From Adamovec to Dubrovnik: an extended adventure, 1971-1992.

Fortunate encounter 1: By 1970, I had been employed for 5 years at what was then named the Communicable Disease Center, now the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta, Georgia. A telephone call came from the Director of CDC, who asked whether I might be interested in serving as the Project Officer for a Special Foreign Currency Program, “Arboviruses in Yugoslavia;” I was thrilled at the thought. This program, under US Public Law 480, was enacted to try to reduce or even eliminate debts of various countries that owed the US huge amounts of money, mostly the result of war-time loans. These countries (Yugoslavia, India, Israel, Poland and others) had not only owed the US money, they needed food to feed their citizens and they needed other items, and that law was intended to help in these endeavors. The program did not hurt the US cause to try to drive another small wedge between the Soviet Union and its client states and associated countries.