Free Republic

The documentary film was released and posted on August 20 on the YouTube channel of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation in connection with the celebration of 75 years of nuclear industry. The film, edited in classic Soviet-style propaganda, shows all preparation procedures. First the transportation of the giant bomb by rail to the Olenya airbase near Olenegorsk on the Kola Peninsula. The Tu-95 aircraft take-off and flight across the Barents Sea to the detonation site near the Matochkin Strait at Novaya Zemlya. Then the release of the bomb attached to a parachute to slow the fall so the plane could...

A senior citizen has been detained in Russia for attempting to install a plaque commemorating Richard Nixon’s visit to a small mining town dating back 70 years. Vice President Richard Nixon traveled to Degtyarsk in 1959 as part of his visit to the Soviet Union, which culminated in his so-called “Kitchen Debate” with Nikita Khrushchev. Local lore claims that Nixon had spent his teens in the small town, where his parents had allegedly worked, in the mid-to-late 1920s. Pyotr Kikilyk, 75, wanted to commemorate Nixon’s 1959 visit to Degtyarsk with a granite plaque over the weekend at the building of...

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, pundits offered a variety of reasons for its failure: economic, political, military. Few thought to add a fourth, more elusive cause: the regime’s total loss of credibility. This hard-to-measure process had started in 1956, when Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave his so-called secret speech to party leaders, in which he denounced Josef Stalin’s purges and officially revealed the existence of the gulag prison system. Not long afterward, Boris Pasternak allowed his suppressed novel “Doctor Zhivago” to be published in the West, tearing another hole in the Iron Curtain. Then, in 1962, the literary magazine...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and his family are featured in a worshipful profile in this month's Washingtonian magazine. It's the sort of adoring journalistic exercise reserved for only the most handsome of the power elite. In it you can find out details about the Carney dog (a cousin to presidential pooch Sonny!), and how much the press secretary's tie costs ($135). But keen observers may notice the kitchen decor in the photo: Soviet propaganda posters. They really are the perfect pop of color whether you are the dour and sincere Nikita Khrushchev or the cheeky press-wrangler for a...

MOSCOW — "Russia is like a tub full of dough. You push your hand all the way to the bottom, pull it out, and right before your eyes, the hole disappears, and again, it is a tub full of dough," Nikita Khrushchev once said, assessing the country he ruled. The former premier -- my great grandfather -- who 60 years ago denounced Joseph Stalin and his pervasive security apparatus, must be turning in his grave. Russia's legal institutions are still run along the lines of Stalin's "show trials." Following the politically motivated prosecutions of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and...

COMMENTARY by DANIEL T. ZANOZA Perhaps the greatest historic misnomer today regards the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Historic revisionists say Kennedy had a successful administration--even though he had little or no experience in foreign affairs. In reality, the Kennedy presidency possibly represented the most dangerous period in American history. From its inception, Kennedy quickly learned the world was not a place of cordial state dinners and visions of Camelot. One of Kennedy's first important duties included a summit meeting held in Europe with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy entered the meeting with the rambunctious Communist Party leader with an...

When Nikita Khrushchev died in 1971, I was still a girl, but I remember him well. We used to visit him on the weekends on his farm at Petrovo Dalnee, about 30 miles outside of Moscow. I would work with him among the tomatoes or beehives. Although to me he was my kindly old great-grandfather, my family assured me that he was a great man, a world leader, a liberator -- someone I should be proud of.

"The Republicans have allowed a communist dictatorship to flourish eight jet minutes from our borders! We must support anti-Castro fighters. So far these freedom fighters have received no help from our government." -- Democratic presidential candidate, Oct. 1960 "George Bush and the Republicans in Washington have run the most inept foreign policy in the modern history of this country! It has been a failure!" -- Democratic presidential Candidate, April 2004. No, friends, it didn't start with this campaign. Indeed, Kerry apes his idol (JFK) faithfully. Problem was, during the '60 presidential campaign Kennedy left out the sly smile, the shifty...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

Those are the words and thoughts of Jill Nelson, “journalist, teacher and author. She is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.” After reading her May 2, 2003, editorial, it’s no wonder she fears America more than al-Qaida or the Taliban, she hates the country as much as the terrorists, and as they say, “the enemy of my enemy…” Here we have all that is wrong with America. An American teacher, journalist and author who can speak her mind on a website visited by millions, explaining her dread at having a government that is willing to fight for her right to speak...

Filed at 1:35 p.m. ET MOSCOW (AP) -- A criminal complaint from a youth group that backs President Vladimir Putin has prompted an inquiry into an iconoclastic author over a novel that depicts sexual contact between Josef Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev. Police opened the investigation after prosecutors found that parts of Vladimir Sorokin's 1999 book ``Goluboye Salo'' -- which can be translated as ``Blue Lard'' or ``Gay Lard'' -- are pornographic, Svetlana Petrenko, an aide to the chief Moscow prosecutor, said Thursday. The investigation alarmed advocates of freedom of expression, who have long been concerned about the possibility of a...