From what I saw on video, I bet he was. He might have travelled earlier to other Socialist block countries and saw lots of socialist facade stores there, but a visit to a place for simple folk in the US was much more impressive.

(This is why when I travel, I go not to the center, but to the fringes of the cities, to see how the common people live.)

And I'm sure this contributed to his ideas of how the country should be like.