Soviet Awards to non-Soviet personnel.

[Simon]

Not only Davies was the only (using Soviet phraseology of the period) imperialist country ambassador awarded, he was decorated by Stalin for an open defense of purges and political trials. As Paul has mentioned, "And yet he was awarded the Order of Lenin - I see a connection". Since Davies' ambassadorship to USSR ended in 1938, it would have made more sense in 1945 to award current US and British ambassadors, if the goal was an exchange of social pleasantries between allies. The remarkableness of the case is that a high ranking US diplomat openly defended acts which are now commonly called atrocities and continued his career. The evolution of political opinion is apparent. A scarcity of and tone of responses indicate that forum members don't find an award of an order of Lenin to a bourgeois diplomat to be extraordinary even at the time of alliance. Yet, skimming this thread, one can only find awards to allied military personnel and none of the awards is Lenin. The only resemblance of diplomatic award that I found on this thread was OGPW to a naval officer serving in US Embassy.