Doctor S. F. Gortalov and his patient U.S. ambassador D. R. Francis

This article is based on previously unpublished materials, it is devoted to the fate of a Vologda medical doctor, S.F. Gortalov. The major focus of the article relates to the doctor.s successful treatment of the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, D.R. Francis. The ambassador fell sick during the time of the Entente embassies. stay in Vologda in 1918. Another focus of the article is the political mood of doctor Gortalov and the.old. Vologda intelligentsia in the 1920s and 1930s, and the activities of the Bolshevik secret police. The Vologda.doctors. case., which occurred in 1937, is also mentioned. It concludes that the.old. Vologda intelligentsia had been ideological opponents of the Bolshevik party for two decades. As a result, they were repressed during the times of the Great Terror.