While Blood, Sweat & Tears achieved commercial success alongside similarly configured ensembles such as Chicago and the Electric Flag, the band had difficulty maintaining its status as a counterculture icon at a time when record company executives deemed this characteristic important as a tool to lure young consumers. This was compounded by the band going on a United States Department of State-sponsored tour of Eastern Europe in May/June 1970. Any voluntary association with the government was highly unpopular at the time, and the band was ridiculed for it. It is now known that the State Department subtly requested the tour in exchange for more amicability on the issuance of a visa to Clayton-Thomas.