dukakis and hypnotoad (1988)

The 1988 Dukakis v Bush presidential campaign was Orwellian because it was heavily influenced by the defense industry. This isn't weird for modern American campaigns. The weird part is both Dukakis and Bush were friendly to the defense industry. Bush's team described Dukakis as a peace candidate who wanted to defund the military. This was not true but everybody believed it anyway.

This was an untrue partisan narrative that the population believed. It was untrue because Dukakis was an Army veteran who wanted to shift (not end) Cold War military spending from unproven and expensive anti ballistic missile weaponry to tangible military assets. John Kerry--Dukakis' Lieutenant Governor--was similarly smeared during the 2004 Swiftboat campaign. Kerry was a Vietnam Veteran against the Vietnam War. Dukakis was a candidate against the Star Wars program. Neither men wanted to defund the defense industry they just wanted to fight popular wars with proven methods.

The Reagan-Bush administration was no different. They continued Nixon era narco wars in South-Central America. They continued the American alliance with the Saudi-Aramco state from the 1940s. They continued the Iranian meddling that started in the 1950. They funded the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets--creating a power vacuum filled by the Taliban. These wars were not large scale public wars WWII, Korea or Vietnam. American war industry learned that covert (at least unpublicized) wars--[like in Columbia, Cambodia, the Philippines, or Cuba]--are easier to pursue if they aren't treated like public conflicts--[like in Western Europe, Korea or Vietnam]--especially when things go badly. And they usually do.

The Reagan-Bush administration excelled in taking credit for clandestine victories and brushing off clandestine defeats. The solution to the Iranian hostage crisis (1979-81) is a show of competence that caused Reagan to beat Carter. The Algiers Accords (1981), release of American prisoners and Reagan's inaugural happened in two consecutive days in 1981. Perhaps this was an orchestrated October Surprise. What makes it Orwellian is that Reagan-Bush were celebrating during the midpoint of a crisis that America started in 1950s and continues today. Declaring victory without a change on the ground is dissonant but not unprecedented.

The expansion of Nixon era drug policy was aimed at domestic targets as well. Bush's take on this racial profiling is in line with Nixon and Reagan--all three men used the War on Drugs as a proxy for a war on racial minorities. Bush's version of the anti-crime/anti-black nexus was on display in 1988. He featured two ads which targeted a Massachusetts prison furlough program during Dukakis' administration. The "Willie Horton" and "Revolving Doors" ads build on racial fear that increased as segregation (de facto and de jure) decreased.

In 1988 Dukakis was faced with Bush's unfair attacks about his (lack of) bloodlust and (proximity to) lenient prisons. Instead of leaning into leftist ideas (like turning swords into ploughshares or reforming prisons for reform not punishment) Dukakis decided to channel the most prominent conservative of the day (and ally of the Reagan-Bush administration): Margaret Thatcher. This was a bad idea but not because Thatcher riding a tank isn't an iconic picture. This is a bad idea because there aren't many voters to the right of the Reagan-Bush administration. Even those hard core John Birch-Ayn Rand individualists who don't think Reaganomics trickles down slow enough would be very suspicious of a post Kennedy Democrat from Massachusetts.

Dukakis was recreating a trope of politician tank photographs that Thatcher perfected. [1976], [1986]). Dukakis' attempted it in September 1988.

Some American politicos believe Dukakis' mistake was covering his hair with a helmet. But Thatcher wore a scarf, ear and eye protection and a helmet in her photos from West Germany. Neo-Thatcherian Liz Truss recreated the image from Ukraine in 2021 [thesun.co.uk]. Truss is more geared up then either of her predecessors with body armor, headphones and a very Dukakian helmet.

Josh King wrote the retrospective "Dukakis and the Tank" for [politico.com] in 2013. King worked on the 1988 Dukakis campaign. He continued in Democratic administrations. In his experience a Dukakis tank moment refers to staged events that exhibit "broader laws of unintended consequences."

To King, the photo-op is more then wearing headwear before focus testing it. It is about political "inertia" within a campaign. King reruns the campaign with hindsight. Dukakis should have "used his biography to greater advantage during the general election. Instead, he fixed his message on competence and left himself vulnerable..." Bush's victory, to King, is based on a political messaging battle between Bush's security-state narrative and Dukakis' technocratic reform narrative. The blatant construction of reality in lieu of political discourse is an Orwellian semantic battle.

Dukakis' narrative was based on a speech he gave in New Hampshire in February 1988 [apnews.com]. According to a contemporary AP report by John Diamond Dukakis described his plan for "a 50 percent reduction in strategic weapons and a ban on nuclear warhead testing and weapons in space, coupled with a strengthening of the nation's conventional forces." In the New Hampshire speech Dukakis refused to write more "blank checks to the Pentagon or anybody else."

In this speech Dukakis didn't want to limit spending on (what Diamond called) "conventional forces." In this speech Dukakis said he would use military force against the Soviet Union, and any "government in Central or South America" that didn't follow the rules based nationalist order defined by the Monroe Doctrine. The distinction that he made with the Reagan-Bush administration had to do with funding the clandestine war in Nicaragua, using executive authority to fight undeclared wars, and the World Court. Dukakis' February speech was about fighting conventional war and avoiding clandestine or nuclear war. From that Bush created a counter-narrative that framed Dukakis as an anti-war candidate.

Instead of countering the Bush counter-narrative with facts about Dukakis personal history or proposals to audit the defense budget Dukakis went to General Dynamics headquarters near Detroit to do a photo op in a M1A1 Abrams Tank.

The Democratic primaries ended on June 7. Dukakis was the party's nominee. Instead of campaigning he summered in western Massachusetts until Labor Day. While Dukakis was on vacation, the Bush team campaigned against him. Dukakis lost 17 points in the polls and Bush led by October.

According to King, in the three months after the primaries the Republicans attacked Dukakis' "patriotism," "mental fitness," and the Massachusetts furlough bill. The patriotism issue concerned compulsory pledge of allegiance in public school. The mental fitness was about Dukakis getting mental health treatment. The furlough bill was a proxy for white racism. In all three cases, Lee Atwater (Bush's campaign manager) was historically at odds with his own party. Compulsory anything in public space is a core critique of Libertarians. Getting treatment for mental health was quickly destigmatizing in 1988. Today, recognizing mental illness and refusing treatment is more stigmatized then seeking professional help. Even the Republican southern strategy of white supremacy has started to fade. The RNC chairman Ken Mehlman apologized to the NAACP national convention in Milwaukee during a speech in 2005. He was apologizing for the broader movement that included Atwater's use of "Willie Horton" and the "Revolving Door" ads.

It only took twenty years for the Bush campaign's tactics against Dukakis to become shameful and unpopular. That didn't end the cultivation of narratives without facts in American politics. This is Orwellian because the construction of political reality happens in public and nobody wonders why the historical pieces are fluid. The fluidity of the past seems to favor the present party in power.

Of the narrative controversies that Atwater constructed for the Bush campaign the "Willie Horton" and "Revolving Door" ads are most infamous. The Willie Horton ad builds on the GOP's lust after capital punishment. A transcript:

Narrator: "Bush and Dukakis on crime. Bush supports the death penalty for first degree murderers. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willie Horton who murdered a boy in a robbery stabbing him nineteen times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received ten weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes. Dukakis on crime."

The Willie Horton ad trafficked in race, crime and fear. A furlough program fact sheet was released by the Massachusetts Department of Correction in 1976. The report found a "significant decrease[]" in annual furloughs between 1973 and 1975. The "escape rate by individuals furloughed" was also going down to 3.5% in 1975. The report concludes "data indicates that the [D.O.C.] has effectively tightened up the administration of the furlough program, as evidenced by the fewer numbers of residents currently being furloughed and the corresponding decrease in the number of residents who are failing to return from furlough." Bush attacked Dukakis because he vetoed a bill that would cancel the program in 1976. Based on the D.O.C. and Boston University findings, the program was reducing recidivism. The D.O.C. also claimed to tighten oversight during this period.

The Bush team followed the Willie Horton ad with the Revolving Door ad. A transcript:

Onscreen text: THE DUKAKIS FURLOUGH PROGRAM

Narrator: "As Governor, Michael Dukakis vetoed mandatory sentences for drug dealers. He vetoed the death penalty. His revolving door prison policy gave weekend furloughs to first degree murders not eligible for parole."

Onscreen text: 268 ESCAPED

Narrator: "While out many committed other crimes like kidnapping and rape and many are still at large. Now Michael Dukakis says he wants to do for America what he's done for Massachusetts. America can't afford that risk."

The Revolving Door ad is not as obvious in it's racial dog whistle. It does stoke fear of crime using real numbers. The whole numbers are presented without the D.O.C. and BU percentages for maximum political effect. Three things stand out regarding Bush's anti-furlough campaign. First, the program wasn't Dukakis'. He was just unfortunate enough to trust the technocrats in the D.O.C. and academics at B.U. when they said it worked. Second, furlough programs were used by 38 states in 1984. Third, the Massachusetts furlough program ended while Dukakis was still Governor of the state. Focusing on Dukakis' first term without admitting to his second term is very cynical.

Following the catastrophic summer--Dukakis' wanted to counter some of the Bush machine's attacks. The medium of reintroducing Dukakis was the tank ride.

Dukakis' advisors included Madeline Albright (who thought 500,000 dead Iraqi kids was "worth it"), Sam Nunn (who was a member of a whites only golf club) and Bill Clinton (who advised authenticity Dukakis against pretense.) Dukakis had surrounded himself with neoliberal hawks. The ones who advised Dukakis' on his personal presentation preached authenticity. They were and are hypocrites. They were unable to see the irony of their advice because they thought everybody's personal narrative was constructed by advisors just like theirs had been.

Personal narratives that emphasize authenticity are great! They should not be constructed by outsider advisors. Personal narratives that don't emphasize authenticity are also great! They can be constructed by advertisers, campaign managers, depersonalized drug users, reality tv stars, coming-of-age children and many other sources. Presenting one's constructed personal narrative as an authentic personal narrative is foolish. It is also bad politics. A Dukakis shouldn't cosplay as a Thatcher. It is as inauthentic as Ronald Reagan playing rancher. George W. Bush looks like a cowboy at Crawford Ranch. Ronald Reagan looks like an actor playing a cowboy at Rancho del Cielo.

According to King, Dukakis' day as Margaret Thatcher required "tricky choreography" to hide any "unflattering imagery." The press could only cover the event from a special corral. There were plans for "[c]ontaining hecklers." With the free press and free speech accounted for--the team started to worry about the helmet. Part of Dukakis image campaign was a "standing rule" about hats. King described the rule "headwear given to the governor could be appreciatively received and cheerfully waved on stage but should not, under any circumstances rest on his head." Campaigning in the 1980s isn't about kissing babies and shaking hands. It is about censoring debate and hat protocol. This one way America in the eighties was like the Spanish Inquisition.

The M1A1 tank manufacturers required a helmet for safety and communication. Dukakis' team reiterated their hat policy. To King, "[s]cuttling the tank ride would have brough a host of questions from the press corps," not riding the tank could be seen as a "cop out," worse yet a "slow crawl...without the helmet would have invited its own chorus or ridicule." The debate between General Dynamics safety monitors and the Dukakis press team is stupid.

While the focus of the animal farm collection is Orwellian thought, the General Dynamics - Dukakis helmet debate is Kafkaesque. Orwell emphasizes the intersection of truth and power in language. Kafka looks at the existential absurdity of the systems which humans create for themselves. In the M1A1 example--neither General Dynamics nor the Dukakis campaign need the photo op. Both sides will probably lose from the photo op. They don't postpone or cancel due the perceived fear of ridicule. As consensus builds against the entire operation--negotiations around the periphery ensue. When those negotiations fail the whole absurd (and doomed) operation continues. This unreasonable Kafkaesque force is what King calls political "inertia."

Even though the choreography is inauthentic and the inertia is absurd the two forces are how King and other Dukakians described the historical narrative. The weeks preceding the photo op are concerned with choreography. Where will Dukakis mount the tank? How many passes will the tank take? Will they be fast or slow passes? How close will they be to the press corral? Will he wear the helmet for some or all? From a Dukakian standpoint the whole story--and campaign--comes down to the helmet (and to a lesser extent the nametag on the helmet).

The press made fun of Dukakis for the helmet. Not the ride. Not the promise to fund military projects. Not the two years spent in Korea. This is where the Dukakis-Bush campaign becomes Orwellian again. The photo op became fodder for a Bush-Quale television ad. The text that ran with the tank photo:

[Narrator:] "Michael Dukakis has opposed virtually every defense system we develop. He opposed new aircraft carriers. He opposed anti satellite weapons. He opposed four missile systems, including the Pershing II deployment. Dukakis opposed the Stealth bomber and a ground emergency warning system against nuclear attack. He even criticized our rescue mission to Grenada and our strike on Libya. Now he wants to be our commander in chief? America can't afford that risk."
The word "virtually" is doing the Orwellian lift here. Dukakis did not oppose military spending. He opposed "blank checks." When the election is a choice between funding conventional war for peace and space laser war for peace then war is the only option to ensure an end to conflict. Dukakis, quoted by King, believes it was his inability to engage Bush in the narrative battle which cost him the election, "I lost the election because I made a decision not to respond to the Bush attack campaign, and in retrospect it was a pretty dumb decision."

The Pershing II program is a nuclear capable medium range ballistic missile (W-85 variable yield warhead 5-80 kilotons) protested by Plowshares, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a half a million West Germans which replaced Pershing 1as beginning in 1983. The system could launch a nuclear weapon at a target 1,100 miles away. The Pershing II was developed between 1974 and 1977. Its field service started in 1983 and ended when they were outlawed in 1991. 234 of them were destroyed that year.

Pershing I, Ia and II were the subject of misinformation campaigns aimed toward the U.S.S.R. and the domestic audience. One shifting contention is that the Pershing II could hit Moscow from West Germany. The U.S.S.R. believed it could but the official stance was that it's range was limited to Warsaw Pact countries west of Moscow. The U.S.S.R. also believed the missile was a ground penetrating weapon. The DoD didn't correct this mistake either. It continues today. According to Cliff Lethbridge at Spaceline "In addition, the Pershing II was equipped with an advanced, deadly ground-penetrating warhead which could cause considerable damage even to reinforced or underground structures."

The American domestic audience was also being propagandized by the DoD. According to Charles Mohr in the New York Times the program was expected to cost $2.8 B and a companion "ground-launched cruise missile" program would cost another $2 B. These programs were launched in the 1970s and were to be obsolete and internationally stigmatized by 1991. Dukakis was totally right about siphoning this $4.8 B from the DoD and to something that wont be worthless. That Bush's team made the hindsight argument only three years before the program would be obsolete is laughable.
In 1987 the G.A.O. released a report to the Army titled "CONTRACT PRICING: Material Prices Overstated in Pershing II Contract." This report concluded that the DoD subcontractor who was awarded the Pershing II contract "did not disclose the most accurate, complete, and current cost or pricing data available" which was unlawful. The G.A.O. identified $1.2 M in waste between November 1984 and April 1985. The subcontractor would bill the DoD for one price and then renegotiate the contract. They would charge the DoD for old invoices and receive different deliveries. Their prices were also "unsupported" by "any supporting data." The result was about $250,000 of waste every month. If the Pershing II program was $2 B spent over 15 years then its monthly budget was about $11 M. Monthly 2% ($250,000) of the $11 M Pershing II budget was stolen according to the G.A.O. Extrapolating over the fifteen years that this bad science became obsolete weaponry accounts for $3.75 M in waste.

The United States invasion of Grenada codenamed Operation Urgent Fury was a suppression of Marxist-Leninist New Jewel movement. This group ran Grenada elections between 1979 and the American occupation. Revolution and Intervention in Granada: The New Jewel Movement, the United States, and the Caribbean by Shoenhals and Melanson provides a history of the events. In a review for the Hispanic American Historical Review Richard Hart believes contentions are reinforced by the book: "U.S. citizens in Grenada were in no danger before the invasion; the governor-general’s letter requesting external intervention was a postdated cover-up; the call for use of U.S. armed forces by certain Caribbean governments was made at U.S. request; there was, in fact, no military airport under construction; there was no internal disorder in Grenada." The disorder was stage to manufacture intervention.

Grenada was a neoliberal imperialist extension of the Monroe Doctrine. Bush was wrong to support this type of intervention regardless of Dukakis' worldview. The soft on Libya accusations have to do with the 1984 Libyan hostage crisis. This event was one of many western interventions into Brotherly Leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime between 1977 and 2011. Neither political party could avoid intervening here. The Gaddafi regime was ended by an Obama State Department coup in 2011.

There are reasons to question Star Wars, clandestine wars and overt imperialism. Dukakis could have engaged Bush's political narrative with one of fiscal responsibility in the army (Bush's no new taxes was always unrealistic). Dukakis' military volunteerism could also be used to embrace Bush's "thousand points of light" narrative--proving it to be to vague to mean anything.

Of course Dukakis was still being advised by Clinton, Albright, Nunn and Kerry--inauthentic people who construct authentic personas--so his counter-counter narrative would be choreographed and cultivated just like the tank photo op. The debate would be between Bush's caricature of Dukakis: an effeminate hippy and the Dukakis team's version: John Rambo with an austerity fetish. An American Thatcher.

Instead, a more authentic personal narrative about a immigrant, who spoke different languages at home, who volunteered for the Army after being accepted to an Ivy League school, who declared Sacco & Vanzetti day in Massachusetts... Anything to run to the left of Bush.

That Dukakis sacrificed the truthful personal narrative that got him elected Governor and won the Democratic Primary--the short, Greek technocrat for a fanciful construction as a strong military leader is funny and sad. Dukakis' team created a photograph that could represent his authentic military credentials. It failed because manufacturing authenticity is hard. Dukakis' team could have used a picture of Dukakis in the field from Korea.

Candidates obliterate their personal narrative on the advice of their political handlers all the time. Some times it works, sometimes it does not. One thing that doesn't work is changing a belief during the campaign. In other professions adapting to new information is a skill. In American politics it is a bad thing.

When a politician changes their mind on issues that they have power over it doesn't appear like they are aligning their personal beliefs with the majority opinion. Instead it seems like they had no convictions outside of political calculus. For Kerry this was called "flip-flopping" about war. For Obama it was an "evolution" about same-sex marriage. For Bush it was "no new taxes."

Dukakis had two different takes on SDI during the 1988 campaign. The first was cutting the program's annual budget to $1 billion. This money would only be used for research. The days of American escalation were over. The prosed SDI budget at the end of Bush's presidency was $55 billion (this is the end of Brilliant Pebbles). The defense department had $54 billion reasons to back Bush against Dukakis. Dukakis was on the side of the scientists--like the American Physical Society--who believed that more research was needed before any practical application of space weaponry.

Realizing his error, Dukakis and his team changed course in early September 1988. He sold out science and sided with deployment of unproven weapons in service of national security. He was no longer concerned with violating the anti-ballistic missile treaty either. He was also reneging on a promise he made to the American Legion to focus America's military spending on conventional, rather than fanciful, weapons.

The fact that neither political party promotes candidates that have personal convictions isn't Orwellian. The fact that these candidates promise things closing Guantanamo Bay or codifying Roe v. Wade without intending to deliver isn't Orwellian. The lack of a correlation between voter sentiment and public policy is not Orwellian.

The fact that American's keep calling their political system a representative democracy is Orwellian. The system has failed because political presentation has become more important than political policy.

Political image consultants as a class would disappear if people voted for candidates instead of campaigns. The Dukakis tank photo was a miscalculation by Dukakis press team as a messaging tool. That Dukakis was duped by image consultants who were inauthentic themselves (like Clinton, Albright, Nunn) and took their advice on presenting as authentic is incredible. Of the political handlers in this cynical retelling of the 1988 election, only Atwater has the capacity for self reflection.

Atwater wrote an apology to his opponents from his deathbed in 1991. It was published in Life. He didn't really apologize to Dukakis for the 1988 election. He did apologize for the "naked cruelty" of his actions which make him "sound racist." Rowland Evans and Robert Novak did not rebutted his apology in an op-ed for the Washington Post opinion column on 5 April 1991.

Elections are partisan. Photo ops, personal narratives, apologies and acceptance are partisan. Apologies are like biographies--tools to obtain and maintain power. Partisans have no reason to accept apologies or seek compromise in an environment dominated by political narratives. If history is detached from truth then the two parties can always be at war with each other.

The media treatment of Dukakis was terrible. It revealed an alliance between the defense department, corporate media and the American political establishment. Bernard Shaw (of CNN): "By agreement with our candidates the first question goes to Governor Dukakis. You have two minutes to respond. Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered--would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer."

Dukakis said he is anti death penalty. He said it in a way that people didn't like. The question was a pretty rough way to start the debate. Bernard Shaw is a Marine, Vietnam veteran and embedded reporter who had the foresight to be in Iraq to announce the American invasion had begun. His military service credentials should also include the political assassination of Dukakis in 1988. He remained a legitimate reporter for years after revealing himself during this partisan event.

print sources:

APS Study Group Participants, APS Council Review Committee "Report to the American Physical Society on science and technology of directed energy weapons" Rev. Mod. Phys. 59, S1 (1 July 1987). [aps.org]

Atwater, Lee and Todd Brewster Life February 1991. Reviewed in NYT/AP "Gravely Ill, Atwater Offers Apology" 13 January 1991 NYT National pg. 16 [nytimes.com]

Diamond, John. "Dukakis Calls for Stronger Conventional Forces" 14 February 1988 [apnews.com]

Drogin, Bob. "'Not Opposed' to 'Star Wars,' Dukakis Says" Los Angeles Times 9 September 1988 [latimes.com]

Farrington, Faye. "Massachusetts Furlough Program Statistical Fact Sheet" Division of Research: Massachusetts Department of Correction May 1976 [ojp.gov]

G.A.O. "Report to the Secretary of the Army: CONTRACT PRICING Material Prices Overstated in Pershing II Contract" United States General Accounting Office [gao.gov]

Hart, Richard. "BOOK REVIEW: Revolution and Intervention in Grenada" Hispanic American Historical Review (1987) 67 (4): 734–735 [dukeupress.edu]

King, Josh. "Dukakis and the Tank" Politico 17 November 2013 [politico.com]

Lethbridge, Cliff Pershing II Fact Sheet Spaceline [spaceline.org]

Mehlman, Ken. "Ken Mehlman remarks at NAACP National Convention" July 2005 [kenmehlman.com]

Mohr, Charles "Pershings Put Moscow On 6-Minute Warning" The New York Times 27 February 1983 [nytimes.com]

"Pershing 2" Weapons of Mass Destruction Global Security [globalsecurity.org]

"Pershing 2" Missiles of the World Missile Threat: CSIS Missile Defense Project [missilethreat.csis.org]

Tierney, Dominic. "The Legacy of Obama's 'Worst Mistake'" The Atlantic 15 April 2016 [theatlantic.com]

Toner, Robin. "Prison Furloughs in Massachusetts Threaten Dukakis Record on Crime" The New York Times 5 July 1988 [nytimes.com]

UPI Archives "The outgoing chief of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative..." UPI 30 September 1988 [upi.com]

Walsh, Edward. "Dukakis Would Swap SDI For 'Conventional Initiative'" The Washington Post 14 November 1987 [washingtonpost.com]

WRAL "Remembering Desert Storm: 'This one's for you, Saddam'" 16 January 2011 [wral.com]

image sources:

Bush vs. Dukakis (1988) "Willie Horton" National Security PAC The Living Room Candidate: Museum of the Moving Image [livingroomcandidate.org]

Bush vs. Dukakis (1988) "Revolving Door" The Living Room Candidate: Museum of the Moving Image [livingroomcandidate.org]

Bush vs. Dukakis (1988) "Tank Ride" Museum of the Moving Image [livingroomcandidate.org]

Getty Images "Margaret Thatcher Riding in Tank West Germany (1976)" News Footage [gettyimages.com]

Getty Images "Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Riding in Challenger (1986)" News Footage [gettyimages.com]

Greiner, D.E. "Michael Dukakis off duty at a gun emplacement overlooking UN Command Military Armistice Commission base camp at Munsan-ni Korea, 1956" Scanned Kodachrome Slide, Type A film shot with outdoor filter. [commons.wikimedia.org]

Samojeden, Michael E. took the Tank Dukakis photo on 13 September 1988 in Sterling Heights, Michigan. This photograph is commonly believed to have ended Dukakis' 1988 presidential hopes. Samojeden and the Associated Press share the copyright for this image (as much as one can own digital reproductions of political ephemera with historical significance).

The Sun "Liz Truss Margaret Thatcher British Warn Russia (2021)" [thesun.co.uk]