Stories of the '86 Season 1: The Curious Case of Vasily Morenov

No one knew what to make of the new, 47-year-old leader of the Soviet Union; they couldn't even agree on his level, or type, of handsomeness. It has been said that Mary Todd, when she described said Lincoln's face, on her first witnessing, was so terrible it was awe-striking and then beautiful, as if seeing the face of God. Morenov's wasn't this but it was distracting; his blue eyes resembled cut sapphires, his full head of black hair becoming a dark auburn with just the right shift of shadow and head turn. When he first appeared to his people and the entire Eastern Bloc via satellite on March 11, 1985—sitting at the desk of the General Secretary of the Communist Party—Reagan, watching the feed, remarked "My God, they finally have Soviets who look like Warren Beatty." A junior staffer, some shit head film school dropout now studying law at Georgetown, described him as "a soft Robert Forrester," which confused and infurated Caspar Weinburger. Gore Vidal was entranced and called him a product from the head of Zeus. Phil Donahue said "he kind of has Warren Oates' mouth," which might be the closest approximation. That he was on TV screens all the time but refused any official portrait like every previous Soviet leader (instead just the Hammer and Sickle hung in offices and apartments) made it all the more maddening. What the hell were we all looking at? Probably also like seeing God; alien and familiar, jarring and comforting, asking of everything but not asking at all. 

The State Department and CIA, the Pentagon, all confused. Gorby was in the bag, now he shows up as ambassador to the new People's Republic of Benin. Morenov was listed as shuffling papers at GOSPLAN, working on tobacco acquisition and cultivation as late as December 1984. West German intelligence listed a "V. Morenov" in 1979 working as a cultural attaché organizing "Wild and Red Western" double features (My Darling Clementine/Chapeav, Shane/White Sun of the Desert, The Searchers/Son of Great Bear) and a Rainer Fassbinder talk in Dresden (when asked about this on a West German talk show, the auteur expressed regret for not attending).

Nothing concrete though, even more of a ghost than Andropov.

Just minutes after the Dolphins 51-41 win over Seattle in the divisional playoff, Bob Costas, host of NFL ’85, would receive a Telex directly from the Kremlin; Pete Axthelm suspected it was an elaborate prank, but this was a secure line, let’s run with it. Ahmad Rashad had already gotten Marino. The message read:

As General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, President of the Soviet Union and Vessel of the Concerns of All Working Peoples, and, on behalf, specifically, of the peoples of the Free Socialist World, I wish to congratulate you, Dan Marino, for your historic performance in Seattle today and wish you continued success in the subsequent weeks. Your keen eye and intuition proved as important as your physical ability—the concoction for any success—and your ability to distribute widely this season, has contributed to this current, small, but important triumph. For it is a single step. A little tension goes a long way in creating an Ideal Man, and you have been through much strife in your early career and have risen to it.

But one man without an awareness of their bonds and Greater Angels of their Nature can advance nothing. We all wish to commend your exceptional offensive line of comrades (he goes onto list each individual member of the team, each read off by Costas in that clear rapid voice of his –.ed). 

The Greatest Heroes of The People are the ones who renounce their names to be part of something higher; it is at this moment I wish to honor the defense for their performance and dynamism, as they honor and continue the work of the Great No Names of 1972 and 1973. Comrade (Lyle) Blackwood, Comrades (Hugh) Green and (Mike) Charles along with Comrade (Kim) Bokemper all will likely be added to the annals of your great league, but all seem to recognize they are mere appendages of a single iron fist.  

The Soviet Peoples also wish to honor Comrades (Fuad) Reveiz and (Reggie) Roby. 

In fair action, we must also remember and honor our opponent and their efforts, even if they are in opposition to us. For this, The Soviet Peoples commend Comrade (Randall) Morris in his historic achievement today, rushing for 293 yards and provided much needed respite for the Working Peoples of your once admirable nation.

Please know that you are the visible representative to the commitment and work of your Proletariat. Though your material conditions are very good, allowing you comfort and ease to think of a Higher Order, also know that, without cooperation and solidarity among yourselves and those who admire and look up to you—those you grew up with, those who guided you, those who are growing up with you and who look to you for guidance—you will be nothing. Your cars, houses, money, your very selves, are still only allowed by those who control you and, given these important times, would bury you in a second. You are the reason your bosses make profits. Without you, they are nothing; right now they’re luck to be ticks sucking your blood. They break your bodies and give you scraps. But they are also Paper Tigers. The Soviet Peoples wish you healthy and competitive, fair play. May we see you in New Orleans.

It made for good television, Mass Media was conflicted: the camera fixated on Marino the entire time Costas read; Dandy Dan was moved by the end; you could see him holding back tears. There was some talk of it being a motivating factor for the rest of the Dolphins run, but that might have just been wishful thinking for the various left-wing organs left in America: Postmodern Literary Scholars, Third World Maoists living in upstate Vermont, Gore Vidal. It was decided that Costas would read censored statements for the AFC Championship and Super Bowl; not for ideological reasons per se, but to keep it short and sweet (they were able to build them into the broadcast as a billable segment).

It was all a motivating factor for the Birchers to re-open their investigations into the Communist Takeover of the National Football League. There had been previous studies during the career of uppity Jim Brown (just play the dang game!), the World Football League (the Global cabal just stuck the name in their all willy, nilly they’re laughing at us!), and ’82 Strike (making us watch an inferior product from Canada! Millionaires versus Billionaires! Those poor boys selling peanuts at Shea!). The new, mysterious, Soviet Leader butting his nose into our great game, and trying to Manchurian Candidate a great quarterback (though no Tarkenton, certainly) demanded exploration. Tarkenton, in a guest column that would later turn into a regular one, noted this attempt to be particularly deft and disturbing, as Morenov was praising a handsome white quarterback, “one would expect the Communists to manipulate one of our great minority quarterbacks, like Doug Williams. A sort of fringe action or limited hangout to disturb the relationship between races. That they target a talent like the curly haired Marino demands notice! They are CATCHING up with us, gentlemen.”

The White House, State Department, and CIA still weren’t convinced—the FBI suspected it was a hoax still and, taking that route, arrested three young black men in Harlem under suspicion of computer hacking. There had not been any direct communication between Moscow and Washington since March 10.

Washington finally paid attention when, just hours before the Super Bowl, Soviet state news program Vremya ran an hour long interview with the new leader. The scope of the talk was large, a mix of local and international consumption, but the moment that confirmed those Telexes came at the end, when Morenov spoke of his fondness for the Miami Dolphins; when working in Havana for three years—helping to maintain the revolution—the new Premier would catch faint signals of Dolphins broadcasts. This was 71-73, during their truly dominant period. He saw men like Greise and Csonka in their prime, witness the perfect season, the back-to-back Super Bowl championships.

He considered football one of America’s greatest contributions to the cultural history of humanity, along with jazz: two great syntheses that called on the talent of the individual to contribute to the greater benefit of the group (this would particularly alarm the CIA—Morenov was signaling to Joe Six Pack and the staff of The Paris Review). Football was not, in the words of George Will, simply violence and committee meetings. And what is wrong with violence if it is for a righteous act?

While it was tough to keep track of his beloved new sport and team, he did get to catch Marino’s brutal playoff loss to Seattle in ’83 and Ronald Reagan performing the coin toss for Super Bowl XIX from the Oval Office. Morenov read about Marino’s background in Pittsburgh and connected with the frustration of being passed over and over and over during the draft for either competent men with no clear vision or total stooges—his favorite American English word. He identified with Dan’s endless perseverance and leadership of wayward men battling improbable odds. That the ’85 Dolphins won their two playoff games on the road against “superior” teams made him admire him more. And to get the opportunity to vanquish an arrogant, brutal club like the Bears proved how operatic this sport really was.

When arranging for his official state visit, Morenov insisted on fall ‘86, during the season. He initially requested to attend the Dolphins’ Week 2 visit to the Jets—it coordinated beautifully with a talk at the UN, visits of NY tourist sites, and the grave of Donald Trump. He hadn’t met them when they visited Moscow, but was asked to keep tabs and plan cultural events, like a screening of War and Peace and the Brezhnev-commissioned Liberation, about WWII (Trump liked the old Stalin-era Battle for Berlin because of the musical numbers and battle scenes). 

Worried about the security and a propaganda win comparable to Castro’s visit to Harlem, The State Department suggested pushing the 12-day visit to November; that way, he could see the Dolphins in Cleveland during Week 10. They were going to Detroit for a personal tour of a Chrysler Plant by Lee Iacocca; Cleveland was a quick chartered jet trip away. A rematch of the ’85 AFC title game was enticing, and both teams had high expectation in ’86, and it was a prime time game. The Soviet Ambassador agreed to the terms.

The Week 2 game would’ve been much more exciting—the Dolphins escaped late in overtime on a classic Marino-to-Duper bomb, 33-27—but Morenov enjoyed the experience. Watching an NFL game in the cold felt like the most authentic experience; plus, Cleveland, a city built by workers, gave him a warmer-than-expected response from Art Modell’s box in the old Municipal Stadium.

The game itself was tight but a little boring. The Browns secondary largely clamped down the Marks Brothers; Kosar had an excellent game as Cleveland avenged the previous season’s loss by the same score, 31-21.

Morenov got to meet Marino and Kosar on the field during warm-ups. Vasily got a little star struck, but the conversation was quaint; Dan thanked him for his weekly telexes during the playoffs. Morenov commented through an interpreter that his passes reminded him of old Sound Poems, particularly “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” Dan nodded. Someone needed to tell him it was the music from 2001. Dan still nodded, but smiled a little bigger.

Bernie would make a deeper impact on Morenov than even the Premier expected. The young quarterback spoke in this strange, casual, stitled lilt he heard from other Ohioans during his visit (it was most apparent in Dayton, while watching a black man and a white man yell epithets at each other while tightening suspensions, only to laugh and pat each other on the backs). Kosar wasn’t a motor mouth but he asked questions of the interpreter and dragged out “yeahs.” He did this all while practicing his passes. They had no grace like Dan’s. They sort of hobbled and veered left and right before then sharply falling to their targets every time. They gave anyone watching closely a lot of anxiety.

While watching throws in silence, Morenov suddenly blurted out, in near fluent English, that Kosar threw like his father. “Yeeeah?” Bernie responded. The Premier told him about his father, Misha, who threw grenades just like that—the greens of the unit would always duck when he chucked them and begin to pray, before seeing the tin can land perfectly in the middle of a German gun nest or the manhole at the top of a Panzer. Misha was particularly efficient at this during Stalingrad when he took out a sniper known as The Black Hornet who had camped in an old church tower; the Nazi had killed three of his friends, and another 36 that day. His friend Petyr was choking on his own blood when Misha found the opening he needed and flung. It flew through the air just like that, just like how you did it, and it is perfect that a man named Slaughter just caught your pass. Just perfect. He said that if Marino was a Sound Poem, you, Comrade Kosar, are an old Russian folksong.

“That’s real cool, man, thanks!” Bernie said while nodding, a regional affectation Morenov had already picked up on. Bernie kept nodding then punctuated with another “thanks!,” in that tone of inarticulation; like, man, that is, man.

It was the first time he spoke English on his trip and the quarterback made no comment, “I figured he could,” said Kosar years later. “He was their leader.”