Phrase it may be Son of a bitch but he's our son of a bitch was allegedly spoken by Franklin Delano Roosevelt about the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza (Sr.) before the latter's visit to Washington in 1939.

Safir "s Political Dictionary(Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 676) states that this statement was first attributed to Roosevelt in Time magazine in 1948, allegedly according to Wells (who was in 1939 undersecretary of state), in the form " As Nicaraguan might say, he "s a sonofabitch but he" s ours". Indeed, in the issue of" Time "dated November 15, 1948, this story is. However, the magazine" Time "does not cite any sources, so Safir refers the phrase to the apocrypha.

It is more interesting that in some later editions this apocrypha appears already in the form of a dialogue between Roosevelt and his Secretary of State Cordell Hull, with Hull speaking the main words. Here's a typical example:

President Franklin Roosevelt reportedly had questioned Secretary of State Cordell Hull, "Isn" t that man supposed to be a son of a bitch? "The secretary reportedly replied," He sure is but he is our son of a bitch "
(Robert Sheina, Latin America "s Wars, Brassey" s 2003, p.184)

It is "more interesting" in the light of recent investigations.

Andrew Crawley, author of Somoza and Roosevelt (Oxford University Press, 2007), found the story in a book published in 1934, five years before the Nicaraguan dictator's visit to Washington. Characters there are completely different:

After the 1932 Chicago Convention, General Hugh Johnson ... was asked what he thought of his nomination. Johnson replied by recalling a story of a country convention of Democrats in which the wrong man had been chosen. Driving home from the meeting, two politicians were comparing notes. Both had opposed the succesfull candidate. One said to the other, "Damn it all! ... he is son of a bitch!" the other man sighed and said nothing for a long time. Then he cheered up, "After all", he observed, "... he" s our son of a bitch "
John F. Carter, The New Dealers: By the Unoficial Observers(Simon & Shuster, 1934)

Crawley believes that the propagator of the legend attributing these words to Roosevelt is ... Somoza himself, who liked to boast of his "special" relationship with the American president.

Anyway, I believe that here we are dealing with a stray duck, an ancient anecdote that American politicians hounded to each other. The characters changed depending on the preferences of the narrator. So it was until the printing press finally assigned the "authorship" to Roosevelt-Hull.

Our son of a bitch

To begin with, I will cite an anecdote that has recently been surfing the Internet:

“- Somoza, of course, is a son of a bitch, but whose son of a bitch? President Nixon said. - Our son of a bitch! ..
Thirty years have passed.
“I looked into the eyes of my friend Vladimir,” President Bush said, “and saw them as a Democrat, a true Democrat in the spirit of George Washington and the Founding Fathers.
Political correctness is a great thing, thought Kissinger, who wrote both speeches.

Of course, Kissinger did not write speeches for Bush, Jr., as, indeed, for Nixon. And Nixon never said anything like that. It is sometimes argued that US Secretary of State Cordell Hull was the first to speak about "our son of a bitch" (about the dictator Dominican Republic Raphael Trujillo) or Secretary of State Dean Acheson (about the leader of the communist Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito). There are other versions as well. But still, it is usually believed that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first to utter this phrase, and it referred to the President of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza Sr.

On May 5, 1939, Somoza and his wife left the carriage for Union Station - railway station Washington. He was greeted by Roosevelt and his wife, the almost full cabinet of ministers and the leaders of Congress. Along the entire route of the cortege stood dressed in dress uniform troops and many military equipment including thirty tanks. A month later, they also met the English king George VI with Queen Elizabeth, and before that they did not meet anyone in Washington. At the White House, Somoza presented Roosevelt with a complete collection of Nicaraguan stamps and offered to dig a new transoceanic canal - through Nicaragua, for the sake of greater security of the continent.

Three days later, Somoza addressed Congress. Congressmen were less friendly, and Republican Hon Schafer even called the guest of honor "a South American dictator." It was rumored that on the eve of the visit, Roosevelt's adviser Sumner Wells presented a report to the president in which Somoza was portrayed in an extremely unsightly manner. After attentively reading the report, Roosevelt remarked: "AS A NICARAGUANIAN WOULD SAY, HE IS AT LEAST A SON OF BITCH, BUT OURS."

But who communicated these words and when? They were reported by Time in an unsigned article about Somoza, "I Am the Champion," published in November 1948, ten years after Somoza's visit and four years after F.D. Roosevelt's death. To this day, no evidence has been found that he really said so.

But they discovered that this was exactly what they said about him. F.D.R. was nominated for President in July 1932 at the Chicago Convention The Democratic Party... His candidacy passed with a significant majority, but not all party bosses were happy with this. One of Roosevelt's most stubborn opponents, General Hugh Johnson, was asked how he viewed the results of the vote. Instead of answering, the general told an "old joke" about the provincial Democratic convention. When the delegates chose a dubious candidate, one of the participants exclaimed in their hearts: “Damn it all! It was impossible to allow the election of such a scoundrel! " Another paused, sighed and replied: "In the end, he is not so bad: he is still our scoundrel."

By that time, the "old anecdote" had really acquired a beard: it appeared in print in 1868 and since then, with various variations, has been walking through the pages of American newspapers. Often he was associated with the name of Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868), an associate of Lincoln; in years Civil War he was the leader of the Republican left wing. It was said that one day, when choosing a person for the position, Stevens asked colleagues which of the two candidates was better. “Both are big canals,” they replied. "YES, BUT WHICH IS OUR CHANNEL?" - Stevens clarified his question.

I foresee another question: what and when did Bush Jr. say about the eyes of V.V.P.? At a joint press conference with him in Ljubljana (Slovenia) on January 16, 2001, Bush said: “I looked this man in the eye. I think this person is very direct and trustworthy. (...) I understood his soul, the soul of a man devoted to his country and the interests of his country. "

But phrases from anecdotes are much more often found in history.

Konstantin Dushenko.

There is no such country in Latin America that would not survive the rule of military juntas. True, the dictators were different - from the relatively liberal Juan Perón in Argentina to the pro-fascist Chilean Augusto Pinochet. But, perhaps, the most notorious is Nicaragua, where the Somoza clan ruled for more than forty years ...

"Our son of a bitch!"

Magazine: Mysteries of History No. 7, 2012
Category: Villains

The Nicaraguan dictator fed the beasts with his enemies!

Family tree of seven handkerchiefs

The first dictator of this small country was reluctant to recall his ancestry. Still would! His great-grandfather, Anastasio Bernabe Somoza, nicknamed the Seven Handkerchiefs, was a thief and robber. He got his drive partly due to the fact that during the raids he covered his face with a handkerchief, partly because of a Latin American tale, which says: "Half a dozen handkerchiefs are not enough to wipe off the blood." In the end, the bandit was seized and hanged, forbidding for the edification of other criminals to remove the corpse for three days.
Alas, this act of intimidation did not have any effect - the two sons of Bernabe followed in their father's footsteps. Luis and Anastasio (this name was inherited in the family) became thieves and cheats. Even in their youth, they contracted syphilis, which, as you know, leads to brain damage. And on a fatal day for them, because of a trifle, the mentally unstable brothers got into a fight and as a result inflicted mortal wounds on each other. Yes, and the father of the hero of our story, who led an unrighteous lifestyle, died in a psychiatric hospital for the poor, again due to syphilis, having managed in 1896 to give life to the heir to Anastasio Garcia Somoza, who began his work biography from a trip to the USA.
The young man had no intention of studying or working. His goal was to make counterfeit dollars. True, Anastasio turned out to be useless as a counterfeiter, and was arrested while selling another bill. But the court, taking into account the frank remorse of the swindler and his age, sentenced him to only two months in prison, followed by deportation to his homeland. Subsequently, the head of state will mention that on the way home he robbed some wealthy lady, so he returned with pockets full of money, which, alas, ran out very quickly. Taught by bitter experience, Somoza decided not to engage in criminal affairs yet, but to increase his well-being through a profitable marriage. And such a girl was found. His life partner was Salvador Deboila, a representative of a clan of large landowners and financiers. And soon influential relatives first got their son-in-law into the Rockefeller Foundation, and then got him appointed “political chief” of the city of Leon with a decent monthly salary of 700 cordobas ($ 1 - 26 cordobas).

Rapid career

And in 1927, an uprising of liberals, supported by the Deboyle clan, broke out in the city of San Marco. It is clear that Anastasio immediately joined the rebels and was immediately appointed "commander of the southern flank." But when government troops launched an offensive, Somoza decided not to tempt fate and went over to the side of the enemy. The betrayal of the young "commander" and his desire to serve the government were appreciated and even awarded the rank of general. Soon, Anastasio meets a truly honored General Moncada, and since he needed an interpreter to communicate with the American military, on whose bayonets power in the country was held, Moncada approved Somoza for this position, subsequently making him his personal secretary. The Americans went further by proposing to appoint the young general as the commander of the National Guard, the largest military group in the country. And he longed to get to the top of the political Olympus. And such a case presented itself to him in 1936. By that time, the army of the leader of the national liberation movement, led by Augusto Cesar Sandino, suffered one defeat after another from the government forces. And then the rebel leader decided to end armed struggle... To this end, in February 1934, together with his brother Socrates and two associates, he went for negotiations to a meeting with the country's President Sakasa.
But his hopes for the nobility of the enemy did not come true. The revolutionary did not know that, at the suggestion of Somoza, it was decided to liquidate him. As a result, the parliamentarians were machine-gunned, and the next day the National Guards attacked the Sandinista stronghold - the village of Vivili. As a result of the organized massacre, all of its more than four hundred inhabitants were killed - men, women, children. This is how the bloody path was laid to the sole power. And two years later, Somoza, with the tacit approval of the Americans, makes a coup and sits in the presidency for twenty years.

"Hitler" from Managua

First blood intoxicates, so it is not surprising that, having become the head of state, the dictator began to crack down on dissidents. In record time, on the Tiskapa hill in the center of the capital, the "Closed Area" complex was erected - the presidential palace, the buildings of the police department and the command of the National Guard with barracks at them. A little later, the underground headquarters of the head of state and the prison will be born. In the meantime, Somoza has identified the right wing of his palace as a prison. The cells in it were shaped like a coffin placed vertically, so that the prisoners could only stand in this room. And at night the cries of the tortured could be heard from the chambers intended for torture. Moreover, Somoza took a personal part in the development of both methods and tools for knocking out readings. With a wooden spatula with holes (it turned out more painful), the sadists beat on their bare buttocks, forced the prisoners to stand with their bare feet on cut cans, attached bare wires to the most sensitive parts of the body for torture with electric current, or dripped sulfuric acid on them. Moreover, Somoza himself was a frequent guest at these executions.
But his twisted fantasies didn't end there. On the personal instructions of the dictator, a zoo was built on the territory of the "Closed Area", in the cages of which not cute animals lived, but predators: lions, tigers, hyenas and wolves. And as a daily ration, they received the meat of prisoners who died during torture or were still half-dead. Watching how his pets ate, Somose was especially delighted.
But his pathological hatred of communism sometimes reached the point of absurdity. Someone close to him told the patron that tango is the dance of the proletarians of Buenos Aires. And the very next day, a decree was issued, which ordered, on pain of death, to hand over tango records to police stations. In addition, during this procedure, law-abiding citizens were still required to pay a fine of 10 cordobas for each disc, which was immediately smashed against the owner's head. Moreover, during this execution, three old women went to the next world, and the owner of the cinema, in which they showed a film where the heroes perform tango, disappeared in the Somos dungeons. Cultural figures who created, in the dictator's opinion, "wrong" works were also persecuted. For example, abstract artists were blacklisted after Somoza learned that the famous Pablo Picasso was a communist.

President Roosevelt's favorite tyrant

Of course, the Americans, though unsuccessfully, tried to reason with the Latin American "Napoleon". After he said in a conversation with US President Franklin Roosevelt: “Democracy in my country is a child. Try to give the baby a hot pie with meat and pepper, and you will kill him ", a little later, in his circle, Roosevelt uttered a phrase that became winged:" Somoza is a son of a bitch, but this is our son of a bitch! "
But in vain the executioner, on whose orders more than 170 thousand people were killed, hoped to rule forever. In 1956, a group of young revolutionary poets were preparing an armed uprising against the regime. The signal to him should have been the assassination of the dictator, but for a number of reasons the speech had to be postponed. However, one of the participants in the conspiracy decided to carry out the death sentence. On September 29, Rigoberto Lopez Perez fired six bullets at the tyrant at the ball. True, for another two decades the country was ruled by the sons of Somoza - until 1979, when the dictatorship was overthrown by the soldiers of the National Liberation Front named after Augusto Sandino.

Nadein V.

Events in the Middle East have made clear a number of patterns that determine the emergence, ascension and fall of new personalist regimes. So in political science they define the possession of the alpha male, limited by the prevailing state borders... If the male's power is strong to the touch and to the tooth, then he is also lovingly called "our son of a bitch."

Looking at Wikipedia, you can easily see that the famous expression "He is, of course, a son of a bitch, but this is our son of a bitch" is a product of legend. Neither Franklin Roosevelt, who is credited with the dictum, nor his colleagues have ever uttered anything like this. Not about the Dominican satrap Trujillo, or about the Nicaraguan autocrat Samosa. Both dictators, rogues and sadists, were equally loathsome to the gentlemen of the White House.

However, the very term "our son of a bitch" has outlived legend. There was a great political need for successful adventurers who firmly saddled their own countries. Yes, shaking hands with such types in public is just a disgrace. But pushing away a dirty hand strewn with stolen diamonds is also bad business. If honor comes at a high cost, then cost savings can be achieved with precisely metered dishonor.

With the fall of communism, the need for sons of bitches seemed to have disappeared. Even scientific works appeared, as if forever. Ours, yours - everything is confused in the triumphant world of free enterprise. But the charm of guest capitalism did not last long. To replace Samos and Trujillo, replenishing the ranks of Gaddafi, Assads and Mubaraks, the Aliyevs and Kerimovs, Nazarbayevs and Niyazovs, Lukashenki and Putin crawled out of the rags into princes. Fathers, Turkmenbashi, preziks, national leaders.

The new elite was created rapidly, spontaneously and consisted, for the most part, of marauders. The leaders were nominated by chance, with a short bandit swoop. They were distinguished by low morals, ignorance, adventurism, fear. But as soon as the adventure was crowned with success, all inferiority complexes quickly developed into monstrous conceit and painful narcissism. They all liked themselves very much.

Unlike the dictatorships traditional for most of the last century, the new regimes turned out to be ideologically sterile. Attempts to fill spiritual voids with religion, nationalism, patriotism turn into failures, often openly comical. The only idea that new dictators can take over society is personal good. But arbitrariness is at the heart of the regime, and it is incompatible with fair competition. The golden gates of enrichment are thrown open only in front of the elite and only on the whistle of the supreme power. Corruption captures the entire society, it is omnipotent and easily breaks the backs of all hopes for a dignified life in conditions of general decay.

A huge gap in the incomes of the richest and poorest strata, the all-round separation of the elite from life ordinary people, destruction of the institutions of law and justice, cynical manipulation of elections, embezzlement from below to the very top, usurpation of funds mass media and, above all, the main channels of television - all this leads to a colossal power demand for lies. New dictators are sitting on a needle of lies. They lie to their own people, lie to strangers, lie to themselves, and every day they need increasing doses of drugs.

All these patterns, which clearly showed themselves in the ruins of the Middle East dictatorships, are fully applicable to most of the regimes that have developed on the territory of the Soviet Union, which has died in a bose.

Putin has ruled for 10 years, Lukashenko for 16, the youngest Aliyev from Baku for 12, Nazarbayev and Kerimov (Uzbekistan) for 22 years, Ben-Ali from Tunisia for 21 years, Mubarak for 30 years, Gaddafi for 42 years. They all work hard like slaves in galleys, but do not have time to get tired. They all love what they do and the way they do it. Sechin, Putin's oil guardsman, has just said in an interview with an American newspaper that “we have political stability one of the highest in the world. " To which the reporter, unable to resist, remarked: "Mubarak probably said the same thing." But to all of them, what dictators, what dictatorial lackeys, lie - what a cherry to eat. “I don’t know,” Sechin said. "Didn't hear that."

Heard. In April 2005, during (then) President Putin's visit to Cairo, the guest and host boasted to each other of the special forms of democracy that are equally inherent in Egypt and Russia. And Sechin was sitting in the first row at that press conference.

Self-ruling rule over peoples is an ancient occupation, going back thousands of years. Last century presented history with a terrible constellation of tyrants of unsurpassed ferocity. But these murderers, no matter how much blood trickled from their axes, differed in their special attitude towards banking assets. It is ridiculous to assume that Hitler, Stalin or Mao would have thought of secretly saving millions in foreign currency and offshore. They could have lost the idea of the purchasing power of the ruble or the yuan, but the tyrants could not afford to waste sweaty foreign bills in their pockets.

The main difference between the new sons of bitches and the old-fashioned tyrants is their irrepressible greed. Everything manifests itself at the hour when they are driven. Marcos from the Philippines, Suharto from Indonesia, Bakiyev from Kyrgyzstan, Ben-Ali from Tunisia, Mubarak from Egypt. Every time it turns out that the fathers of the nation, who have just shone with diamond perfection, are thieves. With billions in the West and a hot airplane on the porch, the now reigning marauders hope to cheat fate.

But before screwing themselves into the cold sky, they all become democrats. Yesterday they shot at the opposition - today they promise to sit down at a welcoming negotiating table. Yesterday they arrogantly declared that they know better than anyone else their temporary shortcomings, but also the ways to correct them. Today they promise to settle everything in a week or two. Long decades were not enough for them to show anything in the TV window except their shiny hari. Now they are praying for three more days, so that freedom will reign throughout the territory under the mandate, inaccessible to Franklin and Jefferson.

Pay attention: about each son of a bitch, the subordinate services spread rumors that the owner is about to be imbued with the spirit of freedom and will raise the temperature of domestic liberalism either by half a degree, or for the entire thaw. They whispered about each one with the hope that, if not us, then our children ... Let not the children, but certainly the grandchildren ... But now the children are decrepit, and the grandchildren have turned gray, and the son of a bitch strengthens stability.

Peace and grace would have settled forever in the luxurious kennels of the sons of bitches, if not for the party, the secret police and the army. The handy party, Is it One Russia, Is it One Egypt, One Jamahiriya, or whatever it is, everything, in fact, is rubbish. How much they applauded enthusiastically, how much they swore on the Bibles and Korans, how much they stole and took to Europe - there was no case that they took even the first battle and did not scatter at the sound of the first protest. The police are scoundrels, the army is traitors, and the people do not care at all. Yesterday he unanimously approved, now he will unanimously tear it to shreds. Element.

But the biggest disappointment of the supreme fugitives is the eternally damned West. On the one hand, without him - nowhere. Even if you don't take it yourself, there are children, uncles, the Suez cooperative. Money flows to the top of power by gravity, in spite of Newton and Marx. You have to be a complete idiot to store your hard-earned billions in hryvnia, drachma or tenge. But Geneva is also good. You are still in the heat of battles for their own stability, and they have already frozen your assets. So believe in democracy after that.

And yet the main, guiding and defining feature of all sons of bitches is their unyielding optimism that does not lend itself to any reason. Nero was stabbed to death, Hitler shot himself, Stalin lay on the floor overnight in his vomit. Trujillo was blown up, Ceausescu was shot, Saddam was hanged. But no, each of the new dictators thinks that he will escape his Egypt and slip a happy express from his kennel to his mausoleum.