This article explores the gendered potential and limitations of eastern bloc immigration to the United States under Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles. When Dulles endorsed the romantic marriage of Czechoslovakian Olympic gold medalist Olga Fikotova to fellow Olympic winner – and American – Harold Connolly in 1957, he engineered a cultural-diplomacy coup that complimented the president's New Look brinkmanship abroad. Feminine, heteronormative, Protestant, and a world champion, Fikotova initially seemed an ideal Cold War immigrant. When she and her new husband arrived on American shores amid media fanfare, though, she exercised her newfound freedom of speech to criticize American social problems and advocate women's equality.