Induction Heating
Kama Purchasing Commission, Ukraine
A search of the Internet does not find any reference to the KAMA Purchasing Commission that was operating in the USA during the Cheston days between 1971 and 1978. Letters in my file show at least two locations: 767 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York and the Bigelow Apartment Hotel, room 919, Bigelow Square, Pittsburgh, PA.
Before 1925 individuals like Armand Hammer handled trade with the new Soviet Union. One of his major clients was the Ford Motor Company but he lost this when Amtorg Trading Corporation was founded in New York in 1925
I can not find any mention about Amtorg's work on the "lend lease" sales to the USSR during WWII or any mention of them assisting in the wheat or Kama operation.
My meetings with Kama in 1972 and 1973 were short and sweet because the customer was not the KMAZ truck factory but a steel producer in the small city of Kramatrosk, near Donetsk, Ukraine. This factory had the responsibility to produce gas turbine shafts and turbine blade materials.
After Reagan became president the words of the "Cold War" heated up and in 1985 Commerce considered the Kama Truck plant a security risk and any sales to this factory were forbidden. On March 22, 2004 I checked the telephone number in New York for Amtorg and they are no more.