West of Mpls MN about 50 miles on Hwy 12 | Reads like Ezra Taft Benson as well as other politicians back in the 60's were possibly less than truthful...why does that fact not surprise me.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/09/nikki-haley/no-khr...
There is no evidence Khrushchev, who led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, ever said this about Americans, though this quote and similar ones have been attributed to Khrushchev by people including President Ronald Reagan and staunch anti-communist Ezra Taft Benson, former secretary of agriculture.
According to the book, the quote emerged and began circulating in the 1960s.
In the late 1960s, anti-communist Ezra Taft Benson claimed Khrushchev said these things during his 1959 visit to the United States. Benson recounted his exchange with Khrushchev in a speech he delivered in 1966:
But Benson’s account has been questioned because he also attributed those words to Khrushchev in a book he wrote in 1962. In that instance, Benson wrote that the Soviet leader made the statement months before his trip to the U.S., and Benson did not claim Khrushchev said them to him one-on-one.
In terms of what Khrushchev said publicly, the Soviet leader’s 1959 speeches in the U.S. were documented by news outlets and others. The book "Khrushchev in America" compiled Khrushchev’s speeches during the 1959 trip, and the full text is searchable online.
In 1961, Reagan — who was an actor and TV host at the time — attributed a version of the quote to Khrushchev in a speech, without providing evidence of its origin:
"Three months before his last visit to this country, Nikita Khrushchev said, ‘We can't expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find they have communism.’"
Apart from one anecdotal claim from an individual whose story was inconsistent, there is no evidence Khrushchev said any variation of this quote.
We rate this claim False.
Here's another link with some good links to actual transcripts embedded in it. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-khrushchev-1959-quote/f...
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History for the younger generation
