The Russians are coming is a famous phrase attributed to United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal in 1949. In full, it is supposed to be: "The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming. They’re right around. I’ve seen Russian soldiers."
Forrestal allegedly uttered those words while suffering from mental illness, not long before purportedly committing suicide. The allegation originated with Forrestal's bitter political enemy, columnist Drew Pearson, and has been verified by no other person. This is what Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley have to say about the episode in their 1992 book, Driven Patriot, the Life and Times of James Forrestal:
Pearson had, in fact, decided to fire his heaviest ammunition in a radio broadcast on April 9. He charged that Forrestal, awakened by the sound of a fire siren (on the night of April 1 at Hobe Sound), had rushed out of his cottage screaming, “The Russians are attacking.” He defined Forrestal’s condition as “temporary insanity.” In subsequent newspaper columns he asserted that Forrestal made three suicide attempts while in Florida — by drug overdose, by hanging, and by slashing his wrists. According to a later statement by Raines, all of these assertions were lies.
— pp. 455-456.
Read more about The Russians Are Coming: Uses of The Phrase
Famous quotes containing the words russians and/or coming:
“Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told
The streets in heaven are lined with gold.
I ask you how things could get much worse
If the Russians happen to get up there first;
Wowee! pretty scary!”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“We long for our father. We wear his clothes, and actually try to fill his shoes. . . . We hang on to him, begging him to teach us how to do whatever is masculine, to throw balls or be in the woods or go see where he works. . . . We want our fathers to protect us from coming too completely under the control of our mothers. . . . We want to be seen with Dad, hanging out with men and doing men things.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)