President Reagan and Vladimir Putin. . .23 years ago?

By Jack Brummet
Presidential History Editor

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I missed this photo/controversy when it first appeared two years ago.  People seem absolutely convinced this is Vladimir Putin posing as a tourist.  The Russians vehemently deny this is him at all.  There are fairly tantalizing arguments on either side of the question.

According to Pete Souza, "President Barack Obama's official photographer, a picture he took in Red Square 21 years ago indicates that Mr Putin was part of a KGB plot to embarrass Reagan on his first ever visit to Moscow."

Kremlin officials are said to be angry about the emergence of Mr Souza's photograph, and believe it is an attempt to smear Mr Putin.  Russian experts (e.g., "experts in Russia") claim that the young man dressed in a tight t-shirt with a camera slung around his neck is not Mr Putin.

Souza told National Public Radio in the United States that the incident occurred when Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet general secretary, toured Red Square in the Summer of 1988.  Reagan was led to a group of Russian tourists who were allegedly positioned in Red Square to ask a series of pointed questions about America's human rights record.

Souza now says that a secret service officer told him the tourists were in fact "all KGB families."

"Now what is really interesting is a picture I have in my Reagan book," he said. "Off to the left is one of these tourists with a camera around his shoulder and it has been pointed out to me and verified that that was Putin. As soon as you see the picture you go: 'Oh my gosh, it really is him.'"

Experts in Moscow, however, call B.S.  During Reagan's visit, Putin was serving as a mid-ranking KGB spy in Dresden and would not have been called to Moscow to help with a dirty trick.  The Russians also note that the man in the photograph has a thicker head of hair than Mr Putin ever did.

Yeah, it does resemble the Prime Minister.  But I could really go either way. . .

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