“ By 1865 the US minister to St Petersburg, Cassius Clay of Kentucky, pushed for Alaska as a route through which a US-built telegraph line would link the two great countries. (The energetic fifty-six-year-old Clay worked for this project, that is, when he was not fighting off protective mothers of young girls he admired or when he was not challenging Russian nobles to duels with Bowie knives.) ”
From The American Age by Walter LaFeber
I think Mohammed Ali would be proud of his namesake.
