I welcome my colleague and friend
, the author of a number of books, most recently Den of Spies, about the October surprise episode of 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter. But right now, we're speaking of an earlier book that Craig published.It's quite fun and enormously revelatory about a man named Putin. The book is House of Trump, House of Putin, and Putin is a character in this drama. It's a mob story, so there are elements of the American mob story, except this is Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union.
Craig includes in his Substack page (where you can find this episode, all of them are there) a photograph that is, to me, the story in itself of the rise of Vladimir Putin.
There’s a photograph of the mayor of Saint Petersburg—once called Leningrad, now called Saint Petersburg—in 1993. The mayor is Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. The deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg is Vladimir Putin. And in the photograph, Sobchak is buttoning his coat, beautifully dressed, silver tie, very fashionable, and he’s looking at someone who might be waving at him. He looks pretty much like a a don, an Italian don coming out of luncheon.
Behind him is a diminutive man with what you'd have to say is hair that's leaving him—he’s still blond, but there's not much left—and he's in a ill-fitting three-piece suit, and he's got an expression of, “What do I do next?”
He's carrying too many briefcases over his arms. So he's carrying the boss's briefcases.
That is deputy Mayor Vladimir Putin. How do we describe him? An ambitious man, a clerk? How is he regarded by Sobchak, the boss?
Watch the full conversation above, or listen to an audio version below:
LINKS:
House of Trump, House of Putin by Craig Unger on Amazon
The John Batchelor Show on Apple Podcasts:
The opinions expressed on this website and on The John Batchelor Show are those of John Batchelor and guests, and not those of CBS News.
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