Enter 23-year-old Van Cliburn, child prodigy pianist from Kilgore, Texas. Cliburn was quite oblivious to the intrigues and posturings of international and military politics. Looking back, he'll admit to the fact that it "wasn't the friendliest of times between our nations."

But since it was the first international piano competition ever to be held in the Soviet Union, and so rare for Americans to get the chance to travel there, Cliburn wanted to go. "I didn't see life in the present," Cliburn admits. "I was remembering the wonderful stories of the grandeur of the Russian musical life from the past that my mother had told me." Cliburn's mother, Rildia Bee O'Bryan, had been her son's only piano teacher and mentor from the time he was three until he entered Juilliard School at 17. An extraordinary pianist with unimpeachable musical credentials, she had grown up in a period of time when it was "not proper for a young lady from a good family to concertize." Fortunately, for many young people, she channeled her energies into teaching. She had studied in New York with the famous Arthur Freidheim, who had been born in St. Petersburg, and who, in turn, had studied with great pianists like Anton Rubinstein and later Franz Liszt.

Perhaps, it was Van's naiveté that served him so well. The Soviets detected his openness, spontaneity, and genuineness. They responded to his musical interpretations, many pieces of which had been composed by their own masters.

For the celebrated "masses" who chanced to hear Cliburn play one of the first live concerts ever televised nationwide throughout the USSR, he somehow didn't fit the stereotype of an "evil capitalist". For many, it was the first time they had ever seen an American, and they embraced him wholeheartedly.

Fifty contestants from more than 19 countries took part in the competition which demanded three performances in front of a jury that was composed of some of the finest musicians ever gathered, including pianists Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels (Jury Chair and first Soviet musician to perform in the U.S.); Lev Oborin; Dmitry Kabalevsky (Composer); Sir Arthur Bliss (Master of the Queen's Music from England); and others. The General Chairman for the entire competition (piano and violin) was the renowned symphonic composer and conductor, Dmitry Shostakovich.

Actually, Van Cliburn's virtuosity turned out to be rather embarrassing for the Soviet jurists. Some had already selected Lev Vlasenko, a Russian pianist, as the winner. Cliburn presented a dilemma. No one was quite sure how Khruschev would respond to a foreigner, especially an American, winning the Grand Prize of the very first Tchaikovsky Competition.

It has since been discovered that some of the jurists, fearing Khruschev's indignation, were boycotting Cliburn despite his brilliant performances. On a scale of 0-25, some gave him scores of 15s, 16s and 19s and added one or two points more for other participants-just a slight enough difference to make no one suspicious that anything illegal was taking place. Richter and a few others sensed what was happening and they set out to distort the scheme by giving Van the highest scores possible, perfect 25s. In the meantime, Richter gave twelve of the contestants zeros, even though some of them were quite good. When confronted by the head of the jury for his idiosyncratic voting patterns, Richter replied, "People either make music, or they don't."