GORBACHEV'S QUIP TO THE PRESIDENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-01355R000400340001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 8, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 4, 1988
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/08: CIA-RDP91-01355R000400340001-8
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET d ;4
SUBJECT: (Optional) IFS?
vallfili
'miff
FROM:
EXTENSION
NO.
FBIS-0002-88
Acting Director, Foreign
Broadcast Information Service
DATE
5 January 1988
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
INITIALS
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
REalVED
FORWARDED
1. Director of Soviet
Analysis
Room 5E29, Headquarters
For your information. Here
2.
is an observation by our Chief of
Analysis Group regarding the recent
Gorbachev-Reagan exchange noted by
3.
William Safire in last Sunday's
New York Times Ma.azine.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
""" 610 ulDIZZit's
1-79
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/08: CIA-RDP91-01355R000400340001-8
* U.S. Oovsrnment Printing Office: 1115-4114-1114/41111111
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/08: CIA-RDP91-01355R000400340001-8
4 January 1988
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Gorbachev's Quip to the President
Some confusion has arisen over General Secretary Gorbachev's quip in
response to the President's use of a Russian maxim (doveryay no proverya
-- trust but verify) at the INF signing ceremony. Pravda doctored
Gorbachev's remark by softening its thrust; and William Saf ire in the New
York Times Magazine (3 January) cites a Soviet emigre as claiming that
the Soviet interpreter put an amiable twist on what was a rude remark.
The truth lies somewhere between the two versions.
Rechecking of the videotape confirms the interpreter's version--that
Gorbachev said "You repeat that at every meeting (vy na kazhdoy vstreche
eto povtorayete)." Safire's source erroneously says he used the Russian
verb boltayete, which does not mean "repeat" but has the sense of "run on
at the mouth." Pravda for its part saw fit--quite possibly at the
General Secretary's instruction--to amend his remark to make it even more
innocuous than it actually was; indeed, Pravda's revision expresses
common interests between the two leaders. Pravda's version has Gorbachev
saying "We repeat that at every meeting (my povtorayem eto na kazhdoy
vstrecher"
(FBIS)
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/08: CIA-RDP91-01355R000400340001-8
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/08: CIA-RDP91-01355R000400340001-8
ammoniiimmovir'
On Language
BY WILLIAM SAF1RE
Nyet
Problemy on
Snow Jobs
BRUSH UP YOUR RUS-
sian; detente is back.
When Ronald Reagan
and Mikhail Gorbachev
signed the treaty in Washing-
ton on medium-range mis-
siles, the world television
audience witnessed what
seemed like a nice bit of by-
play between the two leaders.
Mr. Reagan recalled a Rus-
sian maxim: "Though my
pronunciation may give you
difficulty, the maxim is
doveryai no proveryai. 'Trust
but verify.'"
According to the interpret-
er, Mr. Gorbachev replied
amiably: "You repeat that at
every meeting." Mr. Reagan
smiled, "I like it," and the
spirit of good will was all over
the place.
However, a former refuse-
nik who heard the Russian
phrase before the English
translation writes to set us
straight: "The General Secre-
used the Russian verb
boltaet5) which does not
meaU 'repeat,' but means
'drivel.' He said, 'You always
drivel that,' which sounds in
this context rather rude.
Most of my Russian friends
were flabbergasted; even in
Soviet schools they teach peo-
ple not to use such rude
words when speaking to older
and respected people, let
alone Presidents."
I turned to a second, per-
haps more objective, source.
Eugene Beshenkovsky, infor-
mation manager at Columbia
University's W. Averell Har-
riman Institute for Advanced
Study of the Soviet Union,
says: "Boltaete [pronounced
bol-TA-et-yeh] does not quite
mean 'to drivel,' which sug-
gests nonsense. It is closer to
'to talk about just for the sake
of talking.'" It does not mean,
as the interpreter softened it,
repeat, the Russian verb for
which is povtoriat'.
Well, was it rude? "It is not
considered a very polite ex-
pression," said Mr. Beshen-
kovsky, trying to be diplo-
matic, but he then had to be
straight about it: "Yes, rude."
The perfect translation, I
think, would have been: "You
do run on at the mouth about
that," or more politely, "You
always go on and on about
that." That might have wiped
the smile off the President's
face.
I, too, have my translation
problems. In a piece about the
way the presence of the Amer-
ican media turns Gorby-
Jekyll into Gorby-Hyde, I used
the term nyet problema to
mean "no problem."
A problem: I used the nomi-
native case, problema, but
after a negative, the genitive
KEITH BENDIS
case is called for in proper
Russian. Louis Jay Herman
of New York City advises
that the correct form is nyet
problemy (pronounced pro-
BLEM-ee), adding paren-
thetically, "assuming, of
course, that a Russian would
attempt a literal translation
of this particularly American
colloquialism."
The fact is that Russians do
use this expression: I have
heard them with my own
ears, and it comes out nyet
problema, which we can all
agree is grammatically
wrong. Could it be that this is
an idiom, in which case all
rules of grammar are sus-
pended? ("It's me," says the
idiomatic American; "Nyet
problema," replies the idio-
matic Russian.)
The phrase appears in
Serbo-Croatian as nema
problema, and may be travel-
ing along the route taken by
the world's most widely
adopted Americanism, O.K.
"On a trip to Kenya this past
September," writes Bill Ab-
bott of Westport, Conn., "we
were astonished to hear the
American phrase from a
Masai warrior when our van
stopped at a village to take
pictures and bargain over -
beads and spears. But there it
was in reply to my offer of
half the asked-for shillings:
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/08: CIA-RDP91-01355R000400340001-8