Very interesting!
I went to a few lectures at the Commonwealth Club back in the 1990’s-2000’s and I certainly never had such a fascinating adventure!
The Soviets were indeed very good at this sort of thing. Very clever of them.
I had a wonderful old friend who mentored me in that time and he took me along to the Commonwealth Club so many times I lost count!
The CC back then wasn’t the hard left anti-American bastion of today and thus the memories are all good ones.