THE SECRET STORY OF THE SOVIET PLATES

Yesterday (8/28), the State Department announced it was issuing new diplomatic license plates to the foreign embassies here in Washington.  Since the old design was similar to that of some US states, the new plates' design is supposed to reduce the confusion.

Here is the old/new comparison from the State press release:

 
Which gives me an opportunity to tell you the coolest story you ever heard about license plates.  It's about Soviet license plates during the Cold War, and the true name of "The Reagan Doctrine."

The story begins with my getting a phone call in 1985 from a buddy of mine working in the Reagan White House, Dana Rohrabacher (who has been a Congressman, R-CA, since 1988).  The conversation went like this:

DR:  "Jack, you know those diplomatic license plates the State Department gives for the cars of ambassadors and their staff?"

JW:  "Yeah, they have two letter codes for each country, like AF is Japan, KS is Mexico, XZ is Australia.  I happen to know those and maybe a few others."

DR:  "Right.  Well, they're not supposed to be publicly known.  So this columnist in the [Washington] Post just disclosed the code for the Soviet Embassy in his column and the Soviets are all bent out of shape.  They say it compromises the security of their ambassador and staff, and are demanding we issue them new plates."

Actually, the story doesn't begin here but almost 20 years earlier.  So let's interrupt this conversation and start at the beginning.

It was early 1966 and Dana and I have just met.  Ronald Reagan had appointed me State Chairman of Youth for Reagan for his California Governor campaign.  Dana, just out of high school, had volunteered and I put him on my staff.  He was 19 and I was 22. 

He came over to my place and over a beer we talked about why we admired Ronald Reagan.  Yes, he wanted to "get the government off our backs and out of our wallets," but what we really loved him for was his Anti-Communism.

It turned out Dana and I felt exactly the same way about the Soviet Union and saw no difference between the Soviets and the Nazis.  The more beer we drank, the more exercised we got about Soviet evil, comparing e.g., the Nazis' Jewish Holocaust to the Soviets' Ukrainian Holocaust, Nazi concentration camps to the Soviets' Gulag, Nazi colonization of countries like France with Soviet colonization of Eastern Europe.

Finally, we raised our glasses in a spontaneous toast:  "FTC – F**k the Commies."

It sealed and bonded our life-long friendship.  Whenever we would get together, we always made the toast:  "FTC."

Fifteen years later, Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, and several of the kids in Youth for Reagan were now in their 30s and working in the White House – including Dana.  When we got together in his new office, we clinked our coffee cups and said, "FTC."  Then I asked – "So, when do we start FTC for real?"

It wasn't long before the toast of FTC became the verbal secret handshake between all the true "Reaganauts" throughout the Reagan White House.

It took the press until 1985 to figure out President Reagan had developed a strategy to win the Cold War.  It was Charles Krauthammer, in the April 1, 1985 edition of Time Magazine, who named the strategy "The Reagan Doctrine."  But to the small cabal of us who had conceived and were busy implementing it, that was never the name.

For us, what the press called The Reagan Doctrine, we called… FTC.  That's the real name of The Reagan Doctrine.

Now we can resume that 1985 conversation:

JW:  "New plates?  Well, my, my, my.  Too bad the code has only two letters instead of three…"

DR:  "It turns out that I know the fellow at State in charge of assigning these codes.  He told me about this and knows about FTC – but as you say, it has to be two letters and not three."

JW:  "What about FC – F**king Communists?"

DR:  FC!  Yes, that's perfect.  I'll give my friend a call right now."

JW:  "Problem is, it won't take long for the Sovs to figure out what it stands for.  So why not have your guy tell them that this is a pain in the neck so we'll do this only once – they have to agree to not ask for another change ever again."

DR:  "Done."

So it was.  Before long, Soviet Embassy cars in Washington were displaying diplomatic plates with the two-letter code "FC."  Every spook in town quickly knew what it stood for.  I was driving around Georgetown one day with this CIA guy when a Soviet limo drove by.  "Look!" he exclaimed and pointed, "F**king Communists!"  I had to tell him how the FC got there.  He laughed his head off.

So now you know and I hope you're laughing your own head off.  Of course, the Soviet Commies eventually knew what FC meant but they couldn't complain and ask for another code change – all the way to the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.

Then the newly-independent Russia with Boris Yeltsin in charge asked for a change and it was given to them:  YR.  It must be galling for Putin to know what it stands for:  Yeltsin's Russia.  It's YR to this day and we're not about to change it to PR to satisfy Pootie-Poot.

And yes, Dana's and my toast remains FTC – not only in tribute to Ronald Reagan's winning the Cold War, but in awareness of those Communists remaining, such as in Havana, Caracas, Pyongyang, Hanoi, and most of all, Beijing.

FTC, folks…