GLYNN WASHINGTON: From NPR and WBEZ in Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Glynn Washington. And this week, we're playing with Peter Grosz, Mo Rocca and Faith Salie. And again, here is your host at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Glynn. Thanks, everybody. Right now it's time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAITWAIT to play our game on the air.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
CAROLINE BECHTEL: Hi, Peter. This is Caroline from Wellesley, Mass.
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SAGAL: Wellesley, beautiful Wellesley - been there many a time. I have, on occasion, run through Wellesley in the Boston Marathon.
BECHTEL: And through the screen tunnel, I suppose.
SAGAL: Yes. This is - for people that don't know, at the halfway point, more or less, in the Boston Marathon, many of the students at Wellesley all hold up signs saying kiss me, I'm Jewish or kiss me, I'm an English major or whatever it may be at the runners going by. Have you ever done that?
BECHTEL: Oh, yes. My freshman year, I got 120 kisses. I was very popular.
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SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Caroline. It is nice to have you with us. You're going to play our game in which you must tell truth from fiction. Glynn Washington, what is Caroline's topic?
WASHINGTON: All bluff topics must be approved by Vladimir Putin.
SAGAL: The Cold War is over. The U.S. and Russia have gone from being the world's greatest enemies to the world's greatest frenemies. And now we're friends with benefits. An unknown story, though, of the Cold War surfaced just this week, decades after it ended. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's telling the truth and you will win our prize, Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
BECHTEL: Oh, yeah.
SAGAL: Well, first let's hear from Mo Rocca.
MO ROCCA: In 1981, gymnastics coaching legend Bela Karolyi defected from Romania to the United States. Newly unearthed documents reveal that as Karolyi coached the 1984 U.S. women's team from his new home in Norman, Okla., the Romanians hatched a scheme to kidnap Karolyi along with the entire U.S. women's team. At 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 12, 1984, after a long day of practice, Karolyi, followed single file by the six gymnasts, trooped into a nearby Chuck E. Cheese. After each gymnast played one game - and one game only - of "Ms. Pac-Man," they sat down to eat.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Romanian agent Alessandro Pietro (ph), posing as a restaurant worker, prepared one big bowl and six tiny cups of borscht laced with powdered Benadryl.
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ROCCA: The plan was to sedate the team and then, without anyone noticing, carry them outside where a 1976 AMC Gremlin hatchback...
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ROCCA: ...The closest thing to a communist car, was waiting. Pietro would lay Karolyi in the passenger seat then stack the six sleeping gymnasts in back and drive away.
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ROCCA: Pietro approached the table. (Imitating Romanian accent) Hi, I'm Alex, your server. Welcome to Chuck E. Cheese, the most fun to be had in eastern Oklahoma. We'd like to start you off with an amuse bouche, borscht, as we know it's your favorite. Karolyi turned a beet red. Borscht is Slavic. I am Hungarian and only eat goulash. Only a Romanian secret agent attempting to kidnap me and my gymnasts...
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ROCCA: ...Would tried to fool me this way. The Romanian agent stuck his landing, all right - in the parking lot outside.
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ROCCA: (Chanting) U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A.
SAGAL: The heretofore hidden story of the attempted kidnapping of Bela Karolyi and his team by Romania. Your next story of a warmed-over Cold War comes from Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: If you think there's nothing funnier than photos of Vladimir Putin shirtless while wrestling a bear or tranquilizing a whale, think again. Because the CIA just declassified some intelligence archives that contain two pages of Soviet jokes from the 1980s. Yes, our government sent stealth operatives to investigate Cold War knee-slappers.
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SALIE: Here's one chestnut. A man goes into a shop and asks, you don't have any meat? No, replies the saleslady, we don't have any fish. It's the store across the street that doesn't have any meat.
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SALIE: While you're catching your breath, here's another.
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SALIE: A worker standing in a liquor line says, (imitating Slavic accent) I have had enough. Save my place. I'm going to shoot Gorbachev. Two hours later, he returns to claim his place in line. His friends ask, did you get him? No, he answers, (imitating Slavic accent) the line there was even longer than the line here.
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SAGAL: A cache of Soviet jokes finally released to the light of day. Your last secret of the Cold War is going to be revealed by Peter Grosz.
PETER GROSZ: During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union fought each other on several fronts. Many were cool and intriguing and the stuff of spy novels. Others were patently ridiculous. This week, declassified CIA documents revealed several plans both we and the Soviets hatched to try to undermine and destabilize the other country that were so bad they have been reclassified as horrible.
One particularly lame tactic, first proposed by the KGB, was to intentionally pick embarrassing code names for our president and then leak that name in order to embarrass him. Among the suggested nicknames for Ronald Reagan was Banan Kovboy, or Banana Cowboy, a reference to the ignoble portions of his film career. When the CIA found out about that, we countered by referring to Mikhail Gorbachev, famous for his splotchy birthmarks on his head, as Dalmatian. And we even called his wife, Raisa, Cruella de Vil.
When the Soviets heard about that, they turned red, even redder than normal. They began referring to Reagan as Dedulya Jelly Bean, or Grandpa Jelly Bean.
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GROSZ: The program was scrapped after it was clear that we would win the Cold War and far too many feelings would be hurt.
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SAGAL: All right, then. Here are your choices...
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SAGAL: ...From Mo Rocca, the story of a nearly successful kidnapping of Bela Karolyi and the American gymnast team by Romania; from Faith Salie, the revelation of a cache of pretty good Soviet jokes; and from Peter Grosz, a series of insulting code names that each country used to distract the other. Which of these is the real story revealed from the Cold War archives?
BECHTEL: Oh, geez, well, I think I'm going to go with Faith's story. I think it's that one.
SAGAL: Faith's story?
BECHTEL: I think it's the jokes, yeah.
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SAGAL: All right. You've chosen Faith's story. Well, to find out the correct answer, we spoke with someone very familiar - with the real story.
YAKOV SMIRNOFF: In the Soviet Union, we had the department of jokes. I had to...
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SMIRNOFF: ...Submit my material. They would approve that material, and then you had to stay with the script.
SAGAL: That was, yes, comedian Yakov Smirnoff talking about Soviet jokes. Remember, in Soviet Russia, listener bluffs you.
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SAGAL: So you have won a point for Faith. But you have also won the prize for yourself, which is Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Congratulations.
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SALIE: Thank you, Caroline. (Unintelligible).
BECHTEL: (Unintelligible).
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.