Thank you! As a former US intelligence officer and Soviet specialist, I’m also a hard core Russophile. I found my career when I fell in love with Russian language and literature as a college student during the Cold War.

While my colleagues and I recognized that the conflict between the US and the USSR was fraught with difficulty, almost all of us (who were any good at what we did) recognized that Russians as people share many admirable values in common with most Americans.

Demonizing or ridiculing Russians means ignoring a vast body of glorious art, a long history of overcoming and facing up to suffering with perseverance and joy, and forgetting that Russian immigrants are an important part of the American story.

I hate that the Trump/Putin scandals are rekindling American Russophobia.