The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton
United States Senate, SR-476
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Clinton:
I ask you to turn your close attention to the problem of "Picturegate," a problem created for more than 15 years by American diplomats and government employees of the Department of State.

Right now is a particularly favorable time for you to do so: you are now a senator, a lawmaker, and the sources of this problem, Alexander Vershbow and John Bearly, are now bearing the credentials of the U.S. ambassador and his assistant in Moscow.

The American government must collect the 1,500 works of art created by the artist Alexander Zhdanov and given to America, as its own legally transferred property. The State Department has never denied the gift, choosing instead to focus attention on justifying the wrongful actions of its employees: Max Robinson, Jean McKinsey and others. There is no other way to correct the State Department's misdeeds.

"Picturegate" is a problem for the culture, the ethics, the rights, the humanity and the laws of the United States of America. It must not continue as a dirty page in the history of American diplomacy.

Your help in seeing to it that the works of art are gathered in Russia and returned to their author in America may very possibly stop the sharp decline in Zhdanov's health, as he faces a cardiac surgery for the third time after the many years of stress in the Soviet Union and in America, stress directly connected to his efforts to save the artistic legacy which he created across 35 years of difficult living under the extreme pressure of Soviet ideology and power.

Former cultural attache Gregory Guroff, currently the president of International Arts and Education, USA, has received news about the location of some of the works of art that comprised Zhdanov's gift to America and are now in private hands in Moscow and St. Petersburg. He is prepared to assist in their collection and return from Moscow to the United States.

Please do not destroy our last hopes. Please help us.

P.S. - Please see my letter to you of August 10, 1993, and attached copies of relevant documents.