Mr. Reagan, Meet Mr. Putin
Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library
March 16, 2009
Hey! Who's that dour-looking dude on the left?
There's a
20-year-old photo making the rounds on the tubes showing U.S. President Ronald Reagan taking a stroll through Red Square during his May 1988 visit to Moscow.
In the photo, Reagan was approached by a group of "tourists" -- who were in reality KGB members and their families -- who asked him about human rights in the United States.
Reagan's photographer, Pete Souza, told NPR in January that he has confirmed that the blonde-haired man in the striped shirt on the left was none other than Vladimir Putin, then a KGB colonel.
You can listen to Souza, who is now U.S. President Barack Obama's official photographer, talk about the photo by clicking the audio link in the NPR story
here. And then decide for yourself whether it really is Putin.
UPDATE: Compare with photos of
young Putin and
Putin with family.
-- Brian Whitmore
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