Obituaries - Jan. 28, 2000

John Chrystal, 74, Iowa banker and politician who became agricultural advisor to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. When Premier Nikita Krushchev toured the United States in 1959, he made a much publicized stop at the Iowa farm of Roswell Garst, Chrystal’s uncle. Garst sold seed corn to the Soviets and became close to Krushchev in the process. Chrystal followed in his footsteps, making his first trip to the Soviet Union in 1960, touring key agricultural areas and offering criticism of Soviet farming methods. He was invited back more than 30 times over the years and became a confidant of Krushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev when the latter was still an obscure official. In the U.S., Chrystal was sometimes criticized as pro-Communist, but he defended his assistance as “the proper thing for an American to do.” If the Soviets prosper from learning better agricultural methods, “they’ll become better customers of the United States,” he said. And “if we can be less afraid of each other, we have a better chance of stopping the arms race and not blowing each other up.” In 1996 Russia awarded him the Order of Friendship, the highest honor bestowed on foreigners. He also was elected a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Chrystal, who once sought the Democratic nomination for Iowa governor, was chairman and chief executive officer of Bankers Trust Inc. in the 1980s and was a partner with his brother on the family farm. On Jan. 19 of cancer in Des Moines.