Head of State — Richard Hoyt

Isaak Ginsburg, an unknown Russian poet, is sent to a Siberian labor camp. After his release he pretends to be a model citizen and rises to become the state's most celebrated poet. Enlisting the aid of dissident Estonians, the beautiful wife of a Russian diplomat, residents of a cancer clinic, and a coolly unconventional CIA agent, Ginsburg plots to steal Lenin's head from his Red Square tomb and use it as a bargaining chip to gain open emigration from Soviet bloc countries.