Is it true that, having met for the first time with Gorbachev, Reagan, in his own statement, thought: “He will sell us everything”?

The famous memoirs of Ronald Reagan go on the Russian Internet - allegedly meeting for the first time with Mikhail Gorbachev, he thought to himself "he will sell us everything." We checked whether Reagan really shared such impressions of the first meeting with the Secretary General.

40th US President Ronald Reagan attributed Such memories of his first meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev:

“When I went to meet with the Soviet Secretary General, I expected to see a friend dressed in a Bolshevik coat and a karakulevoy cap. But I was introduced to a fashionable French suit to the master with the watch Rado Manhattan. Looking at them, I thought: "Yes. He will sell us everything!". "

Although these memories diverge social networks, V Media and even appear in books, nowhere are referenced by references to the original source of memories. Which is quite strange, because Reagan left behind not only memoirsbut also records diaries, which he led every day throughout the entire presidential term.

In the Russian Internet, such memoirs of Ronald Reagan about Mikhail Gorbachev appeared either in 2016 or in 2015. No earlier publications could not be found with this phrase.

In 2015, Ronald Reagan’s memoirs were mentioned by the author Oleg Prophety in his publication “And now Gorbaty! I said - humpbacked! " On the literary portal "Right-reading room". Text located in the "Prose" section, and begins with such a picture-meme:

The text is criticism of Mikhail Gorbachev. The author recalls video clip For a pizzeria, taken with his participation in the 1990s, calls Gorbachev Gorbaty and assures that “Jewish Masonic Lodges appeared in Russia because of Gorbachev. In general, the text is saturated with anti -Semitic rhetoric and the theories of the Masonic conspiracy, and Reagan's memories look surprisingly inappropriate in it. They are located immediately after the paragraph that the chief rabbi of the New York synagogue handed Gorbachev the star of David, and before the author returns to anti-Semitic statements.

Perhaps the reason is that Reagan’s memoirs fell into this text of 2015 later, during the subsequent editing. Much more appropriate, such a phrase looked in the text of 2016, from which, probably, it later fell into the prose of Oleg prophet.

In 2016, the user of the Living Journal Whale_Roma published Record With the name "Alarm Wasteen" East M 822 and Soviet sets "Young Chapter". " In the text, the author really talks about watches and an alarms - that mechanical alarm clocks are better for health than electronic ones, where they are now in Russia, and recalls how there were sets for creating a clock in the Soviet Union. In the end, the author complains that “domestic plutocrates trained and brought up by Michael Gorbe, now led by Putin”, now instead of high -quality Soviet sets “slip” cardboard astrolabia for children. 

Next follows such a passage:

“I really respect Ronnie Reagan - being our enemy, he was the unconditional patriot of his Pindos homeland. It was Reagan who created tens of millions of jobs and brought the US economy to space heights. Here is what Reagan recalls the first meeting with Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland: “When I went to meet with the Soviet Secretary General, I expected to see a comrade dressed in a textbook Bolshevik coat. Instead, they introduced me to a fashionable French suit to Mr. in Rado Manhattan watches ... I thought: I thought: I thought: I thought "Yes ... this bastard will sell us everything !!!". "

This fragment already has at least one historical mistake. The first meeting of Reagan and Gorbachev did not occur in October 1986 on the famous Summy In Reykjavik, which is considered the first step towards the end of the Cold War. First time Reagan and Gorbachev Meet In November 1985, at a summit in Geneva.

Ronald Reagan did not write about the first impression of Gorbachev during a personal meeting in his diaries. But here's what he He wrote A few months before, in June of the same year:

“There was Armand Hammer (American entrepreneur-approx. TASS-DOSIE) ... I saw Gorbachev with my eye. I am convinced that Gorbi is not at all like the former Soviet leaders and that you can deal with it. I'm too cynical to believe in such things. ”

Only in 1988, after the visit of Gorbachev to New York, Reagan wrote that "for the first time he really felt his partner in the common business." And although later both leaders considered their personal relations as friendship, historians MarkWhich, apparently, the location to each other appeared later than the period of the first meetings.

In 2020, the same Whale_Roma user published another Record In his blog in LiveJournal. This time it is not dedicated to the clock, but to falsifiers of history. And in this text, the user admits that he invented Reagan's memories in the text about an alarm clock.

“In this story, I wrote about the meeting of Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik - there I came up with and attributed to Ronald the fake“ memories ”, in which Reagan gives Gorbachev at that time. The truth in this story is only that Gorbachev was really in the costume of Pierre Cardin - such suits were sold in Gum and Tsum for 250 rubles ... What Reagan thought about Gorbachev and his watch, the dog knows - Ronald did not write any memoirov, and he took this secret with him to the grave. But Kitish took and wrote for Reagan his "memoirs". This, of course, is very funny, but I am quoted on the Internet and create pictures-memes, and therefore I decided to tell you the truth. "

Reagan wrote memoirs, and it is not known exactly whether this user really became the creator of such a myth about Gorbachev and Reagan. However, there are practically no earlier publications with this phrase on the Russian Internet, as there is no evidence of this in English -speaking literature. Therefore, with a high probability, the LJ user could invent Reagan's memories, which became a popular fake.

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Statements of foreign political figures about Mikhail Gorbachev
2. The Reagan Diaries
3. Ronald Reagan. Life in American
4. "I am a former head of state, I can’t eat pizza"
5. Kitish - about falsifiers of history.