So I pulled up what seems to be the original source for the Soviet car-envy reference. It's an April 13, 1955 bylined piece by C.L. Sulzberger in The New York T

So I pulled up what seems to be the original source for the Soviet car-envy reference. It's an April 13, 1955 bylined piece by C.L. Sulzberger in The New York Times, datelined Hollywood. His article is really a wide-ranging essay about movie tastes and U.S perceptions around the world. The final sentences read: "The Russians managed to obtain a print of 'Grapes of Wrath' and displayed it widely behind the Iron Curtain, hoping to convey a harsh impression of the United States. But the main impression, reported by our embassies, was 'In America, even the tramps have cars.'" Sulzberger (part of the family that owned/controls the NYT) was a well-regarded establishment journalist. So we're on pretty safe ground to assume that at least one U.S. diplomat told him what he quoted. But then it gets hazy. Was this just the diplomats' ready-loaded witty retort? Or an overheard murmur from a couple Russians? That'd be my guess. We're way short of knowing what the vast Slavic world deeply felt. Kind of amazing how that sort of aside comes to be treated as broad-based fact nearly 70 years later.