It was 1988, and President Ronald Reagan was speaking at a summit in Moscow. In a style that few could emulate, Reagan told a joke. It went like this:
“An American man, boasting to his Russian friend, says the USA is such a great country that anyone can walk up to the White House and shout ‘The President of the United States is a liar and a crook!’ But the Russian shrugs. ‘So what?’ he says. ‘In my country, too, anyone can walk right up to the Kremlin and shout ‘The President of the United States is a liar and a crook!’”
As the great British historian Martin Sixsmith described it (he was a reporter in Moscow at the time) in his excellent new book, The War of Nerves, “Reagan flashed his winning smile as he weaponized the humour of the Russian people to score ideological points off the Russian state.” Yes indeed. Reagan had quite the strategic mind, which is something his ideological opposites still refuse to accept. But we’re in a sense getting ahead of ourselves.
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