommates expected Dale to be as independent as they were.

Three instructors at Georgetown, from Russia, immersed the students in
their native language and culture in and out of classes. They were taught
to speak Russian, and had classes in Russian history, geography, politics,
and spelling to ensure they knew the words, the context of and meanings of
words and phrases.  They learned to use a Russian typewriter.

For two years they lived, ate, slept, drank, and played in Russian. Due to
secrecy, they were encouraged to stay within their group, even outside of
classes.

Four months after Dale arrived, Aggie came to D. C. with the children. She
and Dale rented a house in Virginia that provided an education on East
Coast life. They learned about rats in garbage cans and cockroaches. Taking
out the trash became his job.  Dale hit the garbage cans with his cane
before he opened them to scare the rats inside.

Dale found a lady who rode the same bus he did who helped him find the
right bus and stop to get off each day. Not confident in his travel skills,
he carried a cane, but relied on sighted travelers to help him.

Pat, one of the female students in the project, came to their house at
night. She played with their kids until bedtime. Then the two studied.

After a year, phase one was completed. Five of the participants were let go
from the project.

>From the beginning, there was no braille dictionary. Before the project
began, officials voiced their concerns over the absence of the dictionary
and lack of braille in Russian. Monies allocated to the project did not
cover the expense of transcribing a braille dictionary. The Library of
Congress, Library for the Blind did not have the volunteers or expertise on
staff to transcribe one. Sighted Georgetown students read the entire
50,000-word, English to Russian dictionary onto tape, spelling almost every
word so there would be no mistakes. The blind students listened to the
tapes and brailled up the dictionary themselves. Dale was put in charge of
the entire project.

At the end of the two-years, the ten remaining students took their final
audio tests. The recordings were garbled purposely. Each wrote out in
English, what was said on the tapes. Only three passed. What do you know,
the hick from Montana was hired by the super agency!

The hours of his CIA job were nine to five. Dale took more interest in his
family. They toured the city, visited the museums, and went on picnics as a
family. He built soap box derby cars with his son.

CIA offices were on the 12th floor of a building in Arlington. Several
interesting blindness situations occurred there. Dale was in his office,
alone. There came a knocking sound from the window.

“On the window! No way, I must be hearing things.” Dale thought. “We are on
the 12th floor.” The knocking persisted for several minutes. Then
nothing. Dale went back to his work. Later, an angry man burst through the
doors.

“Why the hell did you not open the window when I knocked!” the voice of a
window washer yelled. Dale had no experience with tall buildings in Montana
and never gave a thought about washing windows that high up. He tried to
explain that he was blind, but the man walked away in frustration.

Another day, Dale, was trapped in an elevator for hours with four others
from their section. When the doors opened, Dale thought there would be some
sympathy. Rather, the supervisor yelled at them. So many from the unit,
with unique training, could have been killed, devastate the unit, and waist
the time and money the government spent on them.

One day, out of the blue, their unit was disbanded. Dale was offered other
jobs in the Federal Government on the East Coast. Now he had to choose his
family or a job. Dale chose his family. Dale did not get a chance to say
goodbye to many of them. Partly because of the secrecy of their project and
partly because Aggie was jealous of Pat and the time Dale, and Pat spent
together.

For the rest of his life, he did not use Russian, except for tutoring a
Conrad high school student.

Dale went on to become a County Commissioner and artist working in rock,
wood, and bronze.


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