The cowardice of appeasers, vintage 1975. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had just taken up residence in the US. One day, he was addressing a meeting literally blocks from the White House, in which resided at the time Nixon's appointed successor, the forgettable and mostly forgotten Gerald Ford, who was readying himself for a trip to the Soviet Union and a good old kowtow at the feet of Leonid Brezhnev, Moscow's then-tyrant-in-chief. Solzhenitsyn expressed interest in shaking the head of the leader of the free world as a gesture of solidarity against Muscovite tyranny, but Ford, who had privately called Solzhenitsyn "a horse's ass," refused to meet him, lest the Soviets disapprove. As Paul Kengor describes it in his article:

"[Pres. Ford] threw Solzhenitsyn under the bus. Ford desired to please Leonid Brezhnev more than displease Alexander Solzhenitsyn.]"

Well, just ask yourself which name history will remember: Solzhenitsyn, or the horse's ass in the White House.