QOTD

Profanity below

Andrew Roberts, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 at 445 (2007), on Vice President Richard Nixon's July 23, 1959, visit to Moscow:

That evening, invited to broadcast over Russian radio untrammelled by censorship, Nixon told his listeners that America's 46 million families owned 56 million cars, 50 million TV sets and 143 million radio sets. . . Thirty-one million American families owned their own homes, and no fewer than twenty-five million of them lived in houses or apartments actually larger than the model one in the exhibition [a U.S. trade show in Moscow]. All this proved, said Nixon, that "The United States, the world's largest capitalist country, has from the standpoint of distribution of wealth come closest to the ideal of prosperity for all in a classless society."

Khrushchev, who was in the audience, called out "Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!," but Nixon simply spoke over him, stating that in America, "We are free to criticize our government and our President. . . We Live and travel where we please without travel permits, internal passports or police regulations. We also travel freely abroad." According to some accounts, this was the point at which Khrushchev said, under his breath, "Eb tvoyu babushky." ("Go fuck your grandmother.")