(March 21) - Was Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin captured posing as a tourist, while serving as a KGB spy, in a photograph with former President Ronald Reagan?
The photo in question, taken years ago by the official chief White House photographer for Reagan, is causing an international stir -- all the more so because the photographer himself says it's Putin in the picture.
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The image was taken by photographer Pete Souza, who holds the same position under President Barack Obama. Reagan, escorted by then-soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, is shaking a boy's hand in Moscow's Red Square. Several other people described as "tourists" are standing nearby.
In a January interview with National Public Radio (Hear Audio), Souza said he was struck at how the tourists in the photograph were asking questions of Reagan on serious subjects like human rights.
"And I remember saying to the Secret Service agent, 'I can't believe these tourists in the Soviet Union are asking these pointed questions,'" Souza told NPR. "And the Secret Service agent said to me, 'Oh these are all KGB families.'"
Souza goes on to describe a "tourist" in the photo with a camera around his shoulder.
"It's been pointed out to me and verified that that was Putin," Souza said.
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Vladimir Putin, Macho Man
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, no stranger to flaunting his athletic prowess, released a DVD on how to learn judo. The DVD, a collaboration with other judo experts, is called, 'Let's Learn Judo With Vladimir Putin.' Here, a man displays the DVD in October 2008 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Kiirill Kudrjavstev, AFP
Kiirill Kudrjavstev, AFP
Putin worked for the KGB Soviet intelligence agency from the mid-1970s until 1991, the time of the Soviet Union's collapse. But is that really him in the photo?
At least one expert, Russian political analyst Andrey Piontkovsky, dismisses the notion as "nonsense," the United Kingdom's Sky News reports.
"Vladimir Putin was a major serving in Dresden, and he wasn't important enough at that time to be brought to Moscow," Piontkovsky said.
The Axis Information and Analysis Web site argues that Putin has never had hair that thick. It also says the man in the photo is not wearing a watch on his right wrist as Putin does, but AOL News has recent photos of Putin with no watch on his right wrist.
And Souza seems to be convinced. "As soon as you see photo, you go, 'Oh my gosh, it really is him,'" he told NPR.
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Far-Out Photos
Garbage in, garbage out? A tourist snaps a street musician performing from inside a trash bin in Cambridge, England, Aug. 25.
Lefteris Pitarakis, AP
Lefteris Pitarakis, AP
