In 1958, US senator Hubert H. Humphrey visited Nikita Khrushchev and among other things he visited the Moscow Institute of Reanimatology, where, among others, he met with Gurvich. Humphrey immediately recognized importance of reanimation research and after that a number of American doctors visited Gurvich. At the same time, Humphrey worked on establishing of a federal program in the National Institute of Health in physiology and medicine, telling to the Congress: "Let's compete with U.S.S.R. in research on reversibility of death".