"Trust, but verify" (Russian:доверяй, но проверяй,romanized:doveryay, no proveryay,IPA:[dəvʲɪˈrʲæjnoprəvʲɪˈrʲæj]) is aRussian proverb, whichrhymes in Russian. The phrase became internationally known in English afterSuzanne Massie, a scholar of Russian history, taught it toRonald Reagan, thenpresident of the United States, who used it on several occasions in the context ofnuclear disarmament discussions with theSoviet Union.
Suzanne Massie, an American scholar, met withRonald Reagan many times between 1984 and 1987 while he wasPresident of the United States.[1] She taught him theRussian proverbdoveryai, no proveryai (доверяй, но проверяй) meaning 'trust, but verify'. She advised him that "The Russians like to talk in proverbs. It would be nice of you to know a few. You are an actor – you can learn them very quickly."[2] The proverb was adopted as asignature phrase by Reagan, who used it frequently when discussing United States relations with the Soviet Union.[3][4][5]
After Reagan used the phrase to emphasize "the extensive verification procedures that would enable both sides to monitor compliance with the treaty",[6] at the signing of theIntermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, on 8 December 1987, his counterpart General SecretaryMikhail Gorbachev responded, "You repeat that at every meeting". To this, Reagan answered, "I like it".[3][7][8] While Reagan quoted Russian proverbs, Gorbachev quotedRalph Waldo Emerson, who had been popular in the USSR when Gorbachev was in college, saying that "the reward of a thing well done is to have done it."[4][6]
Following the2013 Ghouta attacks, Secretary of StateJohn Kerry told a news conference in Geneva that the United States and Russia had agreed on a framework to dispose of Syria's chemical weapons. He said "President Reagan's old adage about 'trust but verify' ... is in need of an update. And we have committed here to a standard that says 'verify and verify'."[9][10]
In 1995, the similar phrase "Trust and Verify" was used as the motto of the On-Site Inspection Agency (now subsumed into theDefense Threat Reduction Agency).[11]
In 2000, David T. Lindgren's book about how interpretation, orimagery analysis, of aerial andsatellite images of the Soviet Union played a key role insuperpowers and inarms control during theCold War was titledTrust But Verify: Imagery Analysis in the Cold War.[12][13]
In 2001, theNational Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), a national critical infrastructure threat investigation and response entity, published a paper entitled "Trust but verify" on how to protect oneself and their company from email viruses.[14]
In 2015, both Democrats and Republicans invoked the phrase when arguing for and against the proposedIran nuclear deal framework.[3]
In the study ofprogramming languages, the phrase has been used to describe the implementation ofdowncasting: the compiler trusts that the downcast term will be of the desired type, but this assumption is verified at runtime in order to avoid undefined behavior.[15]
The phrase has been used in relation to India–China border disputes and also following the Galwan clash during the2020 China–India skirmishes.[16] Variants of the phrase were also reported in the Indian media, "distrust until fully and comprehensively verified", and "verify and still not trust".[17][18][19]
On July 24, 2020, US Secretary of StateMichael Pompeo referenced the proverb in a speech at theRichard Nixon Presidential Library saying that in dealing with China, theUnited States must instead "distrust and verify".[20][21]
Nikolay Shevchenko ofRussia Beyond writes that this saying must have been originated relatively recently. For exampleVladimir Dal's vast collectionSayings and Bywords of the Russian people [ru] does not contain anything similar to the proverb. He noticed that bothVladimir Lenin andJoseph Stalin voiced similar ideas, but did not invoke the saying:[5]
The sequel of the filmA Great Life,A Great Life, 2 [ru] (shot in 1946 but shelved until 1958) uses the saying as it is.[23]