On a cold January day in 1976, Dr Dimitri Venediktov, Soviet deputy health minister, turned up unannounced at his colleague's home in Geneva. It was eve of World Health Organization's (WHO's) Executive Board. Member States had decided previous May, at 28th World Health Assembly, that an international conference on primary health proposed by Soviet Union, was desirable. But funds were needed and a venue had yet to be named, and Moscow was lobbying hard to host it in Soviet Union. I'll give you US$ 2 million for an international conference on primary health care, Venediktov told assistant director-general Dr David A Tejada de Rivero, according to Peruvian physician, who recalls how Soviet offer took him by surprise. The following day, Venediktov repeated his offer to Executive Board which accepted it on one condition: conference would not be held in Moscow--as Venediktov proposed--but in a developing country. In midst of Cold War, in a world divided between communist and capitalist spheres of influence, primary health care--a new concept at time--became unlikely vehicle for a political and ideological battle, especially in socialist camp. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The concept of primary health care did not appear overnight. Some trace it back to an intergovernmental conference in Bandoeng, Indonesia, in 1937. That conference was held by health organization of League of Nations-a predecessor to WHO--that recommended that the greatest benefit to health of rural populations, at smallest cost, can be obtained through some process of decentralization. This recommendation was in line with vision of missionaries working in community health care in developing countries. Notably, Christian Medical Commission (CMC), which was part of World Council of Churches, encouraged training of village workers at grassroots level, equipped with essential drugs and simple methods. In an article published in American Journal of Public Health in November 2004, historian Marcos Cueto writes that CMC created a journal called Contact that may have used term 'primary health care' for first time. In 1974, WHO director-general Dr Halfdan Mahler, one of driving forces behind primary health invited CMC to present its community health work in developing countries to WHO directors, writes historian Socrates Litsios in his essay on 1978 Alma-Ata conference published in International Journal of Health Services in 2002. In 1960s and 1970s, it was failure of single-disease programmes, such as those for malaria and yaws, and lack of coordination between them that prompted countries to ask WHO for help in building their health services. Many of these countries had recently made transition from colonialism to independence, and were facing challenge of how to extend health services, which had been designed for colonial elites, to masses. But while Mahler and Tejada de Rivero were fully aware of countries' pressing needs for better health services, both felt it was too soon for a conference on primary health care. At first I thought maybe it would be better to wait to have more experience in applying primary health care principles, Tejada de Rivero tells Bulletin. But decision to go ahead with a conference was final. The Soviet Union saw conference as an opportunity to showcase its socialist achievements in providing health for all and to promote benefits of its centralized state-run health service in hope that this system would, in turn, be adopted and rolled out across developing countries. In his 2005 interview in WHO's oral history series, Tejada de Rivero recalls how Venediktov explained that his country had lobbied hard to host conference because, as leading Socialist power, Soviet Union could not permit a Chinese victory in developing world. …