In 1966, the Polish consulate in Washington told my mother, who was preparing for a family trip in a VW camper from Paris to Moscow and back, that she and my father should get their Polish visas when they reached Prague. Arriving there, my parents and us three kids went to the Polish consulate. The vice-consul looked at my mother's passport and noted her birthplace: Poland.

"When did you leave Poland?"
"1946."
"Oh, then you're a defector. (The Communist government had already been established then.) You can't come back to Poland."

This was a major predicament as the whole purpose of the trip was for my father to present a paper at the International Congress of Psychology. My mother called friends in Warsaw (which was itself a major undertaking; we went to the main post office, filled out a form, and waited for her name to be announced together with the booth number where she could pick up the call), who contacted various officials to no avail.

After a few days with no visa, my father went along to the consulate. The consul himself was on vacation. My father introduced himself to the assistant with his full academic title in Czech: Professor Doctor X. He pointed out that the vice-consul's refusal of a Polish visa for my mother was preventing him, a distinguished American scientist, from delivering a paper at the most important international scientific conference in his field. This would surely provoke a diplomatic incident; did the vice-consul want to be responsible?

Magically, the visa appeared.